Love Angeles Magazine®

Write On, Girls!

By Jerry Lee Davis, Staff Writer

We are unfortunately learning of more and more funding cuts for art and music programs in schools all across the country. In Los Angeles, the public schools are certainly victims of federal, state and local government shortfalls. Who must attend to this dilemma? The public sector and non-profit organizations must. WriteGirl and Keren Taylor are certainly doing their part to remedy this problem. WriteGirl is a nonprofit organization for high school girls centered on the craft of creative writing and empowerment through self-expression. Through one-on-one mentoring and monthly workshops, girls are given techniques, insights and hot tips for great writing in all genres from professional women writers. The organization strives to help girls write their way to a more positive future.

Interview with Keren Taylor, Founder and Executive Director of www.WriteGirl.org

Jerry: What lead you to start WriteGirl?

Keren:  I was a singer/songwriter and poet in New York City, and I co-founded an organization called Girls Write Now. It was there that I saw how exciting creative writing could be for teenage girls, watching the light come into their eyes when they realized that they could express themselves through writing, and discovering that writing wasn’t  just following the dry essay style.  Then I moved to Los Angeles for an online advertising sales job, and I proceeded to get laid off with the dot com crash. It was a blessing. I took time to really decide what I wanted to do with my life, and it was then that I felt compelled to start an organization in L.A., because I knew a lot of the young girls in the schools here weren’t being provided an outlet for their creative expression. So, I started WriteGirl and began to mentor some students, and then more mentors and more students came.

Jerry: How do you feel the WriteGirl organization helps teenage girls?

Keren: The organization helps in so many ways and is more powerful than I anticipated. To see these teenage girls express their feelings, opinions and perspectives and get out of their heads for a bit is amazing. To watch the development of their self confidence and to see them bond with other girls is so rewarding. And mostly, I feel that the development of their creative confidence transfers into whatever they will do in their lives.  Being able to communicate and articulate their passion and to learn to speak up and object to things that you don’t like are necessary skills for succeeding in anything.

Jerry: From where do most of the girls originate?

Keren: In L.A. they are primarily from “at-risk” or “underserved” areas, which are usually low income neighborhoods and areas with large schools and not enough resources. We have many girls who are from first generation immigrant families and English is the first language spoken in their homes.  A few of the girls are from more affluent neighborhoods, and they find their way to us. Usually, they, too, are struggling with an inability to express themselves.

Jerry: Do you have a suggested reading list for the girls?

Keren: We give them material and suggestions over time. We’ve found that the girls don’t do well with lists. It feels too formal to them and feels like work or school.  When we have our workshops, which are either for singer/songwriters, poetry, screenwriters/playwrights or novelists, we give them a handout at the end of the workshops. They spend time reading each other’s works, and some of our mentors share their works.

Jerry: So is the organization in its 9th year now? Have you followed the progress of any of the girls from the earlier years?

Keren: December 2001 was when the organization was established. We’ve recently started to catch up more with some of the girls from the earlier years. We’ve started a Facebook group. Some of the girls are hard to track down. They are all over country and some are abroad. To fully implement a sort of alumni group is an undertaking in itself and would require more head-count and more funding.

Jerry: Was there a certain moment when you knew that the writings of these girls had to be published?

Keren: At the very beginning. We gave them an outlet where they were not graded, and they began to flourish. I remember with this one girl that we had her think about an object at home. She came up with a coin from China, and this unleashed an entire story. We thought other people have to hear this story and the stories of the other girls. The first anthology was published six months after we started.

Jerry: Society has so many mixed messages for women. Be smart but not too smart. Be confident but not too confident. Be thin but not too thin. Be pretty but not too vain. Are most of the young girls in your program aware of these mixed messages?

Keren: Oh, they get way more mixed messages than you realize. In the neighborhoods where many of them live in Compton or Inglewood, there are many billboards with girls with their breasts hanging out surrounded by all these men. With some of our girls, there are cultural issues where a woman’s voice is not valued and not allowed to be heard. Personally, I come from a Ukrainian family where women didn’t raise their voices, so I understand and relate to how this leads to an inability to fully express yourself.

To a certain degree, I think the girls are aware of the mixed messages. The WriteGirl program gives them the skills to see what’s coming at them, so they can discern and hopefully understand what is really happening.

Jerry: You’re working with a lot of these girls during the Surviving Ophelia years. Do you feel a personal responsibility to help them escape these years with their self-esteem in-tact?

Keren: Without a doubt I do. I couldn’t have said it more accurately than you did. I want these girls to know that no matter what the media says, their family says or their culture says that they matter and that they have a voice. Most of the girls come to us with very low self-esteem.  They are too afraid of speaking up about what they believe, and they haven’t figured out how to articulate their thoughts, feelings and emotions.

Jerry: So, like you, I think Girl Power Rocks. Does the organization encourage the girls to become more politically and socially aware?

Keren:  We really leave it up to the girls on how they use their confidence and creativity. We don’t promote activism. What we want to do is to have them cultivate their confidence and to develop skills and set goals for themselves.

Jerry: At times, I’ve witnessed lots of unhealthy competition between young girls and women? How does your organization navigate those waters and create a flowing, healthy and supportive environment?

Keren: With our mentors, we have successful writers from all different mediums. We have songwriters working next to poets working next to screenwriters working next to novelists. There never seems to be any competition among the powerful mentors, and I feel that is good modeling for the girls. We recognize that in schools competition is promulgated in class and outside of class. At WriteGirl, we don’t only publish certain girls. We publish all of them, and we don’t celebrate one girl over another. We don’t single girls out for individual achievements, but, of course, when one of the girls gets accepted to college, we all take part in celebrating that achievement.

Jerry: Do you feel the world is in harmony with a balance in the masculine and feminine energies? If not, how can we change this?

Keren: We are out of harmony, and that’s for certain. We go to schools, and the principal is a man. We go to meet the Mayor, and the Mayor is a man.  It’s predominantly men who are in the key decision making roles. We are by no means a feminist organization; however, we do feel that by being gender specific we can empower some of these girls, so that someday they are in key decision making roles.

Jerry: What have been the greatest achievements of the organization?

Keren: 100% of the girls in the mentoring program have graduated high-school and gone on to graduate college. I am especially proud of that, since the high-school dropout rate is 55%.  We’ve won 21 book awards, which speaks to the content and quality of the writing. We just won first place in the London Book Awards.

I personally get excited when I hear that some of the girls from our earlier years are graduating and opting for a career in the public sector. Seeing them want to give back to the community is quite affirming.

Jerry: You’re always inspiring the mentors and the girls? What inspires you?

Keren: Good question. I get a lot of inspiration from the girls themselves, seeing them grow in front of my eyes. The mentors inspire me, too. They bring so much joy and creativity to the organization and are so willing to selflessly give of themselves. Oh, and my chocolate lab inspires me, as do certain foods, smells, sights and sounds.

Jerry: If you had all the power in the world to make any changes necessary to empower young girls more, what changes would you make?

Keren: That’s a huge question, and one I don’t know how to answer. Change for me has to be incremental. I don’t feel like change can shift everything at once. It has to happen in steps. That said, I’d love to expand this program across the country and internationally.

Jerry: Thank you, Keren.  Your work really matters. I hope all the love you put forth returns to you ten-fold.

Keren: Thank you. Your questions have been very thoughtful and considerate. I really appreciate your time and interest.

To donate or for volunteer opportunities or more information on the organization, go to www.writegirl.org

Jerry Lee Davis
Love Angeles Magazine©
jerrylee@loveangeles.com

Al Gore & Richard Branson Paving The Way To A GreenRoad

Source: ecorazzi - Some might say that the recent pairing of Al Gore and Richard Branson in an intriguing new business endeavor is a match made in eco-heaven given their equally impressive and ever-growing list of planet-friendly efforts. The former Vice President of the United States, current We Can Solve It co-founder (along with The Alliance for Climate Protection) and author of “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis” shares good company with British entrepreneur and Virgin empire head Richard Branson, who famously pledged $3 billion throughout the next several years toward alternative fuel research and development among other global warming preventative measures.

Rather than rubbing elbows together on a daily basis, the environmentalists are both channeling sizable sums of money into GreenRoad — $10 million from Al Gore’s Generation Investment fund and approximately $40 million from Richard Branson’s Virgin Green Fund. That collective sum speaks volumes about how much they believe in the company that strives to improve our population’s driving habits through preventative applications such as reducing the incidence of car accidents/the expense of operating motor vehicles and enhancing overall fuel economy.

Read more at Ecorazzi

The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?

Source: CBS - In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that's inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Well over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on it, and one of them, Bloom Energy, is about to make public its invention: a little power plant-in-a-box they want to put literally in your backyard.

You'll generate your own electricity with the box and it'll be wireless. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid, the way the laptop moved in on the desktop and cell phones supplanted landlines.

It has a lot of smart people believing and buzzing, even though the company has been unusually secretive - until now.

K.R. Sridhar invited "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl for a first look at the innards of the Bloom box that he has been toiling on for nearly a decade.

Looking at one of the boxes, Sridhar told Stahl it could power an average U.S. home.

"The way we make it is in two blocks. This is a European home. The two put together is a U.S. home," he explained.

"'Cause we use twice as much energy, is that what you're saying?" Stahl asked.

"Yeah, and this'll power four Asian homes," he replied.

"So four homes in India, your native country?" Stahl asked.

"Four to six homes in our country," Sridhar replied.

"It sounds awfully dazzling," Stahl remarked.

"It is real. It works," he replied.

He says he knows it works because he originally invented a similar device for NASA. He really is a rocket scientist.

"This invention, working on Mars, would have allowed the NASA administrator to pick up a phone and say, 'Mr. President, we know how to produce oxygen on Mars,'" Sridhar told Stahl.

"So this was going to produce oxygen so people could actually live on Mars?" she asked.

"Absolutely," Sridhar replied.

When NASA scrapped that Mars mission, Sridhar had an idea: he reversed his Mars machine. Instead of it making oxygen, he pumped oxygen in.

He invented a new kind of fuel cell, which is like a very skinny battery that always runs. Sridhar feeds oxygen to it on one side, and fuel on the other. The two combine within the cell to create a chemical reaction that produces electricity. There's no need for burning or combustion, and no need for power lines from an outside source.

In October 2001 he managed to get a meeting with John Doerr from the big Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins.

"How much do you think, 'I need to come up with the next big thing'?" Stahl asked Doerr.

"Oh, that's my job," he replied. "To find entrepreneurs who are going to change the world and then help them."

Doerr has certainly changed our world: he's the one who discovered and funded Netscape, Amazon and Google. When he listened to Sridhar, the idea seemed just as transformative: efficient, inexpensive, clean energy out of a box.

"But Google: $25 million. This man said, 'How much money?'" Stahl asked.

"At the time he said over a hundred million dollars," Doerr replied.

But according to Doerr that was okay.

"So nothing he said scared you?" Stahl asked.

"Oh, I wasn't at all sure it could be done," he replied.

Mary Oliver - Poetic Voice for Nature

By Jerry Lee Davis, Staff Writer

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” The last verse of Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” poem offers a defining example of her distinct style, a hybrid of nature and spirit.  Winning both the Pulitzer Prize Award for Poetry and the National Book Award for Poetry, Mary Oliver has become one of the most revered American poets writing today. In the tradition of Whitman and Thoreau, she acts as a voice for nature, pleading with us to respect and acknowledge the beauty and the teachings of our Earth. And in her poems, she constantly reminds us that life is filled with despair and humor and darkness and light, never letting us forget that we are not alone on our journey.

On Thursday, February 25th at 8 p.m. at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus, Mary Oliver will read from both her older and newer collections. If you have the time, I recommend that you attend. To hear the author interpret her poems is magical and affirming. Click here fore more information about the event.

Jerry Lee Davis
Love Angeles Magazine©
jerrylee@loveangeles.com

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting 
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it.
It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?

Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,

as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust?

from Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver

Motion Picture Academy Honors Nerds of Filmmaking

Source: ABC News - Elizabeth Banks helps the Oscars honor the nerds of filmmaking at Sci-Tech ceremony. The engineers behind the latest in ambient occlusion, digital intermediate processing, sub-pixel offsets and micro-positioning platforms were celebrated at a Saturday night gala at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and hosted by a very unscientific Elizabeth Banks.

The 36-year-old actress joked that she would "read — yet not fully understand — our journey through the scientific and technical awards."

Wearing a sparkling white gown and standing in front of four giant Oscar statues, Banks presented 15 plaques and certificates to scientists from Germany, Sweden, Austria, England, New Zealand, Hungary, Denmark, Japan and the United States.

The men were honored for developing systems to improve color on film, advancing performance-capture technology, creating new means to light actors in computer-generated scenes and building high-tech scanners used in modern filmmaking. You may have seen the results of their work in films such as "King Kong," "The Lord of the Rings," "Spider-Man 2" and "Iron Man."

While the March 7 Academy Awards ceremony will be all A-list glitz and televised glam, the Sci-Tech Awards are an off-camera, low-key event, with one humble scientist after another taking the stage and nervously thanking his family and colleagues.

Double-winner Tony Sedivy, who helped develop a film scanner and a 3D hardware system, said receiving the academy honors was "the highlight of my life."

Another honoree, Richard Kirk, clutched his golden plaque with a tiny Oscar on it and said, "I only hope one day I can be as awesome as my friends and family will think I am with this."

A jazz quintet played as winners pushed away from their filet mignon and Chilean sea bass dinners to accept their awards on stage. One tried to explain the genesis of his invention to Banks, who shrugged and smiled playfully.

Apolo Ohno is Inpsiring Gold

Source: TIME - USA's Apolo Anton Ohno gestures with seven fingers, the number of Olympic medals he has won, after winning the bronze medal for the men's 1000m short track skating competition at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010.

Usually, when you witness a bit of sports history, euphoria sweeps through the building. But when short-track speedskater Apolo Ohno finished third in the 1,000 meter event on Saturday night, giving him seven career Olympic medals, the most-ever by an American Winter Olympian, you couldn't help feel a little bit like ... "ack." Maybe it was the third-place finish. America tends to like its triumphs golden. But the truth is, while Team USA is now trumpeting Ohno as the "most-decorated" American Winter Olympian of all time, the label is a bit contrived.

Ohno passed Bonnie Blair, the long-track speedskater who won six medals between 1988 and 1994, as the U.S. Winter Olympian with the most hardware. After he crossed the finish line, and saluted the fans waving American flags and Ohno signs — some even sported Ohno's signature soul patch — Ohno held up all five fingers on his left hand, and two on his right. (Watch a video of Ohno training.)

But let's not get overly excited about his medal count. Blair won five golds and a bronze. By any kind of accounting, her haul is more valuable than Ohno's two golds, two silvers, and three bronzes. You can't take away anything from career of Ohno, whose hip looks, fast feet, and dashing name (if he was Frank Smith, would have snared that spot on Dancing With the Stars?) have allowed him to become a rare Winter Olympian who enjoys mainstream fame. He has won medals in three consecutive Olympics, trains ten hours a day to keep his frame chiseled, and is the best chess player in a sport that requires exquisite strategy. In short-track speedskating, you either jump out front and will yourself to hold the lead, or trail the pack and outsmart your opponents at the finish. Luckily for us, Ohno prefers the latter approach: he's awfully fun to watch.

Consider his performance Saturday night. In Ohno's quarterfinal heat, he sat in third place for most of the race (the top two finishers advance to the next round). With the other skaters crowded together in front of him — the athletes are so bunched up while circling around the 111-meter track, it looks like they're competing in somebody's kitchen — Ohno's quest was in serious danger. But his patience and mental acuity finally paid off. Ohno spotted an opening, and quickly slipped past Germany's Tyson Heung. If you looked down to take a sip of your soda, you might have missed this maneuver. Ohno held on to advance. (See the latest photos from the Olympics in Vancouver.)

In the semifinals, Ohno waited until the last lap to make his move. Running third once again, he floated to the outside, then zipped inside pass another skater. How he didn't scrape the blocks and get disqualified was a miracle. And in the finals, he was ensconced in second place with two and a half laps to go. "In my head I thought the race was mine," he says. Then he slipped and fell from second to fifth but summoned the strength and speed to recover from this seemingly disastrous error, and finished third to win the bronze.

In clinching his seventh medal, Ohno turned in a clutch performance. On the whole, however, Ohno has been extraordinarily lucky in the Olympics. During the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, Kim Dong-sung from South Korea crossed the finish line first in the 1,500-meter race. Ohno trailed behind him, and finished second. After Dong-sung started waving the Korean flag during his victory lap, the judges disqualified him for blocking Ohno. South Korea was furious, and took out their frustration on the American. Ohno received death threats.

South Korea's anti-Ohno sentiment was rekindled in Vancouver. In the 1,500-meter race on Feb. 13, two South Koreans skaters crashed on the last turn, allowing Ohno to move past them into second place. Afterward, Ohno said he might have won gold if the winner, South Korea's Lee Jung-Su, hadn't obstructed him. The Koreans accused Ohno of playing dirty. "Ohno didn't deserve to stand on the same medal platform as me," said Lee. When asked Saurday night if she liked Ohno, A Reum Han, a skating fan who traveled from Soeul to be at the Games, slowly shook her head. "No, to be frank," she said.

After Saturday's race, I asked Ohno if he felt, in his mind, like he was the greatest Winter Olympian of all-time. He dodged. "That's a very hard question," he said. "How do you answer that? ... I never came into these Olympic games trying to break records. I do this sport because I love it. My goal here was to pour my heart and soul into these Olympic games. I have no regrets."

Ohno has two more races left in Vancouver, the 500 meters and the 5,000-meter relay. (The finals for both events are Feb. 26.) Another gold would more firmly cement his Olympic legacy. "There's not many athletes that come in back-to-back Olympics games and medal," Ohno says. "Very, very few. For me to be able to do it three games, I'm very happy. I'm very blessed." And he's justifiably proud of Saturday's finish. "I had that big slip, lost my speed, then I saw everybody flying by me," he says of the 1,000-meter final. "And I'm like, 'oh boy, there's not a lot of time left, I have to kind of crank it up.' I was able to fight hard, come back, regroup mentally. I was very happy I was able to win a bronze medal. Number seven." A record. It's just too bad a few more aren't gold.

Inside America's Coolest Workplace

Source: Inc.com - Pro skateboarder Rob Dyrdek has built a business empire of more than a dozen ventures. They are all run out of the Fantasy Factory, his office near Los Angeles, which features an indoor skate plaza. Take a look inside America's coolest workplace.

Rob Dyrdek is always on the move. Which might make sense for a skateboarding icon comfortable with tricks called the nose blunt and crooked grind. But these days, the serial entrepreneur spends about as much time behind a desk. Or in a recording studio. Or in network pitch meetings. Or even jockeying a horse. As president of Dyrdek Enterprises, he's got his hands in at least a dozen ventures -- including the Rogue Status and DTA clothing lines, the ISX Instant Scoring eXperience, and Wild Grinders, the toy line based on his own childhood skate gang that he's now turning into an animated series. Next on the agenda? A professional skateboarding league -- what Dyrdek, perhaps the sport's most prominent ambassador today, says just may end up being his legacy. Keep in mind, he's 35.

Dyrdek's home each business day is known as the Fantasy Factory, a 25,000-square-foot warehouse in downtown Los Angeles equipped with an indoor skate plaza, 50-foot basketball hoops, a foam pit, and something called a T-Rex, a three-wheeled "superbike" he likes to whip around in.

It also serves as the backdrop for his reality show on MTV, now entering its third season. Each episode tends to center around a new project involving the company, with much of the action taking place upstairs in "Corpo," where his office staff works.

Dyrdek recently granted Inc. an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the Fantasy Factory, where he opened up about what drives him as an entrepreneur, the importance of authenticity in business, and why someone with more than 1 million friends and followers thinks social media is the most "overhyped" thing in media today.

Read the entire interview here at Inc.com

Jim Carrey on Truly Living

Source: eckharttolletv.com - Jim Carrey as you have never seen him before. His honest, candid, humble self discussing openly his life-long pursuit for meaning and purpose, his encounters with Awakening and his optimistic view of the emerging "New Earth." Recorded at the 2009 Inaugural GATE Event (Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment) Video was Shot and Produced by Eckhart Tolle TV. Eckhart Tolle TV is an online video network offering of transformational video content featuring Eckhart Tolle & Kim Eng.

Watch the clip below:

Music That Changed History and Still Resonates

Source: NY Times.com - Half a dozen legislators sat a few feet away, under the crystal chandeliers of the East Room of the White House, as Bob Dylan sang “The Times They Are A-Changin,” poker-faced.

“Come senators, congressman, please heed the call,” he rasped. “Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall.” His tone was rough but almost wistful; he had turned his old exhortation into an autumnal waltz. Afterward, he stepped offstage and shook President Obama’s hand.

It was part of “In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement.” The program was the Black History Month event in Michelle Obama’s continuing music series at the White House, and will be broadcast Thursday night on PBS.

It was not lost on anyone that Mr. Obama is America’s first African-American president. “The civil rights movement was a movement sustained by music,” Mr. Obama said in opening remarks. The music, he said, “was inspired by the movement and gave strength in return.”

Mr. Dylan shared the bill, though not the stage, with fellow musicians who regularly sang at civil-rights rallies in the early 1960s — Joan Baez, and Bernice Johnson Reagon with the Freedom Singers — and a cross-generational gathering of performers: Smokey Robinson, Jennifer Hudson, John Mellencamp, Yolanda Adams, Natalie Cole, the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Howard University Choir.

With a new snowstorm moving in on the already snowy capital, the program took place a day early. In the afternoon, Mr. Robinson, Ms. Adams, the Freedom Singers and the Blind Boys sang for schoolchildren in the State Dining Room.

If any music can claim to have changed history, it was the songs of the civil rights movement. Rooted in the hymns, gospel and rural ballads of the southland they set out to change, civil rights songs seized a moral high ground with their melodies as well as their words.

The lyrics followed through with the eloquence of sermons and slave songs, transforming them into both topical agitprop and long-term bulwarks of resolve — songs like “Eyes on the Prize,” which Mr. Mellencamp, after reminiscing about the teenage African-American bandmate who taught him how to sing and dance, turned into pugnacious slide-guitar rock.

There was other music directly from the civil rights movement, but the night wasn’t all protest songs and repurposed gospel hymns. It ranged through the 1960s, and into the 1970s when Ms. Cole sang Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” from 1971. The tone of the program shifted between celebration and reflection; Mr. Robinson, in a peculiar choice, performed “Abraham, Martin and John,” Dion DiMucci’s elegy for murdered leaders.

Ms. Baez called for a singalong from the invited audience, and got one, on “We Shall Overcome.” She recalled the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s deciding to protest the Vietnam War.

Before she sang, she told Mr. and Mrs. Obama, “You are so much loved.”

The night kept circling back to gospel. Ms. Adams, a gospel luminary, sang Sam Cooke’s hymnlike “A Change Is Gonna Come,” starting gently and growing joyfully vehement. Jennifer Hudson and Mr. Robinson traded lines on “People Get Ready,” a gospel song that was remade into a pop hit. Ms. Cole sang “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” with a New Orleans backbeat, but a closing gospel flourish. Mr. Obama joined the closing all-star singalong for “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” often known as the black national anthem.

Some of the songs sounded ready to accompany new struggles. Ms. Reagon led the Freedom Singers as a trio, wearing African-tinged choir robes and backed by her daughter Toshi on guitar. The Freedom Singers, who sang for rallies alongside Dr. King, are elderly now, but they tore into “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round” with fierce, jubilant call-and-response. Ms. Reagon paused the music partway through to instruct the audience.

“You have to actually sing this song,” she said. “You can never tell when you might need it.”

Watch Clip:

Damien Rice Mesmerizes Audience at the Santa Barbara Film Festival

As we mentioned last week, Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice flew in to Santa Barbara for a very special live performance prior to the screening of Dirk Simon's powerful documentary entitled When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun.

With his acoustic guitar in hand and without a microphone, Damien quietly stepped onto the stage of Santa Barbara's intimate Victoria Hall Theater to perform the film's title song "What If I'm Wrong?" You could hear a pin drop in a standing-room only crowd as Damien eloquently channeled the painful confusion of emotions that only conflict can bring. The final verse was song by a beautiful and mysterious female vocalist (will update asap) who could be Lisa Hannigan's replacement following the duo's split a few years back.

According to Wiki, Damien is known for his charity work. He has helped the Freedom Campaign, the Burma Campaign UK and the U.S. Campaign for Burma to free Burmese democracy movement leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is presently being subjected to her third term of house arrest in Rangoon by the Burmese military junta. Aung San Suu Kyi has been confined to her home since September 2003. Rice and Hannigan recorded a charity song, campaigning for her release, called "Unplayed Piano", which they performed at the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo. In addition, Rice has links to various charitable non-governmental organizations.

"In 2008, he participated in a music album called Songs for Tibet, which is an initiative to support Tibet, Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso and to underline the human rights situation in Tibet."

Now, enjoy this clip of the mesmerizing performance below:

Check out this interview of Damien Rice talking about life, change, success and more:

Lillian Bassman, the Return of an Icon

Source: LA Times - She helped define fashion photography before taking 20 years off. At 93, she is in the midst of a career renaissance.

To set eyes on a photo by Lillian Bassman is mesmerizing. The image, usually that of a striking woman, hits with the force of an epiphany. Suddenly those heroin chic ad campaigns of the '90s seem shopworn and flat. And the clunkily posed spread in this month's glossy feels oh-so-forced.

In the '50s and '60s, when Bassman clicked her shutter, she created a visual time capsule. One wonders, eyeing the elegant angle of a gloved arm or the mysterious tilt of a hat, "If I stare long enough at this picture, will I hear the rustle of taffeta and tulle swaying? The low and beckoning incantations of Sinatra?" It's as if the photographer had the ability to manipulate time.

Bassman was considered one of the preeminent fashion photographers of the 20th century when she suddenly withdrew from the scene. But, now, at age 93, she is in the midst of a renaissance, prompted back to work almost by accident. And renewed interest in her legacy has led to a new book and exhibitions around the world, including a stunning retrospective, "Lillian Bassman: Women," at the Peter Fetterman Gallery in Santa Monica. Her pictures, some not seen for decades, capture and immortalize the style of an era.

They say every picture tells a story. Here's Lillian Bassman's, in her favorite timeless black-and-white.

Her parents, Russian Jewish immigrants, ascended to a middle-class life in the Bronx in the 1920s. One summer, her mother took 6-year-old Lillian to Coney Island. While there, Mom earned a few extra dollars waitressing for the Himmels, who were dear friends. And, because it was beshert -- meant to be -- Lillian met their son Paul, an older chap of 9, who, in time, became her betrothed and a respected photographer in his own right. But it was another man, design genius Alexey Brodovitch, who was to chart her future.

After taking Brodovitch's prestigious design lab class, Bassman secured an internship as his assistant at Harper's Bazaar. She flourished, and in 1945, when Junior Bazaar debuted, she shared the masthead with Brodovitch as art director. Not only did she conceptualize layouts, but she too charted futures -- notably fostering the work of Richard Avedon (who would remain a lifelong friend). Continue Reading Here...

Nathaniel Ayers: The Soloist Creating First Album

Source: Culture Monster - Nathaniel Ayers, the musician whose battle with mental illness was chronicled in The Times by columnist Steve Lopez, is working on his first recording.

Lopez reports that the recording session recently took place at a studio in Silver Lake, with the participation of bass player Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The CD is titled "Putting on Ayers" and will be available in several weeks at the Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Foundation, with proceeds benefiting arts programs at mental health agencies.

The recording features Ayers playing the cello, piano, bass and trumpet. In addition to Flea, Ayers is joined by two musicians from the Los Angeles Philharmonic -- keyboardist Joanne Pearce Martin and violinist Robert Gupta.

A video of Ayers playing the cello, with Martin on the piano, is viewable on the website for KCET.

Read Lopez's full story here.

Ralph Walroth, 94: Living Loving Life

Source: Daily News- Glendale's oldest city employee kneels down early Monday morning to pick up a few dozen books that have been deposited in the book drop at the Central Library over the weekend.

"The art and reference books are the toughest," 94-year-old Ralph Walroth says. "Some of them weigh 10 pounds. My goodness. Not as bad as the phone books, though."

The weight doesn't seem to bother him. In 10 minutes, Ralph has tossed the heaviest books up on a book truck like they're dime novels.

Just because he turned 94 last week doesn't mean the staff is going to cut Ralph any slack, says his supervisor, Henry Dagbashyan, who wasn't even born when Ralph started the job in 1983.

"He works hard and is always on time," Dagbashyan said, watching Ralph stack books back on the shelves. "Every employee here admires him. To be doing what he's doing at his age, well, he's one pretty amazing guy."

He's slowing down a bit, though, Ralph admits. He puts in about 20 hours a month these days, down from his high of 20 hours a week after retiring from Lockheed, where he worked for 41 years, in 1978.

"After you paint the house, plant the garden, and fix whatever needs fixing, what are you supposed to do - play golf all day?" he asks.

No, not even a golfer - which he is - could fill all those empty hours and get the mental stimulation he needed.

So after taking four years off to finish the lengthy "honey do" list his wife, Eileen, handed him, Ralph walked over to the Chevy Chase library branch near his home and got a job driving the van that delivers books to other branch libraries.

"When they said they needed someone at the main library, I came down here," he says, putting a stack of telephone books back on the shelves.

"And I've been here ever since, with no plans to leave."

For his birthday party last week, Glendale Assistant City Manager Bob McFall made waffles for Ralph and the library staff. It's something he does for many city special occasions and milestones.

"It's a little something, a kind of reward for a job well done," McFall says.

Whether you're a department head running the city or the guy putting returned books back on library shelves.

The oldest city employee in town.

Leo and Co. Seize the Moment

Source: CelebsGoneGood - After just donating a whopping $1 mil to help Haiti last month, Leonardo DiCaprio is already at it again!

There’s no surprise as to why he made the top 10 on our Top 20 Celebs Gone Good list back in November. He’s teamed up with Chace Crawford, Emmy Rossum, Justin Long, Jason Bateman, and more in a special video for “This is Our Moment” to mobilize the country towards working towards a cleaner, greener future.

“This is Our Moment” is the Natural Resources Defense Council’s new web-based video campaign that encourages Americans to actively participate in preserving the community by speaking to their legislative representatives via email and online videos. The campaign pushes for citizens to urge their senators to help pass climate legislation that is essential to help recharge the economy, reduce pollution and curb global warming, and create more jobs.

Seize the moment and check out what the A-list supporters have to say about how you can help to get the “Clean Energy, Jobs and American Power Act” passed in the Senate!

See the clip of Leo here:

Seth Godin on Standing Out

Source: TED - "Seth Godin may be the ultimate entrepreneur for the Information Age," Mary Kuntz wrote in Business Week nearly a decade ago. "Instead of widgets or car parts, he specializes in ideas -- usually, but not always, his own." In fact, he's as focused on spreading ideas as he is on the ideas themselves.

After working as a software brand manager in the mid-1980s, Godin started Yoyodyne, one of the first Internet-based direct-marketing firms, with the notion that companies needed to rethink how they reached customers. His efforts caught the attention of Yahoo!, which bought the company in 1998 and kept Godin on as a vice president of permission marketing. Godin has produced several critically acclaimed and attention-grabbing books, including Permission Marketing, All Marketers Are Liars, and Purple Cow (which was distributed in a milk carton). In 2005, Godin founded Squidoo.com, a Web site where users can share links and information about an idea or topic important to them.

"[Godin] is a demigod on the Web, a best-selling author, highly sought-after lecturer, successful entrepreneur, respected pundit and high-profile blogger. He is uniquely respected for his understanding of the Internet." - Forbes

Watch the clip below: