From Joi Barrios:
BOOK LAUNCH
For "Sinulid at Karayom (Needle and Thread)" - a new journal compiled by UC Berkeley's Advanced Tagalog class
Friday, April 30, 2010
6:00 - 8:00 pm
2060 Valley Life Science Building
(View campus map)
The journal contains poems, critical essays, and short short stories of students from all levels (beginning, intermediate, advanced). Students will also be showcasing their oral projects -- videos, short skits, songs, and a traditional verbal joust in verse (balagtasan). Filipino food will be served.
The journal will have an online version soon.
For more information, contact the instructor, Dr. Joi Barrios at joibarrios@berkeley.edu
Thursday, April 29, 2010
04/30/2010: Ed Lin, Claire Light, and Joel B. Tan at Eastwind (Berkeley)
From Claire Light's blog:
Hey Bay Area Friends!
I'm doing a reading this Friday with NY novelist Ed Lin, whose second mystery novel SNAKES CAN'T RUN is coming out.
Info:
Friday April 30, 7:00 pm
Eastwind Books of Berkeley
Ed Lin reading with Claire Light and Joel B. Tan
2066 University Ave.
Berkeley, Calif.
(510) 548-2350
Hope to see some of you there!
Hey Bay Area Friends!
I'm doing a reading this Friday with NY novelist Ed Lin, whose second mystery novel SNAKES CAN'T RUN is coming out.
Info:
Friday April 30, 7:00 pm
Eastwind Books of Berkeley
Ed Lin reading with Claire Light and Joel B. Tan
2066 University Ave.
Berkeley, Calif.
(510) 548-2350
Hope to see some of you there!
Shout Out: Rachelle Cruz and “The Blood-Jet Writing Hour” Radio Show
Apologies for X-posting this so late. Here is my Poetry Foundation post, Shout Out: Rachelle Cruz and “The Blood-Jet Writing Hour” Radio Show:
“Poetry is the blood-jet. There is no stopping it.” –Sylvia Plath
I wanted to shout out Rachelle Cruz, whose work I was introduced to a couple of years ago at the San Francisco Litquake’s boisterous Litcrawl, where she read for the API arts org, Kearny Street Workshop. I picked up her chapbook, honey may soon run out, because I was impressed with how concrete, meticulous, and emotionally well-considered her poems and her reading were. She’s a young and energetic poet, a recent PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow, and I am confident we’ll be seeing all kinds of good work coming from her in years to come. Currently, she is the host of the weekly The Blood-Jet Writing Hour online radio show.
Call for Submissions: The Asian Writer
In exactly 12 weeks The Asian Writer turns three and to celebrate we’ve got an exciting project up our sleeves.
We’re taking the best content and turning it into a collection – that any book lover will treasure. We want you to choose your best bits and pieces, quotes and favourite books to go in the collection.
That’s not all.
The Asian Writer is inviting writers to contribute new writing on the theme ‘Celebration’ for a collection.
We’re happy for you to flaunt your talent and send us your poems, haikus, short stories, flash fiction and novel extracts for consideration.
If features are more your thing, we’re also looking for writers to comment on their fave book/ most inspiring author for a separate section in the collection.
We’re happy for you to send us your videos and audio for the online edition.
The collection will celebrate Asian literature and three years of The Asian Writer – which offers new and emerging Asian writers a platform to showcase their work.
Your entry needs to be under 1000 words and should include a short biography with web links (if any). A photo in high res is optional.
Email your entry to: editor@theasianwriter.co.uk with Writing Competition in the subject heading.
Entries close: July 31st, 2010
A selection of entries will feature on our website and in a collection that will be sold to support the work of The Asian Writer and its future projects. If you’d like to feature in the book in another capacity or have any questions please email me at editor@theasianwriter.co.uk
The collection will be published via Lulu.com and Yudu.com and will be available in August 2010.
We’re taking the best content and turning it into a collection – that any book lover will treasure. We want you to choose your best bits and pieces, quotes and favourite books to go in the collection.
That’s not all.
The Asian Writer is inviting writers to contribute new writing on the theme ‘Celebration’ for a collection.
We’re happy for you to flaunt your talent and send us your poems, haikus, short stories, flash fiction and novel extracts for consideration.
If features are more your thing, we’re also looking for writers to comment on their fave book/ most inspiring author for a separate section in the collection.
We’re happy for you to send us your videos and audio for the online edition.
The collection will celebrate Asian literature and three years of The Asian Writer – which offers new and emerging Asian writers a platform to showcase their work.
Your entry needs to be under 1000 words and should include a short biography with web links (if any). A photo in high res is optional.
Email your entry to: editor@theasianwriter.co.uk with Writing Competition in the subject heading.
Entries close: July 31st, 2010
A selection of entries will feature on our website and in a collection that will be sold to support the work of The Asian Writer and its future projects. If you’d like to feature in the book in another capacity or have any questions please email me at editor@theasianwriter.co.uk
The collection will be published via Lulu.com and Yudu.com and will be available in August 2010.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
TAKE FIVE: Irene Faye Duller at Mission Local
TAKE FIVE: Irene Faye Duller
By: Laurie Buenafe Krsmanovic | April 28, 2010 – 3:09 pm
Take Five is an interview series asking people what’s up.
Mission Loc@l: You’ve been doing performance poetry and interdisciplinary hip hop for a long time. How do you weave this into the Asian American and Philippine Culture Studies classes you teach at SFSU and USF?
IDF: Performance as a site of revolution, resistance, social change. That we can image hope and healing and then provoke others viscerally through all mediums of art. That in the history of the oppressed peoples, we looked to art to remember our value, strength and beauty of a people… what we are capable of. That we are part of a lineage of freedom fighters and romantics and healers.
ML: Tell us a bit about Center for Cultural Innovation.
IFD: I am the program associate for the Creative Capacity Grant. Funding like this helps artists get more business savvy about their artistry. As in “game up” on managing themselves as small businesses. We have accepted since the beginning of time the “starving artist” complex. But art is SO essential, SO vital to us as people, communities. How come we don’t value it more? Artists are very productive, important members of society and CCI recognizes that. So we’re taking on a NEW model for artists, creative entrepreneurs, and arts organizations… where we encourage them to learn business skills like branding, website management, photoshop, excel, fundraising, PR/ Marketing… encourage them to attend think tanks, national conferences, and take classes that will help maintain a strong ship.
Read more.
By: Laurie Buenafe Krsmanovic | April 28, 2010 – 3:09 pm
Take Five is an interview series asking people what’s up.
Mission Loc@l: You’ve been doing performance poetry and interdisciplinary hip hop for a long time. How do you weave this into the Asian American and Philippine Culture Studies classes you teach at SFSU and USF?
IDF: Performance as a site of revolution, resistance, social change. That we can image hope and healing and then provoke others viscerally through all mediums of art. That in the history of the oppressed peoples, we looked to art to remember our value, strength and beauty of a people… what we are capable of. That we are part of a lineage of freedom fighters and romantics and healers.
ML: Tell us a bit about Center for Cultural Innovation.
IFD: I am the program associate for the Creative Capacity Grant. Funding like this helps artists get more business savvy about their artistry. As in “game up” on managing themselves as small businesses. We have accepted since the beginning of time the “starving artist” complex. But art is SO essential, SO vital to us as people, communities. How come we don’t value it more? Artists are very productive, important members of society and CCI recognizes that. So we’re taking on a NEW model for artists, creative entrepreneurs, and arts organizations… where we encourage them to learn business skills like branding, website management, photoshop, excel, fundraising, PR/ Marketing… encourage them to attend think tanks, national conferences, and take classes that will help maintain a strong ship.
Read more.
05/04/2010: Power in Numbers (San Francisco)
POWER IN NUMBERS
A concert to raise awareness about electoral fraud & violence and support the people’s resistance in the Philippines
Featuring music by
DISKARTE NAMIN
POWER STRUGGLE
DO D.A.T
ERICA NALANI
BIG DAN (BRWN BFLO)
DIGMA
with DJs un.d.fine and Owl Boogie
and your host KIWI
ROCKIT ROOM
406 Clement Street (btw 5th and 6th aves)
San Francisco
9pm-1am | $5 | 21+
*****************************
News Release
April 2010
Reference: Jack “Kiwi” de Jesus
Deputy Secretary-General, BAYAN USA
email: bayandepsec@gmail.com
MUSIC TOUR TO TAKE ON ELECTION FRAUD, CORRUPTION IN THE PHILIPPINES
“Power in Numbers” concert series set in cities across the US
A new generation of young and concerned Filipino-Americans will be taking on the issue of election fraud and corruption in the Philippines this April through May through the powerful medium of music. BAYAN USA, an alliance of 14 Filipino organizations across the US, will be launching “Power in Numbers”, a concert series aiming to bring musical talents from different communities together to help shed light on the upcoming Philippine national elections slated for May 10, 2010.
BAYAN USA, an overseas chapter of BAYAN Philippines, is an alliance formed under the principle that even in the US, Filipinos are intricately affected by the social, political, and economic developments in the Philippines. Since its founding in 2005, the alliance continues with its campaign to cut US military aid to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on the basis that billions in US tax dollars are being funneled to arm, advise, and train Philippine military personnel to commit gross human rights abuses. The pattern of systemic killings, abductions, and illegal detention and torture cases in the Philippines under the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration has reached a point of high international scrutiny and condemnation from various international monitoring bodies such as the United Nations Human Rights Council.
In 2009, a BAYAN USA member on exposure in the rural areas of Central Luzon, Melissa Roxas, was the victim of a brutal abduction at gunpoint, blindfolded, and subjected to 6 days of physical and psychological torture by her captors. Roxas, and BAYAN USA, believes the 7th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army is responsible for the ordeal. Now back in Los Angeles, Roxas has been speaking out against Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL), the national counter-insurgency program of the Arroyo government that aims to annihilate the armed insurgency in the Philippine countryside by 2010.
“Instead of going after armed insurgents, the Philippine army and Philippine government are trying to reach their objective by targeting civilians critical of Arroyo and falsely claiming they are communists fronts,” Roxas states. “The upcoming elections, and official end of the Oplan Bantay Laya and the Arroyo presidency scheduled by June 2010 lay the foundation for human rights abuses to escalate by way of election-related violence, election fraud, government corruption, and more impunity for human rights abusers. We have already seen the opening salvo for this with the Maguindanao Massacre last November.”
“We are launching Power in Numbers as our effort to create more awareness about the very unstable conditions in the Philippines right now, especially with the elections coming this May,” states Jack De Jesus, Deputy Secretary-General of BAYAN USA and the national tour spokesperson. De Jesus is probably better known as the hip-hop artist Kiwi, formerly of the rap duo Native Guns, who has recently toured in venues and universities across the U.S as part of the People Power Tour with fellow artist Prometheus Brown (from Blue Scholars).
Power in Numbers concerts are set to take place in various cities in the US. On Tuesday May 4th in San Francisco, the concert will feature hip hop artists Power Struggle, Do D.A.T, and Big Dan from BRWN BFLO, singer/songwriter Erica Nalani, and folk/soul group Diskarte Namin. To find out more information, visit www.bayanusa.org or email bayandepsec@gmail.com. ##
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
4/30/2010: Authors Series No. 3 Featuring Words and Music (Los Angeles)
Date: Friday, April 30, 2010
Time: 5:30pm - 9:00pm
Location: Salakot Sizzle & Grill
Street: 2122 Beverly Boulevard
City/Town: Los Angeles, CA (View Map)
Philippine Expressions Bookshop is happy to present WORDS & MUSIC, a program that will feature visiting Manila author, Dr Isagani R. Cruz, and Bay Area classical guitarist, Theresa Capoltura.
Two new books of Dr Cruz will be launched and aside from booktalks, the audience will have "conversations with the author". The books are "The Other Other" (Far Eastern University, Manila. 2010) which is a collection of critical essays, many of which were published outside the Philippines and previously not available in the home country, and "Inter/Sections: Isagani R. Cruz and Friends" (Anvil Publishing, Manila. 2010). a festschrift in honor of Dr Cruz, and edited by David Jonathan Y. Bayot. The book "Inter/Sections" contains critical essays, short stories, and poems. Friends of Cruz have contributed critical and creative texts that reflect his varied interests. This volume brings together some of the most famous names in the field of literature today and includes Philippines' National Artist Virgilio S. Almario, Fil Am authors Paulino Lim, E. San Juan, Jr and poet Luisa Igloria.
Cruz had also written "The Lovely Bienvenido N. Santos" (UP Press, 2005) which won one of the five first prizes in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awatds for Literature that earned the author a place in the Palanca Hall of Fame. The book is a creative non-fictional biographical play in two acts. It will be recalled that Bienvenido "Ben" Santos was a distinguished Fil Am writer who wrote "Scent of Apples: A Collection of Stories". (University of Washington Press. 1955. Now on its 7th printing). Although Santos had previously written six books in the Philippines, this is the first collection of his work to appear in the US; it won the American Book Award given by the Before Columbus Foundation. This collection of sixteen short stories brought to the attention of the American audience the varied and poignant experiences of Filipino oldtimers in the US (manongs) who left home for America, of the pain of separation, loneliness, longing, yesterday's hopes and tomorrow's dreams. "His portraits of these gentle, courageous exiles are moving as he shows how each struggles to make his way in the new land, trying to find a life far from his roots while sustained by the dream of a return home .. Santos gets to the heart of what it is like to be uprooted, alone, alien." - Publishers Weekly.
Dr Isagani R. Cruz, a Professor Emeritus, De La Salle University, Manila has a B.S. degree in Physics from UP, an MA in English from Ateneo de Manila University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Maryland. He writes plays, essays, biographies, and short stories in Filipino and English, for which he has won numerous national and international awards, including the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in Literature Hall of Fame and the Southeast Asean Writers (SEAWRITE) Award. He has written or edited more than fifty books. He writes a column for Philippine Star and is a known social commentator in the Philippines. Having been a former Undersecretary of Education in the Philippines, his talk will touch on the topic Educating Filipinos: Problems facing the next Philippine President.
Theresa Calpotura will also launch her debut CD album "Kanta Filipina" (VGO Recordings) on the same evening. The 12 original, arranged and transcribed works for solo guitar, all created for her by Filipino American composer Bayani Mendoza de Leon, are the culmination of three years of intense research and collaboration which began as a desire to explore the musical side of her ancestry. Kanta Filipina blends a variety of styles from the Philippines, reflecting a musical microcosm in its driving indigenous tribal rhythms, traditional folk dances, chants, lullabies and love songs. The guitarist has performed in numerous venues throughout the US and the Philippines. She won a number of awards from associations such as the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts and the American String Teachers Association, and has received scholarships from the Oberlin Conservatory and the Yale School of Music. Ms Calpotura studied with the renown guitar pedagogue Scott Cmiel of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory where she studied with guitarist Stephen Aron. She then continued at the Yale School of Music with guitarist and composer Benjamin Verdery. She has given concerts and masterclasses in the US and in the Philippines and is currently on faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division.
In addition to her solo work, Ms Calpotura collaborates with cellist Susan Millar as Duo Ethos. She has studied the lute with Christopher Marrongiello of the Venere Lute Quartet. In addition, she has participated in several masterclasses with guitarists such as John Williams, Sharon Isbin, Antigoni Goni, David Tanenbaum, Mark Telcholz, David Leisner, Scott Tennant, NIcholas Galuses, Julian Gray, Ronald Pearl, Lily Afshar, Stanley Yates, John Holmquist and Benjamin Verdery.
$10.00 Merienda Cena. Free parking. Seats are limited. RSVP necessary. Call (310) 514-9139.
If you will be unable to attend but would like to order books or the CD, email: orders@philippineexpressionsbookshop.com
This event is being held in a Filipino establishment in line with the Bookshop's policy to support establishments owned by Filipinos and Filipino-Americans. Join us at the Mezzanine.
The third in the 2010 Authors Series, it is part of an ongoing community outreach program of Philippine Expressions Bookshop, the mail order bookshop dedicated to Filipino Americans in search of their roots. 2114 Trudie Drive, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275. Tel (310) 514-9139. www.philippineexpressionsbookshop.com
Time: 5:30pm - 9:00pm
Location: Salakot Sizzle & Grill
Street: 2122 Beverly Boulevard
City/Town: Los Angeles, CA (View Map)
Philippine Expressions Bookshop is happy to present WORDS & MUSIC, a program that will feature visiting Manila author, Dr Isagani R. Cruz, and Bay Area classical guitarist, Theresa Capoltura.
Two new books of Dr Cruz will be launched and aside from booktalks, the audience will have "conversations with the author". The books are "The Other Other" (Far Eastern University, Manila. 2010) which is a collection of critical essays, many of which were published outside the Philippines and previously not available in the home country, and "Inter/Sections: Isagani R. Cruz and Friends" (Anvil Publishing, Manila. 2010). a festschrift in honor of Dr Cruz, and edited by David Jonathan Y. Bayot. The book "Inter/Sections" contains critical essays, short stories, and poems. Friends of Cruz have contributed critical and creative texts that reflect his varied interests. This volume brings together some of the most famous names in the field of literature today and includes Philippines' National Artist Virgilio S. Almario, Fil Am authors Paulino Lim, E. San Juan, Jr and poet Luisa Igloria.
Cruz had also written "The Lovely Bienvenido N. Santos" (UP Press, 2005) which won one of the five first prizes in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awatds for Literature that earned the author a place in the Palanca Hall of Fame. The book is a creative non-fictional biographical play in two acts. It will be recalled that Bienvenido "Ben" Santos was a distinguished Fil Am writer who wrote "Scent of Apples: A Collection of Stories". (University of Washington Press. 1955. Now on its 7th printing). Although Santos had previously written six books in the Philippines, this is the first collection of his work to appear in the US; it won the American Book Award given by the Before Columbus Foundation. This collection of sixteen short stories brought to the attention of the American audience the varied and poignant experiences of Filipino oldtimers in the US (manongs) who left home for America, of the pain of separation, loneliness, longing, yesterday's hopes and tomorrow's dreams. "His portraits of these gentle, courageous exiles are moving as he shows how each struggles to make his way in the new land, trying to find a life far from his roots while sustained by the dream of a return home .. Santos gets to the heart of what it is like to be uprooted, alone, alien." - Publishers Weekly.
Dr Isagani R. Cruz, a Professor Emeritus, De La Salle University, Manila has a B.S. degree in Physics from UP, an MA in English from Ateneo de Manila University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Maryland. He writes plays, essays, biographies, and short stories in Filipino and English, for which he has won numerous national and international awards, including the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in Literature Hall of Fame and the Southeast Asean Writers (SEAWRITE) Award. He has written or edited more than fifty books. He writes a column for Philippine Star and is a known social commentator in the Philippines. Having been a former Undersecretary of Education in the Philippines, his talk will touch on the topic Educating Filipinos: Problems facing the next Philippine President.
Theresa Calpotura will also launch her debut CD album "Kanta Filipina" (VGO Recordings) on the same evening. The 12 original, arranged and transcribed works for solo guitar, all created for her by Filipino American composer Bayani Mendoza de Leon, are the culmination of three years of intense research and collaboration which began as a desire to explore the musical side of her ancestry. Kanta Filipina blends a variety of styles from the Philippines, reflecting a musical microcosm in its driving indigenous tribal rhythms, traditional folk dances, chants, lullabies and love songs. The guitarist has performed in numerous venues throughout the US and the Philippines. She won a number of awards from associations such as the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts and the American String Teachers Association, and has received scholarships from the Oberlin Conservatory and the Yale School of Music. Ms Calpotura studied with the renown guitar pedagogue Scott Cmiel of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory where she studied with guitarist Stephen Aron. She then continued at the Yale School of Music with guitarist and composer Benjamin Verdery. She has given concerts and masterclasses in the US and in the Philippines and is currently on faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division.
In addition to her solo work, Ms Calpotura collaborates with cellist Susan Millar as Duo Ethos. She has studied the lute with Christopher Marrongiello of the Venere Lute Quartet. In addition, she has participated in several masterclasses with guitarists such as John Williams, Sharon Isbin, Antigoni Goni, David Tanenbaum, Mark Telcholz, David Leisner, Scott Tennant, NIcholas Galuses, Julian Gray, Ronald Pearl, Lily Afshar, Stanley Yates, John Holmquist and Benjamin Verdery.
$10.00 Merienda Cena. Free parking. Seats are limited. RSVP necessary. Call (310) 514-9139.
If you will be unable to attend but would like to order books or the CD, email: orders@philippineexpressionsbookshop.com
This event is being held in a Filipino establishment in line with the Bookshop's policy to support establishments owned by Filipinos and Filipino-Americans. Join us at the Mezzanine.
The third in the 2010 Authors Series, it is part of an ongoing community outreach program of Philippine Expressions Bookshop, the mail order bookshop dedicated to Filipino Americans in search of their roots. 2114 Trudie Drive, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275. Tel (310) 514-9139. www.philippineexpressionsbookshop.com
05/01/2010: Hip Hop in the Park (Berkeley)
What: Students for Hip Hop's 14th annual Hip Hop in the ParkWhere: People's Park, Berkeley, CA
When: Saturday, May 1st, 2010, 12-5p
What: HIP HOP, raw and uncut.
Lineup:
Blue Scholars
Invincible
Rocky Rivera
Macklemore
Otayo Dubb
Kurse
Raw-G
Cost: ABSOLUTELY FREE (just make sure to bring the ruckus)
Monday, April 26, 2010
Oliver de la Paz: Southern CA Readings
From Oliver de la Paz:
As part of a readings tour to promote my third collection of poetry, Requiem for the Orchard, I will be giving readings in Los Angeles, CA at various venues from April 27th to April 29th:
Tuesday, April 27th. 9PM.
Cobalt Cafe Reading. 22047 Sherman Way, Canoga Park, CA.
Wednesday, April 28th. 1PM.
Cal State Fullerton Reading. Cal State Fullerton. Salz-Pollak Room-Pollak Library.
Wednesday, April 28th. 7PM
Featuring Melissa Roxas, Nicky Schildkraut, Ngoc Luu, Jackson Bliss, Oliver de la Paz
+ a salon celebrating Asian American poetry (bring a poem by your favorite Asian American poet + your own to share!). Emceed by Neil Aitken and Ching-In Chen.
Casa Princesa
4527 York Blvd (two blocks east of Eagle Rock Blvd)
Los Angeles, CA 90041
(323) 474-6860
casaprincesa.com
Thursday, April 29th. 7PM.
Third Area Reading Series.
Frank Pictures Gallery
Bergamot Station, A-5
2525 Michigan Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90404
310.828.0211 tel
About Requiem for the Orchard:
“These are vivid, visceral poems about coming of age in a place where the Ferris Wheel, was the tallest thing in the valley, where a boy would learn to fire a shotgun at nine and wring a chickens neck, with one hand by twirling the bird and whipping it straight like a towel. Looking back, the poet wrestles with the meaning of labour in the apple orchards and the filthy dollars wed wad into our pockets, or the rites of passage that included sinking a knife into the flank of a dead chestnut horse ...The poet has a gift for rendering his world in cinematic images: a ten-gallon hat on his head in the second grade is an upside down chandelier ...In short, these poems are the stuff of life itself, ugly and beautiful, wherever or whenever we happen to live it.” Martin Espada, 2009 judge of the Akron Poetry Prize
As part of a readings tour to promote my third collection of poetry, Requiem for the Orchard, I will be giving readings in Los Angeles, CA at various venues from April 27th to April 29th:
Tuesday, April 27th. 9PM.
Cobalt Cafe Reading. 22047 Sherman Way, Canoga Park, CA.
Wednesday, April 28th. 1PM.
Cal State Fullerton Reading. Cal State Fullerton. Salz-Pollak Room-Pollak Library.
Wednesday, April 28th. 7PM
Featuring Melissa Roxas, Nicky Schildkraut, Ngoc Luu, Jackson Bliss, Oliver de la Paz
+ a salon celebrating Asian American poetry (bring a poem by your favorite Asian American poet + your own to share!). Emceed by Neil Aitken and Ching-In Chen.
Casa Princesa
4527 York Blvd (two blocks east of Eagle Rock Blvd)
Los Angeles, CA 90041
(323) 474-6860
casaprincesa.com
Thursday, April 29th. 7PM.
Third Area Reading Series.
Frank Pictures Gallery
Bergamot Station, A-5
2525 Michigan Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90404
310.828.0211 tel
About Requiem for the Orchard:
“These are vivid, visceral poems about coming of age in a place where the Ferris Wheel, was the tallest thing in the valley, where a boy would learn to fire a shotgun at nine and wring a chickens neck, with one hand by twirling the bird and whipping it straight like a towel. Looking back, the poet wrestles with the meaning of labour in the apple orchards and the filthy dollars wed wad into our pockets, or the rites of passage that included sinking a knife into the flank of a dead chestnut horse ...The poet has a gift for rendering his world in cinematic images: a ten-gallon hat on his head in the second grade is an upside down chandelier ...In short, these poems are the stuff of life itself, ugly and beautiful, wherever or whenever we happen to live it.” Martin Espada, 2009 judge of the Akron Poetry Prize
Sunday, April 25, 2010
SF Bay Area Filipino American Arts Events
Dear all, for what it's worth, I've been compiling local (Bay Area) Fil Am arts events for my students, whom I've required to attend at least two events this semester.
These events are free and open to the public, or are affordable/sliding scale admission. I thought I'd share with you all, in case folks are interested in checking these out:
04/28/2010: [Spoken Word Theater Performance] LUNADA at Galeria de la Raza, curated by Irene Faye Duller, featuring performances by Anthem Salgado, Meldy Hernandez, Michale Greene, and Greg Manalo (SF).
04/29/2010: [Comedy Performance] Bindlestiff Over-Hyped B.S. Comedy Spectacular at Thickhouse (SF).
04/29/2010: [Musical Performance] Kularts Undercover, featuring The ElectroSonic Chamber, Caroline Calderon, Ron Quesada & Friends at the Bayanihan Center (SF).
04/30/2010: [Multidisciplinary Performance] Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa at Galeria de la Raza (SF).
04/30/2010: [Theater and Movement Performance] Blender featuring Anthem Salgado & Christina Miglino at Thickhouse.
05/01/2010: [Staged Reading] Rolling the R's by R. Zamora Linmark at Thickhouse.
05/01/2010: [Literary Reading] Peter Bacho reads from his newly released young adult novel, Leaving Yesler, at Eastwind Books of Berkeley.
05/06/2010: [Literary Reading] Miguel Syjuco reads from his newly released novel, Ilustrado at Book Passage in the Ferry Building (SF).
04/10/2010 - 05/15/2010: [Visual and Installation Art Exhibit] Stephanie Syjuco, Beg/Borrow/Steal at the Catharine Clark Gallery (SF).
04/16/2010 - 05/16/2010: [Visual and Installation Art Exhibit] Robin David and Angela Angel, Worldwide Hustlers at the Luggage Store Annex (SF).
02/22/2010 - 05/22/2010: [Visual and Installation Art Exhibit] Group Exhibit including Michael Arcega, Geography of Transterritories at SFAI (SF).
These events are free and open to the public, or are affordable/sliding scale admission. I thought I'd share with you all, in case folks are interested in checking these out:
04/28/2010: [Spoken Word Theater Performance] LUNADA at Galeria de la Raza, curated by Irene Faye Duller, featuring performances by Anthem Salgado, Meldy Hernandez, Michale Greene, and Greg Manalo (SF).
04/29/2010: [Comedy Performance] Bindlestiff Over-Hyped B.S. Comedy Spectacular at Thickhouse (SF).
04/29/2010: [Musical Performance] Kularts Undercover, featuring The ElectroSonic Chamber, Caroline Calderon, Ron Quesada & Friends at the Bayanihan Center (SF).
04/30/2010: [Multidisciplinary Performance] Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa at Galeria de la Raza (SF).
04/30/2010: [Theater and Movement Performance] Blender featuring Anthem Salgado & Christina Miglino at Thickhouse.
05/01/2010: [Staged Reading] Rolling the R's by R. Zamora Linmark at Thickhouse.
05/01/2010: [Literary Reading] Peter Bacho reads from his newly released young adult novel, Leaving Yesler, at Eastwind Books of Berkeley.
05/06/2010: [Literary Reading] Miguel Syjuco reads from his newly released novel, Ilustrado at Book Passage in the Ferry Building (SF).
04/10/2010 - 05/15/2010: [Visual and Installation Art Exhibit] Stephanie Syjuco, Beg/Borrow/Steal at the Catharine Clark Gallery (SF).
04/16/2010 - 05/16/2010: [Visual and Installation Art Exhibit] Robin David and Angela Angel, Worldwide Hustlers at the Luggage Store Annex (SF).
02/22/2010 - 05/22/2010: [Visual and Installation Art Exhibit] Group Exhibit including Michael Arcega, Geography of Transterritories at SFAI (SF).
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Call for Submissions: the Oral Tradition
The Oral Tradition is a literary magazine which publishes both poetry and short fiction emphasizing the beauty of the spoken word. We encourage both emerging and established artists to submit. Only previously unpublished work will be considered, and we discourage simultaneous submissions. The Oral Tradition acquires first world serial rights only, and all copyrights return to the original author upon publication.
Since The Oral Tradition is a non-profit magazine, we cannot, at this time, pay for accepted submissions. However, there is a certain satisfaction in seeing your own work in print, and we hope you'll let us show your writing to the world.
The Oral Tradition publishes 3 times a year: April 30th, August 31st, and Dec. 31st. We accept submissions all year round; however, submissions for a particular issue must be submitted a month before publication.
***Since this will be our first issue, it may be published outside of these dates.***
Please follow these Guidelines:
* 3-5 poems (or up to 10 pages for long poems) in a single Word document.
* Short stories should be under 2000 words; however, we will accept serialized stories.
* Plays should be under 10 pages, and we would prefer to be sent a recording along with the written submission.
* We do not accept essays, interviews or reviews.
* We do accept submissions of photographs and/or artwork; however, these will only be used to compliment the magazine's content (i.e. as a cover page).
* Only submit in one genre at a time, and wait until you receive a response before submitting to us a second time.
* We would love to have a recording of you reading your work sent with your submission, but this is not required to submit to The Oral Tradition.
* If you are sending a recording, please make sure it is in .mp3 format.
* Please include a short (less than 100 words) bio along with your submission.
Please send all submissions to: submissions@theoraltradition.ca
Since The Oral Tradition is a non-profit magazine, we cannot, at this time, pay for accepted submissions. However, there is a certain satisfaction in seeing your own work in print, and we hope you'll let us show your writing to the world.
The Oral Tradition publishes 3 times a year: April 30th, August 31st, and Dec. 31st. We accept submissions all year round; however, submissions for a particular issue must be submitted a month before publication.
***Since this will be our first issue, it may be published outside of these dates.***
Please follow these Guidelines:
* 3-5 poems (or up to 10 pages for long poems) in a single Word document.
* Short stories should be under 2000 words; however, we will accept serialized stories.
* Plays should be under 10 pages, and we would prefer to be sent a recording along with the written submission.
* We do not accept essays, interviews or reviews.
* We do accept submissions of photographs and/or artwork; however, these will only be used to compliment the magazine's content (i.e. as a cover page).
* Only submit in one genre at a time, and wait until you receive a response before submitting to us a second time.
* We would love to have a recording of you reading your work sent with your submission, but this is not required to submit to The Oral Tradition.
* If you are sending a recording, please make sure it is in .mp3 format.
* Please include a short (less than 100 words) bio along with your submission.
Please send all submissions to: submissions@theoraltradition.ca
Poet Randall Mann: What Makes a Poem Gay?
Poet Saeed Jones asks Randall Mann: What Makes a Poem Gay?
Randall Mann, author of Breakfast with Thom Gunn and Complaint in the Garden, answers the question – what makes a poem gay? A special mix of same-sex tenderness, evasion, and lust. For instance, Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Shampoo,” one of my favorite gay poems. Here it is:
THE SHAMPOO
The still explosions on the rocks,
the lichens, grow
by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.
They have arranged
to meet the rings around the moon, although
within our memories they have not changed.
And since the heavens will attend
as long on us,
you’ve been, dear friend,
precipitate and pragmatical;
and look what happens. For Time is
nothing if not amenable.
The shooting stars in your black hair
in bright formation
are flocking where,
so straight, so soon?
—Come, let me wash it in this big tin basin,
battered and shiny like the moon.
I love this poem because of what it does not need to say, the modesty of “dear friend,” the way it takes its time and zooms in from the celestial to the personal. This is an evasive erotic celebration, where metaphor takes on the weight of code, and minutiae are a list of erotic lust—the syntax, the “explosions,” the “shooting.” I’m no queer theorist, but this builds mightily to the final couplet, which I find gloriously erotic after all that linguistic lathering, where the speaker asks the unnamed woman to allow the speaker to submit to the speaker’s touch and care and intensity, and does so somewhat forcefully, with an abrupt dash, sexy right down to the punctuation. This is so gay! And numinous.
Randall Mann, author of Breakfast with Thom Gunn and Complaint in the Garden, answers the question – what makes a poem gay? A special mix of same-sex tenderness, evasion, and lust. For instance, Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Shampoo,” one of my favorite gay poems. Here it is:
THE SHAMPOO
The still explosions on the rocks,
the lichens, grow
by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.
They have arranged
to meet the rings around the moon, although
within our memories they have not changed.
And since the heavens will attend
as long on us,
you’ve been, dear friend,
precipitate and pragmatical;
and look what happens. For Time is
nothing if not amenable.
The shooting stars in your black hair
in bright formation
are flocking where,
so straight, so soon?
—Come, let me wash it in this big tin basin,
battered and shiny like the moon.
I love this poem because of what it does not need to say, the modesty of “dear friend,” the way it takes its time and zooms in from the celestial to the personal. This is an evasive erotic celebration, where metaphor takes on the weight of code, and minutiae are a list of erotic lust—the syntax, the “explosions,” the “shooting.” I’m no queer theorist, but this builds mightily to the final couplet, which I find gloriously erotic after all that linguistic lathering, where the speaker asks the unnamed woman to allow the speaker to submit to the speaker’s touch and care and intensity, and does so somewhat forcefully, with an abrupt dash, sexy right down to the punctuation. This is so gay! And numinous.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Call for Submissions for Political Poetry and Prose: The November Third Club
The November Third Club an online literary journal seeking to "up the ante" of literary political writing, is seeking poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction that resonates with a political message and rises above the mere rhetoric and rant. The emphasis will be on political literature, will be unabashedly left-wing in nature, and will be looking at literature written from a liberal, green, anarchist or libertarian perspective. Biases up front.
The November Third Club is edited by Victor D. Infante, editor-in-chief; Lenore Weiss, fiction editor; Tara Betts, Jamey Hecht & Ray McNiece, poetry editors; Carlye Archibeque & Richard Modiano, nonfiction editors; and Richard Beban & Sam Hamill, contributing editors.
Some of the ideas we are interested in exploring from a literary perspective include reclaiming church and state, electoral fraud and reform, race and identity, censorship, individual liberty and of course, "Overseas Contingency Operations ," but we're open to new ideas, particularly innovative ones. Don't just rehash tired old knee-jerk anti-establishment propaganda and give us your commentary on Associated Press news stories. We want something that pushes the envelope of political writing. We're open to styles and genre, we just want the writing to be good and the message to resonate.
Politics have permeated literature as long as people have been writing. For a rough idea of what we like and are looking for, consider the work of such writers as George Orwell, Phillip K. Dick, Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Tony Hoagland, Wanda Coleman, Barbara Kingsolver, Sherman Alexie, Philip Levine, Marge Piercy, Studs Terkel, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Paine, Ralph Ellison, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Aldous Huxley, Amiri Baraka, John Steinbeck, Charles Simic and Adrienne Rich, to give a small sampling. Seriously, we're open. But don't just imitate these greats, give us something new and unique.
The simple idea is that no amount of facts and statistics makes a political message real to most people, but stories and symbolism can.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Previously published material is fine as long as the original publisher is acknowledged and the author retains the copyright. Unless directly solicited by the editors, previously published material may be given less of a priority than unpublished submissions. (Although really, if we love it, we'll probably publish it.) All copyright reverts to the author upon publication. Please acknowledge The November Third Club if material it published first is reprinted elsewhere.
- Unsolicited submissions will only be accepted via e-mail. Our e-mail address is nov3rdsubmissions@yahoo.com.
- Please note whether the submission is poetry, fiction or creative nonfiction in the subject line of the e-mail. Unmarked submissions may be deleted unread.
- Please submit no more than three to five poems, or ten pages of prose.
- Please put your name and e-mail address in the body of the e-mail. Please also include a short bio, no more than 200 words, in the body of the e-mail.
- The submissions themselves can be either in the body of the e-mail or in an attached Word file. No other formats will be considered.
- The deadline for the fourteenth issue is May 1st, 2010.
- We cannot pay anyone for their work as of this time.
- We think it should go without saying, but please, please, please proofread your work before sending it to us. Our staff is still small, and has better things to do than to fix your typos.
Sincerely,
The November Third Club
Call for Submissions: Phati'tude and ArtSceneToday
phati’tude Literary Magazine is pleased to announce that award-winning poet Timothy Liu will bring his expertise as guest editor to “The Lavender Issue: LGBT Literature Today,” and that ArtSceneToday.com, the online art forum for emerging artists, will be partnering via a special LGBT art competition for the magazine cover. This collaboration promises to make this an exciting and ground-breaking issue to date. The issue is phati’tude’s Summer 2010 Issue and will be published June 18, 2010.
The writers’ submission deadline for “The Lavender Issue” is May 7, 2010. Guest editor Liu is looking for poetry and short stories that are written by LGBT writers, including essays that address the relevancy of LGBT literature as it pertains to the current literary canon; including historical and social issues as it pertains to the genre. For more information, check out our submission guidelines at http://tiny.cc/phatitude.
The ArtSceneToday deadline for artwork is April 28, 2010; call for entries can be found at http://artscenetoday.com/call_for_entries1/. The first place winner of the online LGBT Art competition will be featured as the cover artwork for “The Lavender Issue.” Other winners and finalists will be featured on the phati’tude website at www.phatitude.org.
Participate in our groundbreaking issue and submit your work today! For more information, contact Gabrielle David, Editor at editor@phatitude.org
The writers’ submission deadline for “The Lavender Issue” is May 7, 2010. Guest editor Liu is looking for poetry and short stories that are written by LGBT writers, including essays that address the relevancy of LGBT literature as it pertains to the current literary canon; including historical and social issues as it pertains to the genre. For more information, check out our submission guidelines at http://tiny.cc/phatitude.
The ArtSceneToday deadline for artwork is April 28, 2010; call for entries can be found at http://artscenetoday.com/call_for_entries1/. The first place winner of the online LGBT Art competition will be featured as the cover artwork for “The Lavender Issue.” Other winners and finalists will be featured on the phati’tude website at www.phatitude.org.
Participate in our groundbreaking issue and submit your work today! For more information, contact Gabrielle David, Editor at editor@phatitude.org
05/01/2010: Peter Bacho at Eastwind Books of Berkeley
Peter Bacho reading his newest novel: Leaving Yesler
Saturday, May 1st, 3:00 PM
Eastwind Books of Berkeley
2066 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-548-2350
Leaving Yesler encounters seventeen year-old Bobby Vicente in the wake of his older brother’s military death; faced with the challenge of caring for his aging Filipino father, this young man from urban Seattle’s housing projects is forced to take control of his life and identity as he traverses a period of life-altering change marked by new interests, new challenges, and ultimately, new life.
Peter Bacho explores themes of belief/disbelief, arrival/departure, and love/violence, through which he achieves a portrait of embodied strength in his protagonist. Bobby Vicente is sensitive, faithful, and determined not to be defined or limited by anyone other than himself. Out of Bobby's sexual and emotional growth emerges a great capacity for forgiveness, a penchant for cooking, and a deep commitment to family.
--
Eastwind Books of Berkeley
2066 University Avenue; Berkeley, CA 94704
phone: 510 548-2350 fax: 510 548-3697
www.asiabookcenter.com
Saturday, May 1st, 3:00 PM
Eastwind Books of Berkeley
2066 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-548-2350
Leaving Yesler encounters seventeen year-old Bobby Vicente in the wake of his older brother’s military death; faced with the challenge of caring for his aging Filipino father, this young man from urban Seattle’s housing projects is forced to take control of his life and identity as he traverses a period of life-altering change marked by new interests, new challenges, and ultimately, new life.
Peter Bacho explores themes of belief/disbelief, arrival/departure, and love/violence, through which he achieves a portrait of embodied strength in his protagonist. Bobby Vicente is sensitive, faithful, and determined not to be defined or limited by anyone other than himself. Out of Bobby's sexual and emotional growth emerges a great capacity for forgiveness, a penchant for cooking, and a deep commitment to family.
--
Eastwind Books of Berkeley
2066 University Avenue; Berkeley, CA 94704
phone: 510 548-2350 fax: 510 548-3697
www.asiabookcenter.com
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Call for Submissions to TAYO Literary Magazine
From the Asia Writes blog:
“For our culture, by our culture.”
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
*All are welcomed to submit, regardless of ethnicity and age. We accept creative works including: Short fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, photography, paintings, drawings and digital artwork.
* Submissions for our online content are accepted on a rolling basis.
* All materials submitted are considered for both our online and print magazines.
DEADLINE FOR PRINT MAGAZINE
–FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010
SUBMISSION POLICY
–TAYO Literary Magazine does not charge a fee for submitting. As such, we cannot afford to pay a monetary sum to any of our contributors at this time.
Your submissions go a long way in supporting the arts in the Asian American community, especially through inspiring younger artists, helping them to find their audience and to find their voice.
More info to come! Please email tayoliterarymag@gmail.com with any questions you may have! Spread the word… tayo na!
(More information HERE.)
“For our culture, by our culture.”
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
*All are welcomed to submit, regardless of ethnicity and age. We accept creative works including: Short fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, photography, paintings, drawings and digital artwork.
* Submissions for our online content are accepted on a rolling basis.
* All materials submitted are considered for both our online and print magazines.
DEADLINE FOR PRINT MAGAZINE
–FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010
SUBMISSION POLICY
–TAYO Literary Magazine does not charge a fee for submitting. As such, we cannot afford to pay a monetary sum to any of our contributors at this time.
Your submissions go a long way in supporting the arts in the Asian American community, especially through inspiring younger artists, helping them to find their audience and to find their voice.
More info to come! Please email tayoliterarymag@gmail.com with any questions you may have! Spread the word… tayo na!
(More information HERE.)
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Episode #38: Patrick Rosal on Friday, April 23rd at 10 am PST
Episode #38: Patrick Rosal on Friday, April 23rd at 10 am PST:
Join Rachelle as she talks with Patrick Rosal
Friday, April 23rd at 10 am PST, 1 pm EST.
To listen live: www.blogtalkradio.com/onword
Patrick Rosal is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive , which won the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Members’ Choice Award, and most recently My American Kundiman, winner of the Book Award in poetry from the Association of Asian American Studies. His chapbook Uncommon Denominators won the Palanquin Poetry Series Award from the University of South Carolina, Aiken. His poems and essays are forthcoming or have been published widely in journals and anthologies including Harvard Review, Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, North American Review, Pindledyboz, Black Renaissance Noire, Brevity, Columbia , and the Beacon Best. His work has been honored by the annual Allen Ginsberg Awards, the James Hearst Poetry Prize, the Arts and Letters Prize, Best of the Net among others.
Lee Lynch and Noel Alumit recipients of James Duggins Mid-Career Author Award
Congratulations also to Lee Lynch and Noel Alumit. These two authors will be presented with the James Duggins Mid-Career Author Award, which honors LGBT mid-career novelists of extraordinary talent and service to the LGBT community. Recipients of the award each receive $5,000.
Read more.
Read more.
Philippine Expressions Bookshop's Annual Authors Night
From the Asia Writes blog:
Friday, April 23, 2010
5:30pm - 9:00pm
Salakot Sizzle & Grill
2122 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA
The annual Authors Night of Philippine Expressions Bookshop is traditionally held on the eve of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. A participant at the Festival since 1997, the Bookshop is happy to contribute to the literary and cultural life of the City of Los Angeles.
Join us at Authors Night to celebrate the publication of six new books by Filipino and Filipino American Authors. Book Talks, Readings, Booksigning, Food and Fun !
Filipinos in Washington, D.C. By Rita M. Cacas and Juanita Tamayo Lott. The book captures an ethnic history in photos and words, and documents historical events and political transitions that occurred. Cacas, a native Washingtonian and daughter of one of the Depression-era pioneers, previously worked at the National Gallery of Art, and currently works at the US National Archives. Lott, raised in San Francisco but spent her adulthood in Washington D.C. area is a retired Federal senior demographer, policy analyst and special assistant to the US Census Bureau director. She cofounded the first US Filipino American Studies in SF State University (1960) and the Filipino American Studies Program at the Univ. of Maryland College Park (2007).
Finding God: True Stories of Spiritual Encounters. Edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard and Marily Ysip Orosa. The book documents true encounters with the Divine as experienced by both Filipinos and Filipino Americans who bravely share their personal experiences and open their whole being to the general public who will read them. "Finding God on earth, next to entering heaven in eternal life is, to my mind, the greatest gift one can experience. I know that not everyone can be aware that he or she is finding God at precisely the moment this experience is happening, but all the contributors are to be envied, for finding God can be such an awesome moment whether it happens when one is in great physical pain or in deep spiritual anguish. I am privileged to write one of the blurbs of a book being dedicated to the memory of my dear friend, Jose de Santos Orosa, who taught me what forgiveness is all about." - Josefina T. Lichauco, well-known Philippine lawyer. (Her recent demise brought her to a real encounter with God - Linda's note)
Growing Up Filipino: More Stories for Young Adults, Vol.ll. Edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, she is also the author and editor of over a dozen books. She teaches creative writing at the Writer's Program at UCLA-Extension. The book is the second volume of a Growing Up Filipino series. In this collection of 27 short stories, Filipino and Filipino American writers explore the universal challenges and experiences of Filipino teens after the historic events of 9/11. The modern demands do not hinder Filipino youth from dealing with the universal concerns of growing up: family, friends, love, home, budding sexuality, leaving home. The delightful stories are written by well known as well as emerging writers. While the target audience of this fine anthology is young adults, the stories can be enjoyed by adult readers as well.
Let's Cook Adobo! By Carina Monica Montoya. Book design by Eliseo Art Silva. This is a cookbook designed for children. Adobo originated in the Philippines, and has become a popular food around the world. With simple step-by-step recipe directions in vibrantly colored illustrations that incorporate Filipino history, cooking Adobo can be an easy and fun learning experience for children.
Philippine Indigenous Communities: Poetics, Society and History. By Dr Ming Menez Coben. Holder of a Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania, she was Professor of American Multicultural Studies at CSU-Sonoma, and taught Philippine Folklore and Society at UCLA. Her third book examines the centrality of verbal art in social life and the dynamic roles of varbal artists as religious and political leaders, as guardians of tradition, as well as agents of cultural change. The subtitle highlights its emphasis on poetics and social change, poetics and gender politics, the poetics of violence, and pacifism, tropes in social and historical contexts, and on colonialism, ethnic identity and political power. Her other books are Folklore Communications among Filipinos in California (1980) and Explorations in Philippine Folklore (1996). She resides in Los Angeles. "This book has ten fascinating and exciting chapters, each blending in a stimulating manner history and ethnology with the verbal literaure of a specific Philippine indigenous group." - Gerald Rixhon, Professor of Anthropology.
Seeking Thirst: A Novel. By Carlene Sobrino Bonnivier. This is her second novel, the first being Autobiography of a Stranger. Trained as an educator, Bonnivier has lived and worked in many countries and had resided in the East Coast before finally settling in Los Angeles. Conceived in Baguio but born in Los Angeles, she grew up in the periphery of Temple Street and knew it long before it became known as a Filipino enclave and declared as Historic Filipinotown. Seeking First is a woman's novel and described as such, in the words of two authors. "Carol/Orion is one of the most complex and rich women characters readers have had in a very long time. Her journey to love herself and others is relevant to everyone. Carlene Bonnivier has created a character who is hard to forget." - Marita Golden, author, After, Don't Play in the Sun: Migrations of the Heart. "There's a passion in Seeking Thirst that gives the narrative a driving force throughout." - Seymour Epstein, author, Light, Love Affair, Leah.
Friday, April 23, 20105:30pm - 9:00pm
Salakot Sizzle & Grill
2122 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA
The annual Authors Night of Philippine Expressions Bookshop is traditionally held on the eve of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. A participant at the Festival since 1997, the Bookshop is happy to contribute to the literary and cultural life of the City of Los Angeles.
Join us at Authors Night to celebrate the publication of six new books by Filipino and Filipino American Authors. Book Talks, Readings, Booksigning, Food and Fun !
Filipinos in Washington, D.C. By Rita M. Cacas and Juanita Tamayo Lott. The book captures an ethnic history in photos and words, and documents historical events and political transitions that occurred. Cacas, a native Washingtonian and daughter of one of the Depression-era pioneers, previously worked at the National Gallery of Art, and currently works at the US National Archives. Lott, raised in San Francisco but spent her adulthood in Washington D.C. area is a retired Federal senior demographer, policy analyst and special assistant to the US Census Bureau director. She cofounded the first US Filipino American Studies in SF State University (1960) and the Filipino American Studies Program at the Univ. of Maryland College Park (2007).
Finding God: True Stories of Spiritual Encounters. Edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard and Marily Ysip Orosa. The book documents true encounters with the Divine as experienced by both Filipinos and Filipino Americans who bravely share their personal experiences and open their whole being to the general public who will read them. "Finding God on earth, next to entering heaven in eternal life is, to my mind, the greatest gift one can experience. I know that not everyone can be aware that he or she is finding God at precisely the moment this experience is happening, but all the contributors are to be envied, for finding God can be such an awesome moment whether it happens when one is in great physical pain or in deep spiritual anguish. I am privileged to write one of the blurbs of a book being dedicated to the memory of my dear friend, Jose de Santos Orosa, who taught me what forgiveness is all about." - Josefina T. Lichauco, well-known Philippine lawyer. (Her recent demise brought her to a real encounter with God - Linda's note)
Growing Up Filipino: More Stories for Young Adults, Vol.ll. Edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, she is also the author and editor of over a dozen books. She teaches creative writing at the Writer's Program at UCLA-Extension. The book is the second volume of a Growing Up Filipino series. In this collection of 27 short stories, Filipino and Filipino American writers explore the universal challenges and experiences of Filipino teens after the historic events of 9/11. The modern demands do not hinder Filipino youth from dealing with the universal concerns of growing up: family, friends, love, home, budding sexuality, leaving home. The delightful stories are written by well known as well as emerging writers. While the target audience of this fine anthology is young adults, the stories can be enjoyed by adult readers as well.
Let's Cook Adobo! By Carina Monica Montoya. Book design by Eliseo Art Silva. This is a cookbook designed for children. Adobo originated in the Philippines, and has become a popular food around the world. With simple step-by-step recipe directions in vibrantly colored illustrations that incorporate Filipino history, cooking Adobo can be an easy and fun learning experience for children.
Philippine Indigenous Communities: Poetics, Society and History. By Dr Ming Menez Coben. Holder of a Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania, she was Professor of American Multicultural Studies at CSU-Sonoma, and taught Philippine Folklore and Society at UCLA. Her third book examines the centrality of verbal art in social life and the dynamic roles of varbal artists as religious and political leaders, as guardians of tradition, as well as agents of cultural change. The subtitle highlights its emphasis on poetics and social change, poetics and gender politics, the poetics of violence, and pacifism, tropes in social and historical contexts, and on colonialism, ethnic identity and political power. Her other books are Folklore Communications among Filipinos in California (1980) and Explorations in Philippine Folklore (1996). She resides in Los Angeles. "This book has ten fascinating and exciting chapters, each blending in a stimulating manner history and ethnology with the verbal literaure of a specific Philippine indigenous group." - Gerald Rixhon, Professor of Anthropology.
Seeking Thirst: A Novel. By Carlene Sobrino Bonnivier. This is her second novel, the first being Autobiography of a Stranger. Trained as an educator, Bonnivier has lived and worked in many countries and had resided in the East Coast before finally settling in Los Angeles. Conceived in Baguio but born in Los Angeles, she grew up in the periphery of Temple Street and knew it long before it became known as a Filipino enclave and declared as Historic Filipinotown. Seeking First is a woman's novel and described as such, in the words of two authors. "Carol/Orion is one of the most complex and rich women characters readers have had in a very long time. Her journey to love herself and others is relevant to everyone. Carlene Bonnivier has created a character who is hard to forget." - Marita Golden, author, After, Don't Play in the Sun: Migrations of the Heart. "There's a passion in Seeking Thirst that gives the narrative a driving force throughout." - Seymour Epstein, author, Light, Love Affair, Leah.
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Artist Abroad: Luis Francia on Miguel Syjuco and Gina Apostol
THE ARTIST ABROAD
History as Fiction, Fiction as History
By Luis H. Francia
NEW YORK CITY—Two novels the past month and a half engaged me with their provocative and challenging material. Far from being narratives marked by clearly defined trajectories, these seek to undermine the conventions of fiction with which readers are familiar.
Since I endorse any attempt to subvert established literary idioms, I commend Miguel Syjuco and Gina Apostol, the novelists in question. But their works—counternarratives, if you will—command more than our commendation, and though there are parts I would have emended (the critic's prerogative, for isn't a critic at heart one who tilts at windmills?), Syjuco's debut work "Ilustrado" (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2010) and Gina Apostol's "The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata" (Anvil Publishing, 2009), raise weighty issues without being ponderous, have fun while they're in the process of discombobulating us, and allow those of us who wish to be discombobulated to have our fun as well, even as we step outside the narrative frame and see each handmade universe as messy and ever evolving, in the manner that the creator made it.
Both are metafictions that come out of a literary and even philosophical stance that parallels and even antedates the French poststructuralists' skepticism towards the grand narrative, a skepticism that pushes aside the authoritative, even sacrosanct, telling of what are considered to be essential truths (religious texts being the prime example) to allow unruly but rewarding strands to come into view and whose contemplation might prove far richer than a strictly delimited journey. In effect, it isn't the ostensible narrative that ultimately proves to be the heart of the work but the process itself and the ideas engendered therein. One can even doubt the existence and the infallibility of the author, precisely what is meant by the poststructuralists' most famous assertion, that the author like God is dead. Metafiction itself has a healthy tradition that goes as far back at least as "The Arabian Nights," with "Don Quijote" being to my mind its most glorious example.
"Ilustrado," which in its unpublished form won both the Man Asia Literary Prize in 2008 (Syjuco is the first Filipino to do so in the prize's brief history) and a Palanca, employs a number of well-known metafictional devices: A death occurs, and spurs an investigation into the dead person's history that is as much a self-investigation as it is about someone else's life. There is a character named Miguel Syjuco attempting to plumb the mystery of the lion of Philippine letters, Crispin Salvador, so he can pen a biography. Salvador is the titular representation of the ilustrado referred to—so too is the Syjuco doppelgänger—as well as the most well-known contemporary Filipino writer, with an international following. "Ilustrado" is peppered with excerpts from Salvador's works to serve as documentation for the biography-in-progress, as well as commentary on his (our) milieu and of course on the book held in your hands. Indeed, Syjuco gives Salvador an impressive resume, quoting from such imagined works as the 2,572-page Autoplagiarist, Manila Noir, and The Enlightened, from essays, and interviews with prestigious journals. Salvador looks upon himself as the self-anointed savior (authorial pun clearly intended) of Philippine literature. Here is Salvador's extemporaneous exegesis on his peers, as he and Syjuco walk alongside the Hudson River:
"What is Filipino writing? Living on the margins, a bygone era, loss, exile, poor-me angst, postcolonial identity theft. Tagalog words intermittently scattered around for local color, exotically italicized. Run-on sentences and facsimiles of Magical Realism, hiding behind the disclaimer that we Pinoys were doing it years before the South Americans."
Not quite a manifesto, but decidedly a call to arms, for Salvador is a rabble-rouser, a persistent gadfly, and the in-the-novel Syjuco's attempt to write a biography of Salvador is the hook on which explorations of the present and past are essayed. It's the pretext Syjuco, a protégé, and incipient rival, of Salvador, uses to examine his own life, in the process, meeting a host of characters critical to an understanding of the personal and the political dimensions that make up his (and Salvador's) world. Along the way Syjuco fashions portraits of a milieu—that of Negrense society is particularly effective—giving the reader a sense of its dislocations and discontents, and of various individuals living against a backdrop of confused contemporary mores and the unwieldy burdens of colonial history.
At times too clever by half, not all the stratagems work, and "Ilustrado" would not suffer were its burden of enlightening, and entertaining, us lessened. Excerpts from the exploits of the Bondean hero Astig (a Salvadoran pulp creation) or the jokes centered on a bumbling Pinoy immigrant may add details but not any new layers to this metafiction. The novel gathers strength towards the latter half, as the writer's focus sharpens, and obeisance is paid after all to a straightforward narrative, but one that sets us up for an ambivalent yet powerful ending.
In Apostol's novel the hook on which she hangs her metafiction is the discovery of the journals of one Raymundo Mata, in tin cans, no less. The vision-impaired Mata is a rustic member of the Katipunan and an observer of the chaotic era that marked the end of the nineteenth century, as well as of Spanish colonialism, in the archipelago. Accompanying the publication of Mata's writings are the commentaries of the translator and two academics, Estrella Espejo and Dr. Diwata Drake, who constantly engage in one-upmanship and genteel bitchery and who are meant to remind us of how academe can be relentlessly self-important. Espejo apparently is a patient at the Quezon Institute and Sanatorium in Tacloban, Leyte, that clues us into one reason for her fevered pronouncements.
The subtext of the novel is literally where footnotes are to be found: below the regular text, thus visually demarcating the formal separation ostensibly between the text proffered to the public and the nonfiction mediation offered by three commentators. The characters are dotty, eccentric, and all too human. Through Mata's accounts of the lives of his peers and his interactions with them, as well as the subtextual tussles his journals cause, Apostol crafts an unorthodox view of the crucial events during the period of chaos and social and political transformations that altered, and revealed, the fault lines in Filipino society. Mata is history's groundling who describes himself as "born from the cracked egos of a pair of stage actors. I was in the wings of history waiting for my cue" but not for any starring role: "You couldn't even call me an understudy, and anyway my bit part had no lines."
The irony of course is that he has been conferred posthumously the honor of being the primary object of interest to Estrella and Diwata, not to mention the unnamed translator. In a sense, this is nostalgia sans nostalgia, the view of revolution as arising from all too humbling and mundane factors and actors (there are milkmaids and lecherous men, farmhands, sailors, schoolmates, courtesans, officials, worldly friars—a sprawling, colorful, and bawdy tapestry). Personages familiar to us make appearances but as flawed human beings, from Dr. Pio Valenzuela to Emilio Aguinaldo. Only Rizal is viewed with reverence and given an almost supernatural aura by Mata, through whose "mata" we witness the Great Malay strut on these pages. By the time Mata meets Rizal in Dapitan, he's read the "Noli," which he guards as though it were the Holy Grail. Mata looks upon the great one with complete sympathy for his predicament: "To what end revolt? He had said it already, better than most: he had balanced the syllogisms of further predations, proximal Japan or enormous America, take your pick. Worse—and personally he did not wish to live to see that day: to look at ourselves, in some abject distance, and so gaze at the hopeless deformity of our hopes."
The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata is not just a Rabelaisian parade of real and imagined characters (though even the "real" ones are bent inevitably to the laws of authorial gravity), or a display of puns, double ironies, an irreverent take on so-called history, but as well a deft, and daft, construction of the past that is still present, not as a Big Bang but as a series of smaller, some deliberate, many accidental, explosions: history as much farce as it is tragedy.
COPYRIGHT L.H. FRANCIA
History as Fiction, Fiction as History
By Luis H. Francia
NEW YORK CITY—Two novels the past month and a half engaged me with their provocative and challenging material. Far from being narratives marked by clearly defined trajectories, these seek to undermine the conventions of fiction with which readers are familiar.
Since I endorse any attempt to subvert established literary idioms, I commend Miguel Syjuco and Gina Apostol, the novelists in question. But their works—counternarratives, if you will—command more than our commendation, and though there are parts I would have emended (the critic's prerogative, for isn't a critic at heart one who tilts at windmills?), Syjuco's debut work "Ilustrado" (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2010) and Gina Apostol's "The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata" (Anvil Publishing, 2009), raise weighty issues without being ponderous, have fun while they're in the process of discombobulating us, and allow those of us who wish to be discombobulated to have our fun as well, even as we step outside the narrative frame and see each handmade universe as messy and ever evolving, in the manner that the creator made it.
Both are metafictions that come out of a literary and even philosophical stance that parallels and even antedates the French poststructuralists' skepticism towards the grand narrative, a skepticism that pushes aside the authoritative, even sacrosanct, telling of what are considered to be essential truths (religious texts being the prime example) to allow unruly but rewarding strands to come into view and whose contemplation might prove far richer than a strictly delimited journey. In effect, it isn't the ostensible narrative that ultimately proves to be the heart of the work but the process itself and the ideas engendered therein. One can even doubt the existence and the infallibility of the author, precisely what is meant by the poststructuralists' most famous assertion, that the author like God is dead. Metafiction itself has a healthy tradition that goes as far back at least as "The Arabian Nights," with "Don Quijote" being to my mind its most glorious example.
"Ilustrado," which in its unpublished form won both the Man Asia Literary Prize in 2008 (Syjuco is the first Filipino to do so in the prize's brief history) and a Palanca, employs a number of well-known metafictional devices: A death occurs, and spurs an investigation into the dead person's history that is as much a self-investigation as it is about someone else's life. There is a character named Miguel Syjuco attempting to plumb the mystery of the lion of Philippine letters, Crispin Salvador, so he can pen a biography. Salvador is the titular representation of the ilustrado referred to—so too is the Syjuco doppelgänger—as well as the most well-known contemporary Filipino writer, with an international following. "Ilustrado" is peppered with excerpts from Salvador's works to serve as documentation for the biography-in-progress, as well as commentary on his (our) milieu and of course on the book held in your hands. Indeed, Syjuco gives Salvador an impressive resume, quoting from such imagined works as the 2,572-page Autoplagiarist, Manila Noir, and The Enlightened, from essays, and interviews with prestigious journals. Salvador looks upon himself as the self-anointed savior (authorial pun clearly intended) of Philippine literature. Here is Salvador's extemporaneous exegesis on his peers, as he and Syjuco walk alongside the Hudson River:
"What is Filipino writing? Living on the margins, a bygone era, loss, exile, poor-me angst, postcolonial identity theft. Tagalog words intermittently scattered around for local color, exotically italicized. Run-on sentences and facsimiles of Magical Realism, hiding behind the disclaimer that we Pinoys were doing it years before the South Americans."
Not quite a manifesto, but decidedly a call to arms, for Salvador is a rabble-rouser, a persistent gadfly, and the in-the-novel Syjuco's attempt to write a biography of Salvador is the hook on which explorations of the present and past are essayed. It's the pretext Syjuco, a protégé, and incipient rival, of Salvador, uses to examine his own life, in the process, meeting a host of characters critical to an understanding of the personal and the political dimensions that make up his (and Salvador's) world. Along the way Syjuco fashions portraits of a milieu—that of Negrense society is particularly effective—giving the reader a sense of its dislocations and discontents, and of various individuals living against a backdrop of confused contemporary mores and the unwieldy burdens of colonial history.
At times too clever by half, not all the stratagems work, and "Ilustrado" would not suffer were its burden of enlightening, and entertaining, us lessened. Excerpts from the exploits of the Bondean hero Astig (a Salvadoran pulp creation) or the jokes centered on a bumbling Pinoy immigrant may add details but not any new layers to this metafiction. The novel gathers strength towards the latter half, as the writer's focus sharpens, and obeisance is paid after all to a straightforward narrative, but one that sets us up for an ambivalent yet powerful ending.
In Apostol's novel the hook on which she hangs her metafiction is the discovery of the journals of one Raymundo Mata, in tin cans, no less. The vision-impaired Mata is a rustic member of the Katipunan and an observer of the chaotic era that marked the end of the nineteenth century, as well as of Spanish colonialism, in the archipelago. Accompanying the publication of Mata's writings are the commentaries of the translator and two academics, Estrella Espejo and Dr. Diwata Drake, who constantly engage in one-upmanship and genteel bitchery and who are meant to remind us of how academe can be relentlessly self-important. Espejo apparently is a patient at the Quezon Institute and Sanatorium in Tacloban, Leyte, that clues us into one reason for her fevered pronouncements.
The subtext of the novel is literally where footnotes are to be found: below the regular text, thus visually demarcating the formal separation ostensibly between the text proffered to the public and the nonfiction mediation offered by three commentators. The characters are dotty, eccentric, and all too human. Through Mata's accounts of the lives of his peers and his interactions with them, as well as the subtextual tussles his journals cause, Apostol crafts an unorthodox view of the crucial events during the period of chaos and social and political transformations that altered, and revealed, the fault lines in Filipino society. Mata is history's groundling who describes himself as "born from the cracked egos of a pair of stage actors. I was in the wings of history waiting for my cue" but not for any starring role: "You couldn't even call me an understudy, and anyway my bit part had no lines."
The irony of course is that he has been conferred posthumously the honor of being the primary object of interest to Estrella and Diwata, not to mention the unnamed translator. In a sense, this is nostalgia sans nostalgia, the view of revolution as arising from all too humbling and mundane factors and actors (there are milkmaids and lecherous men, farmhands, sailors, schoolmates, courtesans, officials, worldly friars—a sprawling, colorful, and bawdy tapestry). Personages familiar to us make appearances but as flawed human beings, from Dr. Pio Valenzuela to Emilio Aguinaldo. Only Rizal is viewed with reverence and given an almost supernatural aura by Mata, through whose "mata" we witness the Great Malay strut on these pages. By the time Mata meets Rizal in Dapitan, he's read the "Noli," which he guards as though it were the Holy Grail. Mata looks upon the great one with complete sympathy for his predicament: "To what end revolt? He had said it already, better than most: he had balanced the syllogisms of further predations, proximal Japan or enormous America, take your pick. Worse—and personally he did not wish to live to see that day: to look at ourselves, in some abject distance, and so gaze at the hopeless deformity of our hopes."
The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata is not just a Rabelaisian parade of real and imagined characters (though even the "real" ones are bent inevitably to the laws of authorial gravity), or a display of puns, double ironies, an irreverent take on so-called history, but as well a deft, and daft, construction of the past that is still present, not as a Big Bang but as a series of smaller, some deliberate, many accidental, explosions: history as much farce as it is tragedy.
COPYRIGHT L.H. FRANCIA
Stephanie Syjuco: Beg/Borrow/Steal 04/10 - 05/15/2010
In Catharine Clark Gallery's Viewing Room, the gallery introduces the work of Stephanie Syjuco. Syjuco's recent work uses the tactics of bootlegging, re-appropriation, and fictional fabrication to address issues of cultural biography, labor, and economic globalization. Working primarily in sculpture and installation, her objects mistranslate and misappropriate iconic symbols, creating frictions between high ideals and everyday materials.
Catharine Clark Gallery
150 Minna St.
San Francisco, CA 94105
April 10 - May 15, 2010
FREE
More info here.
Catharine Clark Gallery
150 Minna St.
San Francisco, CA 94105
April 10 - May 15, 2010
FREE
More info here.
Activism is Not a Crime 04/24/2010 Closing Reception @ I-Hotel
SF Human Rights Committee in the Philippines (SF CHRP) and Manilatown Heritage Foundation invites you to attend ...
CLOSING RECEPTION FOR
FACTSHEET
Activist is Not a Crime!
An exhibition of 30 political posters by artists in the U.S. and the Philippines about state-sponsored human rights violations.
SATURDAY, April 24th
4pm - 6pm
@ I-Hotel Center
868 Kearny Street
SF, CA
FREE, donations accepted
FEATURING: LIVE music from Diskarte Namin and food for sale (partial proceeds will go to Manilatown Heritage Foundation)
CLOSING RECEPTION FOR
FACTSHEET
Activist is Not a Crime!
An exhibition of 30 political posters by artists in the U.S. and the Philippines about state-sponsored human rights violations.
SATURDAY, April 24th
4pm - 6pm
@ I-Hotel Center
868 Kearny Street
SF, CA
FREE, donations accepted
FEATURING: LIVE music from Diskarte Namin and food for sale (partial proceeds will go to Manilatown Heritage Foundation)
Hip hop series sponsors free concert: Kiwi at St. Mary's College 04/20/2010
From the SMC Collegian online: Hip hop series sponsors free concert
Mainstream hip hop music is often defined by the likes of Soulja Boy Tell'em. But the Hip Hop and Social Justice Series at Saint Mary's College hopes to raise awareness of independent artists who use their music to discuss race and class issues. The plan? A free concert.
Kiwi and DJ OwlBoogie, two Bay Area hip hop artists, will perform live at the Soda Center on April 20 from 7:30 p.m.- 9:30 p.m. The concert is open to the entire Saint Mary's community.
Kiwi is a Filipino community activist whose music combines "the fierceness of Chuck D, the poetics of Talib Kweli, and the rhythm and swagger of Kanye West" according to SpeakoutNow.org. He has performed alongside the Black Eyed Peas and Common. He is a former member of Native Guns.
DJ OwlBoogie has been performing since 1990. His work can be found on Mixcrate.com, a website for DJ mixes.
The Hip Hop and Social Justice Series is overseen by communication professor Scott Schonfeldt-Aultman and a committee of current students. It hosts free concerts and movie screenings throughout the year on campus.
Mainstream hip hop music is often defined by the likes of Soulja Boy Tell'em. But the Hip Hop and Social Justice Series at Saint Mary's College hopes to raise awareness of independent artists who use their music to discuss race and class issues. The plan? A free concert.
Kiwi and DJ OwlBoogie, two Bay Area hip hop artists, will perform live at the Soda Center on April 20 from 7:30 p.m.- 9:30 p.m. The concert is open to the entire Saint Mary's community.
Kiwi is a Filipino community activist whose music combines "the fierceness of Chuck D, the poetics of Talib Kweli, and the rhythm and swagger of Kanye West" according to SpeakoutNow.org. He has performed alongside the Black Eyed Peas and Common. He is a former member of Native Guns.
DJ OwlBoogie has been performing since 1990. His work can be found on Mixcrate.com, a website for DJ mixes.
The Hip Hop and Social Justice Series is overseen by communication professor Scott Schonfeldt-Aultman and a committee of current students. It hosts free concerts and movie screenings throughout the year on campus.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Call for Submissions: Alternative Alamat
From Rocket Kapre:
Alternative Alamat: Philippine Myths and Legends, Reimagined
The Philippines is blessed with a multitude of mythologies and legends, yet too few of these tales are known and read today. While it is understandable that the modern reader might find it difficult to relate to ancient oral tradition, we’ve all seen how the gods/goddesses and heroes/heroines of other cultures have remained relevant because of writers who incorporate the old myths and legends in modern tales. (See: The Percy Jackson series, or the many re-imaginings of the King Arthur myth.) I think we need more Filipino tales in that vein–hence, our new anthology, “Alternative Alamat”.
Story Guidelines:
I’m looking for stories which have the following characteristics:
Read more.
Alternative Alamat: Philippine Myths and Legends, Reimagined
The Philippines is blessed with a multitude of mythologies and legends, yet too few of these tales are known and read today. While it is understandable that the modern reader might find it difficult to relate to ancient oral tradition, we’ve all seen how the gods/goddesses and heroes/heroines of other cultures have remained relevant because of writers who incorporate the old myths and legends in modern tales. (See: The Percy Jackson series, or the many re-imaginings of the King Arthur myth.) I think we need more Filipino tales in that vein–hence, our new anthology, “Alternative Alamat”.
Story Guidelines:
I’m looking for stories which have the following characteristics:
- The story should make use of characters, events, and/or artifacts from Philippine myths or legends
- The element taken from myth/legend must be integral to the story. Even if your protagonist owns Bantugan’s sword, if he/she never uses it, then that doesn’t count.
- The myth/legend from which the element is taken must be integral to the story. Even if your protagonist wields Bantugan’s sword, if that history doesn’t come into play (in other words, if you just treat it as a generic magic sword), then that doesn’t count.
- While we’re drawing from myth/legend, I want stories written with a modern sensibility. Note I don’t mean the stories need to be set in modern times–what I mean is that I want stories that the modern reader can relate to and enjoy.
- Because part of the mission of this anthology is to raise the reader’s awareness of our myths and legends, you need to be able to point me to your source material: the name of the myth/legend, the book/site where you found it etc. If it’s simply part of the oral tradition of your area, let me know and we’ll see if we can transcribe it and put it online somewhere, because it’s important that readers have the opportunity to read the source material.
- Stories that involve generic creatures of folklore like aswangs, tiyanaks, dwende, mananggal etc. By generic, I mean that using a fairy in your story doesn’t make it eligible per se, but if you’re using the specific fairy, say the one from the legend of The Boy Who Became a Wild Hog (and that history plays a part in the story, as I mentioned above), that’s an eligible story.
- Stories that are straight re-tellings of myths and legends.
- Stories with illustrations, fancy fonts, hyperlinking, or fancy formatting. Stories with those elements can be awesome and cutting-edge, but I want to try distributing the anthology as widely as possible, and that means minimizing formatting issues from the get-go.
- Stories which use elements from urban/modern legends – stick with the pre-hispanic tales, or stuff like the metrical romances of the Spanish Era like Bernardo Carpio.
Read more.
Call for Submissions: Knocking at the Door: Approaching the Other
From the Asia Writes blog:
We seek fresh work exploring the theme of reconciling and/or coming to an understanding with the Other as it appears in all aspects of life: personal, political and societal. We want honest chronicles of your struggles to come to terms with the Other in all its forms and your sense of humor. Some of the editor’s favorite authors include Rilke, Ilya Kaminsky, Jack McCarthy and Harryette Mullen, but most of all we love poems with a unique voice of their own that defy categorization.
Deadline: May 15, 2010.
Read more.
We seek fresh work exploring the theme of reconciling and/or coming to an understanding with the Other as it appears in all aspects of life: personal, political and societal. We want honest chronicles of your struggles to come to terms with the Other in all its forms and your sense of humor. Some of the editor’s favorite authors include Rilke, Ilya Kaminsky, Jack McCarthy and Harryette Mullen, but most of all we love poems with a unique voice of their own that defy categorization.
Deadline: May 15, 2010.
Read more.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Kartika Review Issue 7 (Spring 2010) Now Available
Kartika Review Issue 7 - Spring 2010 features J. A. Pak, Peter Tieryas Liu, Victor Luo, Vuong Quoc Vu, Eugenia Leigh, Barbara Jane Reyes, Aimee Suzara, Amanda Griffith, Thai Le Nguyen, Michael S. Janairo, Tasha Matsumoto, and Josh Stenberg. Author Interview: Ed Lin, author of Snakes Can't Run (2010); This Is A Bust (2007); Waylaid (2002). MEDITATIONS ON HOME, essays by established APA voices, Elmaz Abinader, Peter Bacho, Alexander Chee, Justin Chin, Tess Gerritsen, Porochista Khakpour, Don Lee, Min Jin Lee, Yiyun Li, Ed Lin, David Mura, Shawna Yang Ryan, Lac Su, Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, Thrity Umrigar, Sung J. Woo, and Bryan Thao Worra.
Read it online here. Get your print edition here.
Read it online here. Get your print edition here.
April is Jazz Appreciation Month
From Carlos Zialcita:
The Jazz Appreciation Month concert at the SF Main Public Library was a huge success! The premiere of this free annual event was a collaboration among the Filipino American and African American Centers at the SF Main Public Library, the SF Filipino American Jazz Festival, and the Filipino American National Historical Society, East Bay Chapter. We want to express our deep appreciation to the artists who participated, to our sponsors who made this concert possible, and most of all, to all the fans and supporters of the music who joined us. From the very first notes on the ancient kulintang invoking the spirit of our ancestors to the awesome finale, the entire event was a great way to launch a Bay Area tribute to a historic and living American art form--jazz.
There will be many Jazz Appreciation Month celebrations throughout April in the Bay Area. Let's keep the party going! Please support local jazz artists by your continued presence at the clubs and concerts throughout the year.
We look forward to more opportunitites to celebrate jazz and to present more concerts in the coming months. We welcome your support as a sponsor, as a donor, or as a volunteer. Visit our website for details on upcoming events. Join the San Francisco Filipino American Jazz Festival group in Facebook.
Mabuhay ang Pilipino Jazz!
Carlos & Myrna Zialcita
www.sfpinoyjazzfest.com
The Jazz Appreciation Month concert at the SF Main Public Library was a huge success! The premiere of this free annual event was a collaboration among the Filipino American and African American Centers at the SF Main Public Library, the SF Filipino American Jazz Festival, and the Filipino American National Historical Society, East Bay Chapter. We want to express our deep appreciation to the artists who participated, to our sponsors who made this concert possible, and most of all, to all the fans and supporters of the music who joined us. From the very first notes on the ancient kulintang invoking the spirit of our ancestors to the awesome finale, the entire event was a great way to launch a Bay Area tribute to a historic and living American art form--jazz.
There will be many Jazz Appreciation Month celebrations throughout April in the Bay Area. Let's keep the party going! Please support local jazz artists by your continued presence at the clubs and concerts throughout the year.
We look forward to more opportunitites to celebrate jazz and to present more concerts in the coming months. We welcome your support as a sponsor, as a donor, or as a volunteer. Visit our website for details on upcoming events. Join the San Francisco Filipino American Jazz Festival group in Facebook.
Mabuhay ang Pilipino Jazz!
Carlos & Myrna Zialcita
www.sfpinoyjazzfest.com
Identities and Influence: A Panel of Emerging Asian American Women Writers Thursday, April 22, 2010
Anita Amirrezvani was born in Tehran, Iran, and raised in San Francisco. For ten years, she was a dance critic for newspapers in the Bay Area. She has received fellowships from the National Arts Journalism Program, the NEA's Arts Journalism Institute for Dance, and the Hedgebrook Foundation for Women Writers. Amirrezvani's first novel, The Blood of Flowers, skillfully interweaves culture, romance, and art.
Kathryn Ma's stories have appeared in the Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, Southwest Review, Threepenny Review, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. Ma won the 2008 David Nathan Meyerson Prize for Fiction for her title story and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best New American Voices. A lawyer and a Bread Loaf Scholar, she has taught Creative Writing in the MFA Program at the University of Oregon. All That Work and Still No Boys is her first book.
Barbara Jane Reyes was born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her BA in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley and her MFA at San Francisco State University. Reyes is the author of Gravities of Center and Poeta en San Francisco, which received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. Her third book, entitled Diwata, is forthcoming in 2010.
Shawna Yang Ryan was born in Sacramento, California, the child of parents who met during the Vietnam War when her father was stationed in Taiwan. Ryan graduated from UC Berkeley, and received an M.A. from UC Davis. In 2002, she was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan. Her novel Water Ghosts was a finalist for the 2008 Northern California Book Award.
Marianne Villanueva (moderator) is the author of the short story collections Ginseng and Other Tales from Manila and Mayor of the Roses. A third collection, The Lost Language, is forthcoming. Villanueva currently teaches writing and literature at Foothill College and Notre Dame de Namur University.
Co-sponsored by the USF Asian American Studies Program and the USF Center for the Pacific Rim
Call 415.422.6066 or email mfaw@usfca.edu for details and parking information
Thursday, April 22, 2010
7:30 pm Program
University of San Francisco
Fromm Hall
Free and open to the public
7:30 pm Program
University of San Francisco
Fromm Hall
Free and open to the public
Friday, April 16, 2010
BLENDER 04/30/2010 @ Thickhouse, SF
Fri, Apr 30, 8pm
BLENDER
Thick House,1695 18th Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
Thick House is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing affordable living and creative working spaces for artists. This week in April at Thick House is curated by Bindlestiff Studio Artistic Director, Allan Manalo. For the first time ever, theater artists Anthem Salgado (feature soloist from Brava Theater's "Me, Myself, and I" series) and Christina Miglino (Assistant Director to Erika Shuch's recent "Love Everywhere" project at San Francisco City Hall) combine forces to create a new work titled THREAD BARE. Inspired by healing practices, this duo explores through movement and text, relationships and disintegration, disease and memory, and cures and forgiveness. The BLENDER showcase will also feature artists of the ACT WRITE WORKSHOP ENSEMBLE - Christina Ying, Gregory Manalo, Josef Anolin, Liz Carey, Meldy Hernandez, Michael Greene, and Tonilyn Sideco.
BLENDER
Thick House,1695 18th Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
Thick House is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing affordable living and creative working spaces for artists. This week in April at Thick House is curated by Bindlestiff Studio Artistic Director, Allan Manalo. For the first time ever, theater artists Anthem Salgado (feature soloist from Brava Theater's "Me, Myself, and I" series) and Christina Miglino (Assistant Director to Erika Shuch's recent "Love Everywhere" project at San Francisco City Hall) combine forces to create a new work titled THREAD BARE. Inspired by healing practices, this duo explores through movement and text, relationships and disintegration, disease and memory, and cures and forgiveness. The BLENDER showcase will also feature artists of the ACT WRITE WORKSHOP ENSEMBLE - Christina Ying, Gregory Manalo, Josef Anolin, Liz Carey, Meldy Hernandez, Michael Greene, and Tonilyn Sideco.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
04/17/2010: Nara Denning: "Neuro. No.6" plays at ATA for their "Wild Women Series"!
SAT. 4/17 at ATA Gallery, 992 Valencia (@ 21st), SF:
Drawing on accounts of Conquistador Hernan Cortes' attempt to colonize Baja California, 16th Century cartographies, and a romance/adventure novel ripe with Amazons; this sneak-preview of (in person) Sarolta Cump's 20-min. experimental doc investigates the fantasies, fears, and fetishes of European explorers through a post-colonial queer lens, and with a bawdy sense of humor to boot! ALSO here for intro and Q&A, Nara Denning's Neurotique No. 6 is an 8-min. "neo silent film" of erotic fantasy, rife with surreal imagery and dark humor. Denning combines the influences of German Expressionism and avant-garde cinema to breathe new life into the notion of the cine-poem. PLUS Former SF artiste and now new faculty at UMich, Alexis Bravos' Argonaut, a 16mm biography of the 19th Century writer/explorer Eliza Farnham, in which a single event in her life is oh-so-cinematically re-imagined. AND Martha Colburn's Wonder Woman animation, Mike Kuchar's Paradise Gone, 3-D Venus Fly-Traps, and Handsome Sam Green, segueing from a Sarah Jacobson clip into an invitation to apply for the grant in her name, for emerging women makers. Sangria! *$7.
Drawing on accounts of Conquistador Hernan Cortes' attempt to colonize Baja California, 16th Century cartographies, and a romance/adventure novel ripe with Amazons; this sneak-preview of (in person) Sarolta Cump's 20-min. experimental doc investigates the fantasies, fears, and fetishes of European explorers through a post-colonial queer lens, and with a bawdy sense of humor to boot! ALSO here for intro and Q&A, Nara Denning's Neurotique No. 6 is an 8-min. "neo silent film" of erotic fantasy, rife with surreal imagery and dark humor. Denning combines the influences of German Expressionism and avant-garde cinema to breathe new life into the notion of the cine-poem. PLUS Former SF artiste and now new faculty at UMich, Alexis Bravos' Argonaut, a 16mm biography of the 19th Century writer/explorer Eliza Farnham, in which a single event in her life is oh-so-cinematically re-imagined. AND Martha Colburn's Wonder Woman animation, Mike Kuchar's Paradise Gone, 3-D Venus Fly-Traps, and Handsome Sam Green, segueing from a Sarah Jacobson clip into an invitation to apply for the grant in her name, for emerging women makers. Sangria! *$7.
DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon 04/23-04/25/2010
http://www.disorientfilm.org/index/
FIFTH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL
The DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon returns this April 23rd to 25th, 2010 to the Bijou Art Cinemas in Eugene, Oregon (Portland screening dates to be announced).
DisOrient is a social justice film festival dedicated to deconstructing the media stereotypes of Asians and Asian Americans as "Orientals". We believe in the power of film-as-art to educate, heal and improve the lives of people by giving voice to their experiences.
Read more.
FIFTH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL
The DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon returns this April 23rd to 25th, 2010 to the Bijou Art Cinemas in Eugene, Oregon (Portland screening dates to be announced).
DisOrient is a social justice film festival dedicated to deconstructing the media stereotypes of Asians and Asian Americans as "Orientals". We believe in the power of film-as-art to educate, heal and improve the lives of people by giving voice to their experiences.
Read more.
Review: Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado
From The Walrus:
Crispin Salvador, among the brightest lights in contemporary Filipino letters, is best known for Dahil Sa’Yo (Because of You), his epic novel about the Marcos dictatorship, which was translated into twelve languages and made him a legitimate contender for the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. He also holds a certain degree of fame for his crime fiction, most notably 1990’s Manila Noir. He’s celebrated, too, for his short stories, of which “Matador,” published in the March 12, 1973, edition of The New Yorker, is an important early example, and his essays, including his regular weekly Manila Times column, War & Piss. Bridging all of these is Autoplagiarist, his 2,572-page memoir/cultural history, which takes aim at his family and his country in equal measure. Despite his prodigious output, Salvador’s reputation in the Philippines will be forever troubled by his decision to work in exile from his homeland.
But perhaps more problematic is the fact that Crispin Salvador does not exist. He is the creation of Miguel Syjuco, an almost impossibly young Filipino writer who now calls Montreal home, and his life and work are the focus of Syjuco’s first novel, Ilustrado, which won the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize as an unpublished manuscript. Ilustrado is many things — a skewed history of the Philippines’ past 150 years, an account of the rise and sputtering decline of a family, a sharply fanged indictment of the country’s lazy, coke-fuelled ruling-class youth — but above all it operates as an enormously accomplished bricolage memoir of the efforts of our narrator, also named Miguel Syjuco, to piece together the life of Salvador, his recently deceased teacher and mentor, by sifting through Salvador’s writing and personal history. Presenting itself in myriad fragments, the book drifts in and out of Salvador’s work, including portions of essays, novels, interviews, short stories, articles, poems, and jokes, while exploring Miguel’s biography-in-progress, his life in New York, and his investigations upon returning to the Philippines.
Read more.
Crispin Salvador, among the brightest lights in contemporary Filipino letters, is best known for Dahil Sa’Yo (Because of You), his epic novel about the Marcos dictatorship, which was translated into twelve languages and made him a legitimate contender for the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. He also holds a certain degree of fame for his crime fiction, most notably 1990’s Manila Noir. He’s celebrated, too, for his short stories, of which “Matador,” published in the March 12, 1973, edition of The New Yorker, is an important early example, and his essays, including his regular weekly Manila Times column, War & Piss. Bridging all of these is Autoplagiarist, his 2,572-page memoir/cultural history, which takes aim at his family and his country in equal measure. Despite his prodigious output, Salvador’s reputation in the Philippines will be forever troubled by his decision to work in exile from his homeland.
But perhaps more problematic is the fact that Crispin Salvador does not exist. He is the creation of Miguel Syjuco, an almost impossibly young Filipino writer who now calls Montreal home, and his life and work are the focus of Syjuco’s first novel, Ilustrado, which won the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize as an unpublished manuscript. Ilustrado is many things — a skewed history of the Philippines’ past 150 years, an account of the rise and sputtering decline of a family, a sharply fanged indictment of the country’s lazy, coke-fuelled ruling-class youth — but above all it operates as an enormously accomplished bricolage memoir of the efforts of our narrator, also named Miguel Syjuco, to piece together the life of Salvador, his recently deceased teacher and mentor, by sifting through Salvador’s writing and personal history. Presenting itself in myriad fragments, the book drifts in and out of Salvador’s work, including portions of essays, novels, interviews, short stories, articles, poems, and jokes, while exploring Miguel’s biography-in-progress, his life in New York, and his investigations upon returning to the Philippines.
Read more.
Low Lives 2: Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa at Galeria de la Raza
Friday, April 30, 2010 | 5:00 pm
Galeria de la Raza is excited to partner with ATA Gallery and New York City based artist and curator, Jorge Rojas, for the second annual production of a cutting edge performance event entitled Low Lives 2. The international happening will present performance works that critically investigate, challenge, and extend the potential of performance practice presented live through online broadcasting networks. Low Lives 2 will be presented at over seven spaces, creating a one-time experience of ephemeral works and a new alternative for presenting and viewing performances.
As part of the networked performance event, Galeria will present a five-minute live performance work by San Francisco interdisciplinary performance artist, Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa. Gigi, a.k.a., devil bunny, uses a hybrid form of performance to approach issues of queerness, race and gender. For Low Lives 2, the devil bunny herself will perform an excerpt from a work entitled Big Pink.
Low Lives 2 is not simply the presentation of performative gestures, but also about the transmission of these moments and what gets lost, conveyed, blurred, and reconfigured when utilizing this alternative medium. Low Lives embraces works with a lo-fi aesthetic such as low pixel image and sound quality, contributing to a raw, DIY and sometimes voyeuristic quality in the transmission and reception of the work.
Read more.
Galeria de la Raza is excited to partner with ATA Gallery and New York City based artist and curator, Jorge Rojas, for the second annual production of a cutting edge performance event entitled Low Lives 2. The international happening will present performance works that critically investigate, challenge, and extend the potential of performance practice presented live through online broadcasting networks. Low Lives 2 will be presented at over seven spaces, creating a one-time experience of ephemeral works and a new alternative for presenting and viewing performances.
As part of the networked performance event, Galeria will present a five-minute live performance work by San Francisco interdisciplinary performance artist, Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa. Gigi, a.k.a., devil bunny, uses a hybrid form of performance to approach issues of queerness, race and gender. For Low Lives 2, the devil bunny herself will perform an excerpt from a work entitled Big Pink.
Low Lives 2 is not simply the presentation of performative gestures, but also about the transmission of these moments and what gets lost, conveyed, blurred, and reconfigured when utilizing this alternative medium. Low Lives embraces works with a lo-fi aesthetic such as low pixel image and sound quality, contributing to a raw, DIY and sometimes voyeuristic quality in the transmission and reception of the work.
Read more.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
R. Zamora Linmark's ROLLING THE R's Staged Reading
|
| Description |
 Bindlestiff Studio is proud to present a staged reading of the play based on R.Zamora Linmark's celebrated novel, ROLLING THE R'S...."Rolling The R's is a rollercoaster of double entendres, word play, multi-faceted characters and an entertaining, intermingling of native Hawaiian and Tagalog dialogue all woven together with a saturation of sexual undertone," Andrea McPherson, Philippine News. "A tremendous amount of imagination and wit in this fast-moving surrealist comedy," John Berger, Honolulu Star-Bulletin. A "HOT PICK" by Honolulu Weekly. "Non-linearprovocativepoetic," Joseph Rozmiarek, Honolulu Advertiser. ABOUT R.ZAMORA LINMARK Poet, novelist, and playwright R. Zamora Linmark is the author of the best-selling novel Rolling The R's (Kaya Press) and two collections of poetry, Prime Time Apparitions and The Evolution of a Sigh, both from Hanging Loose Press. A recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including two from the Fulbright Foundation, a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission, he has published in numerous journals and anthologies in the U.S. and the Philippines. His stage adaptation of Rolling the R's premiered in Honolulu in 2008, and was a critical and commercial success. He is at work on another novel, a poetry collection, and a play entitled But, Beautiful. He divides his time between Manila, Honolulu, and San Francisco. NOTE: No one under 18 years old will be admitted. |
| Notes |
| Advanced discount tickets are only available online. A limited number of tickets will be available at the door on the night of this event at full price. We thank you for your support of Bindlestiff Studio and Filipino American performing arts. Unfortunately, we will be unable to offer refunds or exchanges for tickets purchased. ALL SALES ARE FINAL. |
Bindlestiff: The Over-Hyped B.S. Comedy Spectacular
|
| Description |
 Join us as the Stiff takes over the Thick in the first ever Bindlestiff Studio over-hyped mini-comedy festival featuring sketch, standup, and false promises of hot, hot, nudity.Starring: Bindlestiff's own sketch group PORK-IN-THE-ROAD Also featuring: DAN WEIL and his Hip-Hop wonder, HELLA FOOLS HOT NUTZ BURLESQUE and Special Guest NOTE: No one under 18 years old will be admitted. |
| Notes |
| Advanced discount tickets are only available online. A limited number of tickets will be available at the door on the night of this event at full price. We thank you for your support of Bindlestiff Studio and Filipino American performing arts. Unfortunately, we will be unable to offer refunds or exchanges for tickets purchased. ALL SALES ARE FINAL. |
LR News: Submission Deadline for Issue 1 Extended
LR News: Submission Deadline for Issue 1 Extended:
First of all, welcome to those of you who are just joining us post-AWP! [For those of you who have been following us for a while, check out our updated links page to meet some of our new friends].
Thanks to the overwhelming amount of support and interest that people expressed last weekend in Denver, we’ve decided to extend our submissions deadline by a couple of weeks. The new submissions deadline for Issue 1 is now Thursday, April 29th.
The process (via our online form) will remain the same as before, and we will still respond to those of you who submit before April 15th within 6 weeks of your submission. So if you are just joining us now or are (like me) someone who tends to pull things together at the last possible instant — here’s your chance! (Click on the banner below to go to our submissions page).
Many, many thanks to those have already submitted, and good luck to all! We can’t wait to read your work!
First of all, welcome to those of you who are just joining us post-AWP! [For those of you who have been following us for a while, check out our updated links page to meet some of our new friends].
Thanks to the overwhelming amount of support and interest that people expressed last weekend in Denver, we’ve decided to extend our submissions deadline by a couple of weeks. The new submissions deadline for Issue 1 is now Thursday, April 29th.
The process (via our online form) will remain the same as before, and we will still respond to those of you who submit before April 15th within 6 weeks of your submission. So if you are just joining us now or are (like me) someone who tends to pull things together at the last possible instant — here’s your chance! (Click on the banner below to go to our submissions page).
Many, many thanks to those have already submitted, and good luck to all! We can’t wait to read your work!
Review of Eileen Tabios's The Thorn Rosary
[Reviewed by Aileen Ibardaloza]
A torn rosary, in Filipino burial tradition, signifies the broken cycle of death. In the genre of Prose Poetry, Eileen R. Tabios’ The Thorn Rosary breaks the peripherality not only of Filipino/Filipino-American post-colonial concerns, but also of the Filipina as forgotten poet, healer, storyteller and epic hero.
Thomas Fink, in his Introduction, observes that
the transcolonial poet looks toward the day when the Philippines will overcome the imprint of colonialism and the Marcos regime; assertion is the first step in imagining what exceeds the “music”/”poetry” of (post)colonialism: “I break this music’s shackles. My name is Eileen and I will not be jailed inside a poem.”
Read more.
A torn rosary, in Filipino burial tradition, signifies the broken cycle of death. In the genre of Prose Poetry, Eileen R. Tabios’ The Thorn Rosary breaks the peripherality not only of Filipino/Filipino-American post-colonial concerns, but also of the Filipina as forgotten poet, healer, storyteller and epic hero.
Thomas Fink, in his Introduction, observes that
the transcolonial poet looks toward the day when the Philippines will overcome the imprint of colonialism and the Marcos regime; assertion is the first step in imagining what exceeds the “music”/”poetry” of (post)colonialism: “I break this music’s shackles. My name is Eileen and I will not be jailed inside a poem.”
Read more.
Pandibulan: Bathing by Moonlight @ La MaMa E.T.C. 04/22/2010-05/02/2010 (NY)
Kinding Sindaw, conceived, choreographed and directed by Potri Ranka Manis
"Pandibulan: Bathing by Moonlight" by Kinding Sindaw is a new dance work in which a woman from the southern Philippines, working as a caregiver in New York, rekindles her strength of spirit through the folklore and lifecycle rituals of the Yakan people of Basilan Island. Tales of her ancestors, stories of the sea, dazzling dreams of dragons who swallow the moon and magical struggles for the earth and sky at once sustain her and make her nostalgic for her village and home.
Kinding Sindaw (http://kindingsindaw.org), led by Potri Ranka Manis, is renowned for its majestic dance theater productions which recreate the traditions of dance, music, martial arts, storytelling, and oratory of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines. This piece recalls folklore from the Yakan people of Southern Philippines and is a unique interweaving of traditional Yakan tales with the contemporary issues of modern life for a caregiver with her feet on two continents.
Read more.
http://www.lamama.org/
"Pandibulan: Bathing by Moonlight" by Kinding Sindaw is a new dance work in which a woman from the southern Philippines, working as a caregiver in New York, rekindles her strength of spirit through the folklore and lifecycle rituals of the Yakan people of Basilan Island. Tales of her ancestors, stories of the sea, dazzling dreams of dragons who swallow the moon and magical struggles for the earth and sky at once sustain her and make her nostalgic for her village and home.
Kinding Sindaw (http://kindingsindaw.org), led by Potri Ranka Manis, is renowned for its majestic dance theater productions which recreate the traditions of dance, music, martial arts, storytelling, and oratory of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines. This piece recalls folklore from the Yakan people of Southern Philippines and is a unique interweaving of traditional Yakan tales with the contemporary issues of modern life for a caregiver with her feet on two continents.
Read more.
http://www.lamama.org/
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Meet Philippine Scholar Katrin De Guia and Watch Alleluia Perform!
From Kularts:
PAST/PRESENT/FUTURE TENSE: Indigenizing Aesthetics in Filipino America: A Lively Conversation with Katrin De Guia and Bay Area Filipino American Artists!
AND
Alleluia Panis Performs in Intersection and Campo Santo's Premiere of LA SEMILLA CAMINANTE!
PAST/PRESENT/FUTURE TENSE: Indigenizing Aesthetics of Filipino America, A Lively Conversation with Katrin de Guia
TUESDAY, APRIL 13 7PM
Bayanihan Community Center
1010 Mission St. @ 6th St. SF 94103
Admission: $10 General, $7 Advance
How do indigenous knowledges and cultural traditions inspire Filipino artists in the Philippines and the diaspora? How do these contemporary artists' aesthetic and curatorial practices in turn transform these knowledges and traditions?
Join us for a lively conversation with Katrin de Guia, Ph.D., artist and author of Kapwa - the Self in Other: Worldviews and Lifestyles of Filipino Culture Bearers, and Bay Area-based Filipino American and diasporic Filipino artists on the role of folklore, cultural symbolism, and notions of indigeneity in aesthetics and art-making processes. In this roundtable discussion, each panelist will share background on their own work (artistic, critical, and/or curatorial) and then engage in an intercultural/cross-cultural dialogue on what they see as the impact of Philippine psychology and cultural traits on Filipino and Filipino American arts and culture.
PANELISTS
KATRIN DE GUIA
Founder of HAPI, Inc. (Heritage/Arts Academies of the Philippines, Inc.) and member of the Baguio Arts Guild, German-born De Guia is the wife of filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik and mother of Kidlat, Kawayan, and Kabunyan De Guia. Since the early 1980s, they have created an art-space and temporary home in Baguio for Filipino artists whose orientation, interests and creative style are rooted in indigenous Filipino knowledge systems and practices.
Katrin De Guia is one of the keynote speakers for the Center for Babaylan Studies 2010 Babaylan Conference,Apr 17-18 Sonoma, CA.
JAMES "GANYAN" GARCIA
James Garcia, also known as gaNyan in the art world, graduated in 2002 with a BA in Art from SFSU. Since then he has participated in numerous exhibitions all over the United States and the Philippines. Known primarily as a "character" artist, he blends narratives from his cultural, spiritual, sociopolitical beliefs, and observations to create a fantastical world of creatures and beings - juxtaposed in alternate realities and environments. Other than creating gallery works, James has been active in curating exhibitions locally in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Maryland, and recently the Philippines. A big advocate in promoting Filipino visual artists, James has been active in producing Filipino specific exhibitions to explore and celebrate Filipino identity and awareness.
RON QUESADA
Ron Quesada is a Filipino-American multi-instrumentalist specializing in Filipino music. He has been performing and critiquing Filipino music for over ten years and for this he has traveled to Manila, Acapulco, Toronto, Boston, Southern California, and all over the Bay Area. His work has covered the traditional to the experimental, and has a complicated viewpoint on the landscape of Filipino music in the diaspora. He has a Bachelor's degree in Ethnomusicology of the Philippines and Hawai'i from San Francisco State University and led a kulintang ensemble at University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
FRANCES SEDAYAO
Sedayao is a Philippine native who has been performing in the SF Bay Area for the past 12 years. Her martial arts and dance training began at CSU Hayward and at the Alvin Ailey School in New York . Her performance interests range from politically charged themes to experimental dance theatre-based works incorporating traditional and modern performance art forms. Works with environmentalist/ recording artist, Joey Ayala, artist-activist Pearl Ubungen, Anne Bluethenthal, Amara Tabor-Smith, Sue-Li Jue, Dandelion Dance among many others continue to inspire her passion for performance as means for global change and justice. As an independent artist, she has presented original works in the Bay Area, New York and Vancouver BC . Frances is a Serpent Source Grant Recipient and was honored as the Dance Featured Artist for 2003 Apature in SF. In 2007 she was awarded a New York Arts' Residency from Dance OMI International where she collaborated with 10 dance artists from all over the world. She currently works with writer/poet Aimee Suzara, and most recently with Kularts.
AIMEE SUZARA
Writer/performer/educator Aimee Suzara completed her M.FA. at Mills College and has been sharing poetic and multidisciplinary work since 1999. Her play, Pagbabalik (Return) in 2007 was selected for several festivals and granted the Zellerbach Community Arts Fund in 2006-7. Her poetry collection, the space between. was published by Finishing Line Press (2008) and her writing appears in several journals and anthologies, including Check the Rhyme, An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees (Lit Noire Press), 580 Split (forthcoming issue) and Walang Hiya/No Shame (forthcoming anthology). Currently, she is collaborating on text-dance works with two companies: Amara Tabor-Smith's Deep Waters Dance Theater for "Our Daily Bread"; and choreographer Frances Sedayao, Aimee Espiritu and Michael Torres for "A History of the Body," to be hosted by the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. A passionate advocate for arts and literacy, she currently teaches English at community colleges and leads workshops on poetry and performance for youth and adults throughout the Bay Area and beyond.
MODERATOR: CHRISTINE BACAREZA BALANCE, PhD.is an Assistant Professor in Asian American Studies at UC Irvine. She currently teaches courses on Filipino American studies, Asian American performance, Asian American popular culture and music studies, and gender & sexualities in Asian America. Her work has been published in Theatre Journal, the Journal of Asian American Studies, and Women and Performance: a feminist journal. She is currently writing a book manuscript on popular music and performance in Filipino America.
Intersection and Campo Santo
Open Process Program Premiere Peformances of La Semilla Caminante / The Traveling Seed: A Multimedia Performance Work
Created by groundbreaking artist activists: Cherríe Moraga, Celia Herrera Rodriguez and Alleluia Panis
Three Nights Only
Fri, Apr 23 - Sun, Apr 25 | 8pm
$5-$15/sliding scale, general admission
"In the Pre-Columbian world, the night sky was female and the stars, which could be seen when the sky was the darkest, were considered the most powerful and therefore the most feared, reflective of the feminine aspect of the universe. During times of chaos, it was said that this female force came down to the earth to put things right again." -Celia Herrera Rodríguez
La Semilla Caminante/ The Traveling Seed is a journey where indigenous myth resurfaces through contemporary story-telling It is a story of travel, crossing river and ocean, and coming home to where we started. This special project is a multi-disciplinary exploration merges myths, spirits, documentary and drama, featuring videos and recordings from Ritual Ceremonies throughout the country attended, documented and responded to by the lead artists. The evening features live music, dance, movement, videography and an original script all blended together in this journey to "get well." This project was one of the select pieces awarded the prestigious Creative Work Fund Grant Award.
Cherríe Moraga, Writer & Director; Alleluia Panis, Dancer & Choreographer; Celia Herrera Rodríguez, Peformance/Conceptual Artist & Design.
Along with Herrera Rodriguez, Moraga and Panis, the performances feature: Adelina Anthony, Gregory Manalo, and Campo Santo's Catherine Castellanos and Sean San Jose and Videography by Emily Encina, live music by Samia Abou-Samras, Steven Cervantes, Charlene O'Rourke, and a Collaborative team that includes: Tanya Orellana, Alejandro Acosta, and Ricky Saenz.
The journey of La Semilla Caminante follows two parallel tracks - the physical and the metaphysical -- mirroring the refracted paths immigrant and indigenous women have undertaken to arrive, or remain rooted here, on the Native soil of the Pacific West. In this "jornada," indigenous myth resurfaces through contemporary story-telling and is enacted through the (post)modern bodies of Raza in diaspora. It is a story of travel, crossing river and ocean, and coming home to where we started.
Additionally, Intersection will partner with members of La Colectiva, a worker-run collective that helps empower immigrant women, for Portrait Day where women will be able to write a letter to their loved ones, and include a photo of themselves to mail home.
Attend Kularts Shows for Free!
Kularts is always looking for volunteers to help us with our events and productions - from set-up and box office reception to ushering and stage management! Not only do volunteers get to see shows for free, but they also get the hands-on, behind-the-scenes scoop into the world of non-profit arts presentation. To volunteer, please contact Kularts Program Manager, Dianne Que at program@kularts.org right away.
Kularts | 474 Faxon Ave | San Francisco | CA | 94112
PAST/PRESENT/FUTURE TENSE: Indigenizing Aesthetics in Filipino America: A Lively Conversation with Katrin De Guia and Bay Area Filipino American Artists!
AND
Alleluia Panis Performs in Intersection and Campo Santo's Premiere of LA SEMILLA CAMINANTE!
PAST/PRESENT/FUTURE TENSE: Indigenizing Aesthetics of Filipino America, A Lively Conversation with Katrin de Guia
TUESDAY, APRIL 13 7PM
Bayanihan Community Center
1010 Mission St. @ 6th St. SF 94103
Admission: $10 General, $7 Advance
How do indigenous knowledges and cultural traditions inspire Filipino artists in the Philippines and the diaspora? How do these contemporary artists' aesthetic and curatorial practices in turn transform these knowledges and traditions?
Join us for a lively conversation with Katrin de Guia, Ph.D., artist and author of Kapwa - the Self in Other: Worldviews and Lifestyles of Filipino Culture Bearers, and Bay Area-based Filipino American and diasporic Filipino artists on the role of folklore, cultural symbolism, and notions of indigeneity in aesthetics and art-making processes. In this roundtable discussion, each panelist will share background on their own work (artistic, critical, and/or curatorial) and then engage in an intercultural/cross-cultural dialogue on what they see as the impact of Philippine psychology and cultural traits on Filipino and Filipino American arts and culture.
PANELISTS
KATRIN DE GUIA
Founder of HAPI, Inc. (Heritage/Arts Academies of the Philippines, Inc.) and member of the Baguio Arts Guild, German-born De Guia is the wife of filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik and mother of Kidlat, Kawayan, and Kabunyan De Guia. Since the early 1980s, they have created an art-space and temporary home in Baguio for Filipino artists whose orientation, interests and creative style are rooted in indigenous Filipino knowledge systems and practices.
Katrin De Guia is one of the keynote speakers for the Center for Babaylan Studies 2010 Babaylan Conference,Apr 17-18 Sonoma, CA.
JAMES "GANYAN" GARCIA
James Garcia, also known as gaNyan in the art world, graduated in 2002 with a BA in Art from SFSU. Since then he has participated in numerous exhibitions all over the United States and the Philippines. Known primarily as a "character" artist, he blends narratives from his cultural, spiritual, sociopolitical beliefs, and observations to create a fantastical world of creatures and beings - juxtaposed in alternate realities and environments. Other than creating gallery works, James has been active in curating exhibitions locally in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Maryland, and recently the Philippines. A big advocate in promoting Filipino visual artists, James has been active in producing Filipino specific exhibitions to explore and celebrate Filipino identity and awareness.
RON QUESADA
Ron Quesada is a Filipino-American multi-instrumentalist specializing in Filipino music. He has been performing and critiquing Filipino music for over ten years and for this he has traveled to Manila, Acapulco, Toronto, Boston, Southern California, and all over the Bay Area. His work has covered the traditional to the experimental, and has a complicated viewpoint on the landscape of Filipino music in the diaspora. He has a Bachelor's degree in Ethnomusicology of the Philippines and Hawai'i from San Francisco State University and led a kulintang ensemble at University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
FRANCES SEDAYAO
Sedayao is a Philippine native who has been performing in the SF Bay Area for the past 12 years. Her martial arts and dance training began at CSU Hayward and at the Alvin Ailey School in New York . Her performance interests range from politically charged themes to experimental dance theatre-based works incorporating traditional and modern performance art forms. Works with environmentalist/ recording artist, Joey Ayala, artist-activist Pearl Ubungen, Anne Bluethenthal, Amara Tabor-Smith, Sue-Li Jue, Dandelion Dance among many others continue to inspire her passion for performance as means for global change and justice. As an independent artist, she has presented original works in the Bay Area, New York and Vancouver BC . Frances is a Serpent Source Grant Recipient and was honored as the Dance Featured Artist for 2003 Apature in SF. In 2007 she was awarded a New York Arts' Residency from Dance OMI International where she collaborated with 10 dance artists from all over the world. She currently works with writer/poet Aimee Suzara, and most recently with Kularts.
AIMEE SUZARA
Writer/performer/educator Aimee Suzara completed her M.FA. at Mills College and has been sharing poetic and multidisciplinary work since 1999. Her play, Pagbabalik (Return) in 2007 was selected for several festivals and granted the Zellerbach Community Arts Fund in 2006-7. Her poetry collection, the space between. was published by Finishing Line Press (2008) and her writing appears in several journals and anthologies, including Check the Rhyme, An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees (Lit Noire Press), 580 Split (forthcoming issue) and Walang Hiya/No Shame (forthcoming anthology). Currently, she is collaborating on text-dance works with two companies: Amara Tabor-Smith's Deep Waters Dance Theater for "Our Daily Bread"; and choreographer Frances Sedayao, Aimee Espiritu and Michael Torres for "A History of the Body," to be hosted by the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. A passionate advocate for arts and literacy, she currently teaches English at community colleges and leads workshops on poetry and performance for youth and adults throughout the Bay Area and beyond.
MODERATOR: CHRISTINE BACAREZA BALANCE, PhD.is an Assistant Professor in Asian American Studies at UC Irvine. She currently teaches courses on Filipino American studies, Asian American performance, Asian American popular culture and music studies, and gender & sexualities in Asian America. Her work has been published in Theatre Journal, the Journal of Asian American Studies, and Women and Performance: a feminist journal. She is currently writing a book manuscript on popular music and performance in Filipino America.
Intersection and Campo Santo
Open Process Program Premiere Peformances of La Semilla Caminante / The Traveling Seed: A Multimedia Performance Work
Created by groundbreaking artist activists: Cherríe Moraga, Celia Herrera Rodriguez and Alleluia Panis
Three Nights Only
Fri, Apr 23 - Sun, Apr 25 | 8pm
$5-$15/sliding scale, general admission
"In the Pre-Columbian world, the night sky was female and the stars, which could be seen when the sky was the darkest, were considered the most powerful and therefore the most feared, reflective of the feminine aspect of the universe. During times of chaos, it was said that this female force came down to the earth to put things right again." -Celia Herrera Rodríguez
La Semilla Caminante/ The Traveling Seed is a journey where indigenous myth resurfaces through contemporary story-telling It is a story of travel, crossing river and ocean, and coming home to where we started. This special project is a multi-disciplinary exploration merges myths, spirits, documentary and drama, featuring videos and recordings from Ritual Ceremonies throughout the country attended, documented and responded to by the lead artists. The evening features live music, dance, movement, videography and an original script all blended together in this journey to "get well." This project was one of the select pieces awarded the prestigious Creative Work Fund Grant Award.
Cherríe Moraga, Writer & Director; Alleluia Panis, Dancer & Choreographer; Celia Herrera Rodríguez, Peformance/Conceptual Artist & Design.
Along with Herrera Rodriguez, Moraga and Panis, the performances feature: Adelina Anthony, Gregory Manalo, and Campo Santo's Catherine Castellanos and Sean San Jose and Videography by Emily Encina, live music by Samia Abou-Samras, Steven Cervantes, Charlene O'Rourke, and a Collaborative team that includes: Tanya Orellana, Alejandro Acosta, and Ricky Saenz.
The journey of La Semilla Caminante follows two parallel tracks - the physical and the metaphysical -- mirroring the refracted paths immigrant and indigenous women have undertaken to arrive, or remain rooted here, on the Native soil of the Pacific West. In this "jornada," indigenous myth resurfaces through contemporary story-telling and is enacted through the (post)modern bodies of Raza in diaspora. It is a story of travel, crossing river and ocean, and coming home to where we started.
Additionally, Intersection will partner with members of La Colectiva, a worker-run collective that helps empower immigrant women, for Portrait Day where women will be able to write a letter to their loved ones, and include a photo of themselves to mail home.
Attend Kularts Shows for Free!
Kularts is always looking for volunteers to help us with our events and productions - from set-up and box office reception to ushering and stage management! Not only do volunteers get to see shows for free, but they also get the hands-on, behind-the-scenes scoop into the world of non-profit arts presentation. To volunteer, please contact Kularts Program Manager, Dianne Que at program@kularts.org right away.
Kularts | 474 Faxon Ave | San Francisco | CA | 94112
Galeria de la Raza: LUNADA
LUNADA Featuring Anthem Salgado, Meldy Hernandez, Michael Greene and Greg Manalo.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 | 7:30 pm
Curated and co-hosted by Irene Faye Duller.
$5 or FREE with food dish
Curated and co-hosted by the radiant Irene Faye Duller - of 8th Wonder and Rhapsodistas fame - April’s uniquely eclectic LUNADA brings together some of the Bay Area’s most creative, interdisciplinary storytellers. Combining elements of theatre, spoken word, movement and photography through a Filipino lens, April’s featured artists have performed on international stages and locally at important venues like Bindlestiff, The Marsh, Yerba Buena Center, Stage Werx, Asian Art Museum and Intersection for the Arts. These accomplished poet-performers will undoubtedly impress, touch and mystify. FREE ADMISSION when you bring food to share, and as always the OPEN MIC is waiting for you!
Featured Performer Biographies:
Anthem Salgado is a multi-disciplinary artist who has performed his original solo-theater creations on the stages of Asian Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Intersection for the Arts, and Kearny Street Workshop. Bare Knuckle, his feature-length one-man show debuted at Brava Theater under the direction of Evren Odcikin, and he held the lead role in the play Friends written by Kobo Abe and directed Raelle Myrick-Hodges. Salgado has presented his spoken word throughout the Bay Area, New York, Honolulu, and Manila. As a literary artist, his fiction appears in the anthologies Field of Mirrors and I Saw My Ex at a Party. He has given numerous workshops and regularly guest-lectures at San Francisco State University and University of San Francisco. Salgado was awarded a Philippines Fulbright-Hays scholarship via Sonoma State University's North Bay International Studies Program, and was elected Young Leader of Color by Theatre Communications Group.
Meldy Hernandez is Pinay writer, performer, public health nurse/artist who believes in the power of stories to promote health. Her work mixes storytelling and dance to explore the global/human connection and the body's ability to thrive. She has performed at various venues in Spain, West Africa, and the United States. In San Francisco, she has rocked the stages at the Marsh, Stage Werx, and Off-Market theater. Check out RN Hernandez’s first solo show, “Nursing In Timbuktu” at a community theater near you this summer.
E. Michael Greene has always had an affinity with photography. He was born in Seoul Korea and grew up on various island nations throughout the South Pacific and Northern Mariana and now lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. He could be seen with a camera always close at hand since his 8th birthday when he received a Yashica 35mm camera as a gift and would snap pictures of anything and everything helping to develop a style hard to imitate. Many years and photographs later his works of primarily landscape photography can be found in local Pleasanton shops and galleries.
Gregory Manalo has had a love affair with theater since 1997. He is a member of the prolific theater group Brothers Keeper and a long time performing artist at Bindlestiff Studio, the epicenter for Pilipino performing arts. Gregory attributes most of his movement background to the Visayan Style Corto Kadena Eskrima System founded by the late master teacher Maestro Sonny Umpad. When he's not performing you can also find him at his day job as a filmmaker for Manalo Cinematic.
$5 or FREE with food dish
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 | 7:30 pm
Curated and co-hosted by Irene Faye Duller.
$5 or FREE with food dish
Curated and co-hosted by the radiant Irene Faye Duller - of 8th Wonder and Rhapsodistas fame - April’s uniquely eclectic LUNADA brings together some of the Bay Area’s most creative, interdisciplinary storytellers. Combining elements of theatre, spoken word, movement and photography through a Filipino lens, April’s featured artists have performed on international stages and locally at important venues like Bindlestiff, The Marsh, Yerba Buena Center, Stage Werx, Asian Art Museum and Intersection for the Arts. These accomplished poet-performers will undoubtedly impress, touch and mystify. FREE ADMISSION when you bring food to share, and as always the OPEN MIC is waiting for you!
Featured Performer Biographies:
Anthem Salgado is a multi-disciplinary artist who has performed his original solo-theater creations on the stages of Asian Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Intersection for the Arts, and Kearny Street Workshop. Bare Knuckle, his feature-length one-man show debuted at Brava Theater under the direction of Evren Odcikin, and he held the lead role in the play Friends written by Kobo Abe and directed Raelle Myrick-Hodges. Salgado has presented his spoken word throughout the Bay Area, New York, Honolulu, and Manila. As a literary artist, his fiction appears in the anthologies Field of Mirrors and I Saw My Ex at a Party. He has given numerous workshops and regularly guest-lectures at San Francisco State University and University of San Francisco. Salgado was awarded a Philippines Fulbright-Hays scholarship via Sonoma State University's North Bay International Studies Program, and was elected Young Leader of Color by Theatre Communications Group.
Meldy Hernandez is Pinay writer, performer, public health nurse/artist who believes in the power of stories to promote health. Her work mixes storytelling and dance to explore the global/human connection and the body's ability to thrive. She has performed at various venues in Spain, West Africa, and the United States. In San Francisco, she has rocked the stages at the Marsh, Stage Werx, and Off-Market theater. Check out RN Hernandez’s first solo show, “Nursing In Timbuktu” at a community theater near you this summer.
E. Michael Greene has always had an affinity with photography. He was born in Seoul Korea and grew up on various island nations throughout the South Pacific and Northern Mariana and now lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. He could be seen with a camera always close at hand since his 8th birthday when he received a Yashica 35mm camera as a gift and would snap pictures of anything and everything helping to develop a style hard to imitate. Many years and photographs later his works of primarily landscape photography can be found in local Pleasanton shops and galleries.
Gregory Manalo has had a love affair with theater since 1997. He is a member of the prolific theater group Brothers Keeper and a long time performing artist at Bindlestiff Studio, the epicenter for Pilipino performing arts. Gregory attributes most of his movement background to the Visayan Style Corto Kadena Eskrima System founded by the late master teacher Maestro Sonny Umpad. When he's not performing you can also find him at his day job as a filmmaker for Manalo Cinematic.
$5 or FREE with food dish
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