Journalism
How the Chicanas of Eastside Mujeres Network are Fighting to End Violence Against Women - LA Weekly
The Eastside Mujeres Network is a collective of lawyers, social workers, church organizers, mothers, bike punks, artists, jiu-jitsu masters and filmmakers taking to the streets of L.A.'s eastern neighborhoods and flooding social media with the rallying cries "Where are our sisters?" and "All violence is public." They demand compassion and answers for women who are assaulted in their homes or attacked in the street, for women who have disappeared, and for women who turn up dead.
On Television, Finally, Los Angeles is no Longer Just Backdrop - LA Weekly
Comedies and dramas are no longer recycling shots of palms on Canon Drive or babes on Santa Monica beaches but taking us deep into neighborhoods unfamiliar to many viewers — Eagle Rock, El Sereno, East L.A., Echo Park, Panorama City and Northridge in the Valley — and redefining the city as a character.
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Television and movies used to tell us that people came here to escape their troubles or chase their dreams. But more and more, people are coming to live. It's a point of origin, a place where stories begin. And writers, producers and directors are increasingly telling those stories — nuanced, pained, euphoric love stories of the city, not just picture postcards.
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Television and movies used to tell us that people came here to escape their troubles or chase their dreams. But more and more, people are coming to live. It's a point of origin, a place where stories begin. And writers, producers and directors are increasingly telling those stories — nuanced, pained, euphoric love stories of the city, not just picture postcards.
This Professor Turned to Erotic Fiction to Promote Social Change - Washington Post
“Uptown Thief” is a lusty tale about a team of high-end escorts who rob New York City’s elite to fund a clinic and shelter for women beat up by pimps or kicked out of their homes for working the streets.
The protagonist, Marisol Rivera, realizes early on that doing full-service sex work is the best way she can pay for an apartment and an education for her and her teenage sister. Rather than painting her as morally bankrupt or helpless, de León makes Marisol the hero.
“In my perspective, politically, the problem isn’t sex work or sex workers’ choices,” de León says. “The problem is male financial domination of the world.”
The protagonist, Marisol Rivera, realizes early on that doing full-service sex work is the best way she can pay for an apartment and an education for her and her teenage sister. Rather than painting her as morally bankrupt or helpless, de León makes Marisol the hero.
“In my perspective, politically, the problem isn’t sex work or sex workers’ choices,” de León says. “The problem is male financial domination of the world.”
Finding the heart in health care - Mills Quarterly
Increasingly, the concept of health equity is being raised in the public health field. This involves acknowledging that the greatest threats to good health for Americans are preventable diseases that often stem from nonmedical factors, including lack of safe housing, steady employment, and quality education, as well as discrimination or bias. Poverty, language barriers, social or geographic isolation, and institutional racism also play a role, and many of these factors contribute to higher rates of chronic illness and disability among marginalized groups.
“Good health shouldn’t depend on your zip code, race, or gender,” explains Mills College Biology Professor Jared Young. “There are inequities across those kinds of categories that don’t need to exist, and there are ways that we can address them.”
“Good health shouldn’t depend on your zip code, race, or gender,” explains Mills College Biology Professor Jared Young. “There are inequities across those kinds of categories that don’t need to exist, and there are ways that we can address them.”
Can the Nation's Largest Writers' Conference Transcend Lit's Lack of Diversity? - LA Weekly
I was reading Claudia Rankine’s book Citizen: An American Lyric in a hotel bar in downtown Los Angeles Saturday afternoon when I got a series of texts from my partner, who was in Ventura County, sitting by a lake and writing poetry. The police were harassing him. Three white men with guns. He is brown-skinned and has a thick beard. They’d threatened to tase our dog, a rambunctious puppy. “I’m so scared,” he wrote me.
I was at the annual conference for AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs), tasked with reporting on how the national conversation on race, equity and inclusion in the media was reflected at the nation’s largest writerly gathering.
Rankine — whose prose-poetry book made the New York Times best-seller list and achieved social media fame when a woman photographed herself reading it at a Trump rally — gave the keynote address at AWP on Thursday. At the conference’s featured event, she told the crowd that writing cannot be separated from politics, that racism is an issue that affects everyone.
I was at the annual conference for AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs), tasked with reporting on how the national conversation on race, equity and inclusion in the media was reflected at the nation’s largest writerly gathering.
Rankine — whose prose-poetry book made the New York Times best-seller list and achieved social media fame when a woman photographed herself reading it at a Trump rally — gave the keynote address at AWP on Thursday. At the conference’s featured event, she told the crowd that writing cannot be separated from politics, that racism is an issue that affects everyone.
Westlake Activists Lose Fight Against Restaurants, Bar Across From School - LA Weekly
For the last year and a half, a block of vacant storefronts on Seventh Street and Burlington Avenue has become the epicenter of controversy over development in Westlake, which is sandwiched between rapidly changing downtown and Koreatown.
Father and son Erwin and Mark Sokol want to open four full-service restaurants and a lounge/nightclub in the long-vacant buildings, which their family has owned for 70 years. But a grassroots neighborhood group, Westlake Advocacy, opposes the development. Its members, who are mostly students in their teens and 20s, working mothers and retirees, say they don’t want businesses that serve alcohol and operate late at night across the street from the neighborhood’s two elementary schools.
Father and son Erwin and Mark Sokol want to open four full-service restaurants and a lounge/nightclub in the long-vacant buildings, which their family has owned for 70 years. But a grassroots neighborhood group, Westlake Advocacy, opposes the development. Its members, who are mostly students in their teens and 20s, working mothers and retirees, say they don’t want businesses that serve alcohol and operate late at night across the street from the neighborhood’s two elementary schools.
Do You Have to Sue to Get the City of L.A. to Design With Pedestrians in Mind? - LA Weekly
Just a few months after agreeing to spend $1.3 billion in sidewalk repairs to settle a lawsuit under the Americans With Disabilities Act, Los Angeles City Hall is facing new legal charges from pedestrian groups.
Don Ward and Angelenos for a Great Hyperion Bridge are suing to halt a redesign of the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge, saying the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act by not fully considering pedestrian and bike safety in its $50 million bridge seismic retrofit and renovation.
Don Ward and Angelenos for a Great Hyperion Bridge are suing to halt a redesign of the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge, saying the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act by not fully considering pedestrian and bike safety in its $50 million bridge seismic retrofit and renovation.
Mills president resigns after 20-year tenure - Oakland Tribune
The toll of the Julia Morgan clock tower sounded each day through the bay windows of Janet Holmgren's office, marking the end of another hour on the lush, ecalyptus-scented 135-acre campus of Mills College. When Holmgren became president in 1991, a year after the famous student-led strike that kept the college from turning coed.
Gender disparities persist at colleges, researchers find - Oakland Tribune
Researchers at Princeton University, in a yearlong study of the school's student body published in March, found that women achieved fewer high-level leadership roles, highest academic honors and postgraduate fellowships than men. Though women often did the strategic, behind-the-scenes work necessary to keep a campus organization on track, they were less likely to run for high office at the school.
A Duke study from 2002 coined the term, "effortless perfection" which women students defined as the expectation to be smart, accomplished, fit, beautiful and popular — all without visible effort.
A Duke study from 2002 coined the term, "effortless perfection" which women students defined as the expectation to be smart, accomplished, fit, beautiful and popular — all without visible effort.
String Theory: A physician's second act as a violin maker - University of Chicago Magazine
Bill Sloan, a urologist, has been an amateur violinist most of his life and a collector and enthusiast for decades. Now he’s also become a luthier, a maker of stringed instruments. He’s completed three violins and is working on a fourth. “Bill is somewhat like the old patrons of music from the 19th century,” says David Wilson, a professional musician who plays viola in the quartet with Sloan. “A patron, but also a participant.”
Sloan and Wilson sit in the music room of Sloan’s Los Angeles home with an array of instruments laid out in front of them—the great 1742 Guarneri and 1714 Stradivari, along with two of Sloan’s own handmade violins. He modeled both after the Guarneri—a “del Gesù,” the most prized of the Guarneri family’s violins. In turn, Sloan plays “Ashokan Farewell” and Wilson plays “Lili Marleen” on Sloan’s Number 3 handmade violin, its back carved from a piece of wood that French bow maker Bernard Millant cut in 1960 and later gave to Sloan. The deep, rich strains fill the room. “It’s the closest one I’ve ever made to an old violin,” says Sloan.
Sloan and Wilson sit in the music room of Sloan’s Los Angeles home with an array of instruments laid out in front of them—the great 1742 Guarneri and 1714 Stradivari, along with two of Sloan’s own handmade violins. He modeled both after the Guarneri—a “del Gesù,” the most prized of the Guarneri family’s violins. In turn, Sloan plays “Ashokan Farewell” and Wilson plays “Lili Marleen” on Sloan’s Number 3 handmade violin, its back carved from a piece of wood that French bow maker Bernard Millant cut in 1960 and later gave to Sloan. The deep, rich strains fill the room. “It’s the closest one I’ve ever made to an old violin,” says Sloan.
The SFJAZZ Center and the Rise of the Nonprofit Model - East Bay Express
Suzanna Smith, an Oakland jazz vocalist, is tired of hearing the question "Is jazz dead?" The mercurial nature of the jazz scene couldn't be any more evident than in the Bay Area. Perhaps the better question, than "Is jazz dead?" is "Are jazz clubs dead?" Civic leaders, educators, and music historians seem thrilled by the growing reach of jazz via the nonprofit model, but jazz music will always depend on a connection between the audience and the stage, a connection that happens more naturally in a club.
Kan Wakan's Cinematic Soundscapes - KCET's Artbound
The song "Forever Found," which has accrued the most plays on Soundcloud
and YouTube for Kan Wakan, opens with rich, anticipatory orchestral
strains, like the beginning to Etta James's "At Last," then shifts into a
soupy trip hop groove, with a violin riding high over multiple guitars,
drums, bass and keys, and Bautista's strong, sultry voice rising and
falling with the changes.
Linev says the song is lyrically inspired by Leonard Cohen's narrative storytelling and musically influenced by 60s and 70s French pop, like Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Vannier. The verses are a series of warnings from family members, building an eerie tableau of wandering and redemption.
Linev says the song is lyrically inspired by Leonard Cohen's narrative storytelling and musically influenced by 60s and 70s French pop, like Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Vannier. The verses are a series of warnings from family members, building an eerie tableau of wandering and redemption.
The Trans Activist Who Interrupted Obama Is Still Yelling - LA Weekly
Jennicet Gutiérrez had been living in fear most of her life. At 15, she crossed the border from Mexico to join her mother and eight siblings in the San Fernando Valley, and every time she had to apply for identification, she was terrified her undocumented status would be discovered.
But that was just one of her problems. She also identified as transgender, so she shrank further from anything that would draw attention. She wouldn’t raise her hand in class in high school and college, and she asked friends to order drinks for her when they went to bars.
All that changed last summer, when Gutiérrez decided to no longer live in hiding. She made national headlines in June when she interrupted President Barack Obama at an LGBT Pride event at the White House, demanding the release of all LGBTQ immigrants from detention.
But that was just one of her problems. She also identified as transgender, so she shrank further from anything that would draw attention. She wouldn’t raise her hand in class in high school and college, and she asked friends to order drinks for her when they went to bars.
All that changed last summer, when Gutiérrez decided to no longer live in hiding. She made national headlines in June when she interrupted President Barack Obama at an LGBT Pride event at the White House, demanding the release of all LGBTQ immigrants from detention.
How Mexico's Zapatistas Helped Inspire a Feminist, Chicana Art Movement in East L.A. - L.A. Weekly
In the summer of 1997, 30 Chicana and Chicano artists from East L.A. traveled to Oventic, a village in Chiapas, Mexico, to commune with the Zapatistas, indigenous rebels who rose up three years earlier to reject corporate globalization policies that threatened their way of life.
The Zapatistas declared their native lands autonomous the same day in 1994 that the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented, which led to the economic devastation of hundreds of thousands of small-scale Mexican farms. The Zapatistas started their own schools, sewed their own clothing, grew their own food — and they continue to do so today. “It’s inspiring, the philosophy that you have a right as a human being on this earth to live how you and your community see fit,” says Martha Gonzalez, lead singer of East L.A. rock band Quetzal, who went to Chiapas that summer.
The Zapatistas declared their native lands autonomous the same day in 1994 that the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented, which led to the economic devastation of hundreds of thousands of small-scale Mexican farms. The Zapatistas started their own schools, sewed their own clothing, grew their own food — and they continue to do so today. “It’s inspiring, the philosophy that you have a right as a human being on this earth to live how you and your community see fit,” says Martha Gonzalez, lead singer of East L.A. rock band Quetzal, who went to Chiapas that summer.
A Lifelong Star Wars Fanatic Literally Wrote the Book on Princess Leia - LA Weekly
At the end of the first Star Wars film, Han Solo sends Darth Vader’s TIE fighter spinning off into space moments before Luke Skywalker fires the photon torpedoes that destroy the Death Star in an ellipsis of light. In 1977, as 7-year-old Cecil Castellucci was watching that scene in a Manhattan movie theater, she jumped up, grabbed her dad’s arm and declared, “There’s going to be another movie!”
“It was the first time I understood that stories could continue, and that it was someone’s job to tell that story,” she says. “Everything comes back to that moment.”
Today, as the author of 15 young-adult novels, Castellucci has built her life around telling stories — and her lifelong dedication to Star Wars has paid off. Last year, Michael Siglain of Lucasfilm Press tapped her to pen one of a series of companion novels that came out a few months before 2015’s The Force Awakens.
“It was the first time I understood that stories could continue, and that it was someone’s job to tell that story,” she says. “Everything comes back to that moment.”
Today, as the author of 15 young-adult novels, Castellucci has built her life around telling stories — and her lifelong dedication to Star Wars has paid off. Last year, Michael Siglain of Lucasfilm Press tapped her to pen one of a series of companion novels that came out a few months before 2015’s The Force Awakens.
Feminist Artists Speak out in #YesAllWomen Benefit Show - LA Weekly
Photographer Jessie Askinazi says she wanted to use the momentum of popular feminism to support organizations working on the ground that are “fighting tooth and nail to get women services and support they need,” such as East Los Angeles Women's Center, which serves thousands of women each year with its bilingual, 24-hour crisis hotline, as well as with counseling, child care, self-defense and HIV support services.
It didn’t hurt that Askinazi had a few famous friends to help out: actress-director Rose McGowan and musician Kathleen Hanna, of '90s riot grrrl punk band Bikini Kill and feminist electro-pop trio Le Tigre.
It didn’t hurt that Askinazi had a few famous friends to help out: actress-director Rose McGowan and musician Kathleen Hanna, of '90s riot grrrl punk band Bikini Kill and feminist electro-pop trio Le Tigre.
In Her Image - Mills Quarterly
What happens when women produce, examine, and reclaim images of themselves? Several imaginative projects by Mills alumnae have shown that such actions are steps towards self-determination, empowerment, and equality.
Before & After, a project designed by Esther Honig ’12, examines beauty standards across cultures. It went viral last summer, picked up by CNN, Elle, Time, The Atlantic, and Good Morning America. Jennifer Bermon ’93 has been showing women’s strength and vulnerability in her photo series Her | Self, which pairs black-and-white photographs of women with their own handwritten response to the image. She started the proj- ect at Mills the year she graduated, and continues to seek out women and their stories today. And this past March, Hazel Streete ’11, MBA ’13, unveiled the mural Her Resilience in Oakland’s Park Community Garden, featuring images of women who have suffered urban or domestic violence. Each of these Mills graduates and their thought-provoking projects aims to return the power of representation, and self-representation, to women.
Before & After, a project designed by Esther Honig ’12, examines beauty standards across cultures. It went viral last summer, picked up by CNN, Elle, Time, The Atlantic, and Good Morning America. Jennifer Bermon ’93 has been showing women’s strength and vulnerability in her photo series Her | Self, which pairs black-and-white photographs of women with their own handwritten response to the image. She started the proj- ect at Mills the year she graduated, and continues to seek out women and their stories today. And this past March, Hazel Streete ’11, MBA ’13, unveiled the mural Her Resilience in Oakland’s Park Community Garden, featuring images of women who have suffered urban or domestic violence. Each of these Mills graduates and their thought-provoking projects aims to return the power of representation, and self-representation, to women.
Vote About Glendale-Hyperion Bridge Could Dash Neighbors' Hopes for Better Sidewalks - LA Weekly
As community activists from Los Feliz, Silver Lake and Atwater Village battle over whether a redesign of Glendale-Hyperion Bridge should be more car-friendly, or more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly, a Caltrans official's testimony has debunked the city's claim that L.A. would lose several million dollars in design funding if the Los Angeles City Council doesn't vote for a redesign by the end of June. The council's vote is tomorrow.
A Theater Troupe Is Biking a Play Across the Country - LA Weekly
What would happen if the California drought caused such degradation that everyone was forced to abandon the West and migrate east? That’s the premise of Oakland-based theater troupe Agile Rascal Traveling Bicycle Theatre's inaugural play, Sunlight on the Brink.
But this isn’t your typical slice-of-life apocalyptic drama. The play both explores and enacts migration, as the artists themselves are taking the play across the county — by bicycle.
But this isn’t your typical slice-of-life apocalyptic drama. The play both explores and enacts migration, as the artists themselves are taking the play across the county — by bicycle.
What's the Best Way to Connect L.A.'s Tri-Hipster Area, With Cars or Bikes? - LA Weekly
Glendale-Hyperion Bridge has been mired in controversy since the city announced plans for an extensive bridge retrofit a few years ago.
Some support a retrofitting plan that would remove one car lane to make room for bike lanes and sidewalks on both sides of the bridge, an option backed by many bicyclists and pedestrian advocates. Others, led by neighborhood groups on the Atwater Village side of the river, want to keep the bridge's four car lanes and eliminate a sidewalk on one side of the bridge to allow for bicycles.
Some support a retrofitting plan that would remove one car lane to make room for bike lanes and sidewalks on both sides of the bridge, an option backed by many bicyclists and pedestrian advocates. Others, led by neighborhood groups on the Atwater Village side of the river, want to keep the bridge's four car lanes and eliminate a sidewalk on one side of the bridge to allow for bicycles.
Carla Fernandez Created a Dinner Circuit for Millennials Who Lost Their Parents Young - LA Weekly
There is something uniquely millennial about Fernandez's approach to coping with grief — a sense of disruption, a determined pluck. She uses terms such as "activate" and "necessity breeds invention," talks about "branding" grief so that young workaholics, like her, can create a space for it. She didn't find anything in the grief industry that resonated with her.
Tabitha Soren of MTV News Is Now an Artist, and She's Photographing Baseball Players - LA Weekly
For the past five years, Tabitha Soren has been asking people to give her their bone spurs — calcium deposits that grow along joints or bones — ever since a baseball pitcher gave her one he had surgically removed after from a repetitive stress injury.
Many will remember Soren as the face of MTV News’s 1992 Choose or Loose voting campaign, back when she was running around collecting interviews with people like Bill Clinton and Tupac Shakur. Since leaving television news in 1999, Soren hasn’t resurfaced as an anthropologist or eccentric collector. The bone spurs are part of her new fine art photography exhibition about the American dream, or, more specifically, about baseball.
Many will remember Soren as the face of MTV News’s 1992 Choose or Loose voting campaign, back when she was running around collecting interviews with people like Bill Clinton and Tupac Shakur. Since leaving television news in 1999, Soren hasn’t resurfaced as an anthropologist or eccentric collector. The bone spurs are part of her new fine art photography exhibition about the American dream, or, more specifically, about baseball.
Can't Go to your Friend's Birthday Party? Hire Someone - LA Weekly
As soon as DaVette See saw Marissa Rosado’s task pop up on her TaskRabbit app she
grabbed it, knowing it was perfect for her. “DaVette’s experience was
exactly what I was looking for,” Rosado says. “She had a background in
theater, and she loved the idea.” Rosado also liked that See looked
completely different than her, which she thought would make things even
more fun.
See combed through her wardrobe for the most accurate outfit (glasses, skinny jeans and tank, oversized cardigan, ballerina flats). “There is a performance element to all tasks,” See says. “I always try to give them a little bit extra.” That’s probably why she gets so much work and earned the label Elite Tasker.
See combed through her wardrobe for the most accurate outfit (glasses, skinny jeans and tank, oversized cardigan, ballerina flats). “There is a performance element to all tasks,” See says. “I always try to give them a little bit extra.” That’s probably why she gets so much work and earned the label Elite Tasker.
CODEPink's Jodie Evans on Feminism and Beauty Standards - LA Weekly
“For me, feminism is about equality. So, when someone works for a
Wall Street firm and says they’re a feminist, my eyes are going to
roll,” Evans says. She equates feminism with socialism, so equality for
women isn’t just getting a place in the boardroom. It's also about not
bombing women in Iraq.
“But I’m a radical,” she adds with a chuckle.
“But I’m a radical,” she adds with a chuckle.
Miranda July's Tween-y New App - LA Weekly
Though all the characters in July's companion film find each other instantly and convey deeply important messages of love, heartbreak, and lust… in the real world, the app is incredibly cumbersome and inefficient, its messages more novelty than life changing. Still, Somebody’s quirks and inefficiencies only add to its central purpose—encouraging users to experience something surprising, unexpected, and rife with overblown, awkward emotions. In my five-hour experiment with Somebody on its launch day, in fact, I cycled through all the crucial feelings of being a tween again._
Bitch-In: HOODsisters - Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture
In the past couple of years, local artists have been covering the facades of Los Angeles’s predominantly Latino, working class Northeast San Fernando Valley with stunning fine-art murals, transforming the area’s reputation for gang violence to a destination for art and culture. Luz Rodriguez, a graphic artist and arts organizer, says that while many of the new murals are beautiful, they disproportionately present a male perspective.
That’s why, in January 2013, Rodriguez, writer April Aguirre, and muralist Kristy Sandoval, all in their early 30s, formed the feminist muralist collective HOODsisters with a dozen other womyn and womyn-identied artists and activists in the Northeast Valley.
That’s why, in January 2013, Rodriguez, writer April Aguirre, and muralist Kristy Sandoval, all in their early 30s, formed the feminist muralist collective HOODsisters with a dozen other womyn and womyn-identied artists and activists in the Northeast Valley.
Behind the Scenes: Mills Women on Stage and Screen - Mills Quarterly
In 1981, Kathryn Harrold and Treat Williams were on the run from Robert Duvall. They were on the set of The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper, one of the many early eighties films Harrold starred in, and one of the many times the young actress found herself causing a stir.
“The director would say, ‘Treat, take Kathryn’s hand. Help her do it. Help her.’ So, I was always being pulled along behind, and I just kept saying, ‘You know what? I totally have got this. I can run, I can get on this horse by myself, and I think I can even fight these guys if they came,’” Harrold recalls. Eventually, the director listened, and Harrold considered it one small victory in her 35-year career as an actress.
“The director would say, ‘Treat, take Kathryn’s hand. Help her do it. Help her.’ So, I was always being pulled along behind, and I just kept saying, ‘You know what? I totally have got this. I can run, I can get on this horse by myself, and I think I can even fight these guys if they came,’” Harrold recalls. Eventually, the director listened, and Harrold considered it one small victory in her 35-year career as an actress.
A Women's Place is Painting a Mural - LA Weekly
Male artists tend to soak up a lot of the attention given to murals —
with work that sometimes features sexy women. But Sandoval is determined
to show things from a different perspective. In January 2013, she
approached Gregory Faucett, the owner of Stylesville Beauty Salon and
Barbershop on Van Nuys Boulevard, hoping to paint her first solo mural
on the shop's northeast wall. Faucett, whose family opened the shop in
1956, asked only that the subject be black, to represent the area's
African-American population. Sandoval chose one of her personal idols,
Assata Shakur, a former Black Panther, who has been living in exile in
Cuba since 1984. She painted Shakur's image beside the words "A womyn's
place is in the struggle" in bubble letters and a sea of red and yellow
flowers.
A Horizontal Literary Scene - LA Weekly
At their booth, "Publish!", at second annual Grand Park Book Fest, Neelanjana Banerjee, 35, managing editor of Kaya Press, and Judeth Oden Choi of Writ Large Press invite kids and adults alike to write for three minutes at a lineup of manual typewriters, then return at a designated "book launch" time to collate their work with others' contributions, design a cover and leave the table a published writer. This radically communal, performative take on bookish events reflects L.A.'s literary zeitgeist. Kaya Press founder Sunyoung Lee, 42, sees the horizontally-oriented geography of L.A. as the perfect metaphor for what's possible in the literary scene - collaborative publishing and events that bring together voices from diverse ethnicities, classes and neighborhoods across the city.
Feeding the Artist - Mills Quarterly
What sets Mills College's The Business of Being an Artist course apart is the way it zeros in on the intersections among all artistic fields—music, dance, photography, poetry, sculpture—emphasizing that the elements of creative practice are the same across the disciplines: engaging in artistic practice, creating a product, sharing that product with the public through exhibition or publication, and seeking recognition or compensation. By putting artists in conversation with business students and professionals committed to the arts, the class is not only giving individual students the tools to become self-sufficient in pursuing their art, but also ensuring the sustainability of the arts as a whole in today’s technology-driven, entrepreneurial landscape.
Anarchy, Baby: Two Oakland Musicians Balance Touring and Parenthood - East Bay Express
When Neil Campau and Ellen Avis first learned they were going to have a baby, they agreed they didn't want to change their counterculture principles or chosen lifestyle. So, Campau and Avis booked a West Coast tour of DIY spaces and punk houses for a few months after Avis' due date. Campau's anarchist ethos is clearly reflected in Electrician's buzzing distortion, layered guitar loops, and sometimes-cajoling, other times-severe lyrics. In "You Can't Kill Everyone," the closing track of Wet and Ripping the Lake in Two, Avis plays an uplifting, twangy melody on a keyboard while Campau sings, Everybody dies, and I might just die, and you might just die. In many of the songs, his voice is distant and lilting, every syllable pronounced, and many lines hang in the air, as though in a question.
A Mouse Who Paints Still Lifes, and Other Curiosities of Reseda's DIY Art Show - LA Weekly
It's a hazy Sunday afternoon in Reseda, and Chloe Cumbow is gazing down at a 2-foot-high set on her dining room table. Inside, a 3-inch-tall felt mouse, Tilly, stands before a painting of a cup and saucer propped on a tiny easel. Cumbow & Tilly are making a piece of art every day for the month of January as part of Fun-a-Day, a community art project out of West Philly with a DIY, post-punk ethos. Of all the places Fun-a-Day might have popped up in L.A., Reseda may seem the least likely. Located in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, it's a bedroom community with two art-supply stores and no permanent galleries. But Cumbow has proven an ideal driving force to pull off the show in a neighborhood whose artistic cred is on the rise.
Style and Substance - Mills Quarterly
While fashion is an increasingly viable industry for women to advance in, it is also a critical indicator of the global progress of women. According to a 1999 Journal of American Culture article by sociologist Diana Crane, women’s fashion directly correlates with women’s perceived or performed roles, and periods of social change provide opportunities for interpretations of those roles to be re-imagined through fashion. Four Mills alumnae—a newspaper style editor, a Victoria's Secret senior vice president, a recycled fashion couture designer, and a men's fashion for women entrepreneur—directly reflect the ongoing evolution of women’s roles and representations in fashion.
L'Avventura's Vampire Credibility - East Bay Express
Getting ten seconds of airplay on True Blood is a good break for Bay Area indie band L'Avventura and may be the best shot, besides touring, that independent musicians have these days of establishing a fan base and getting paid. "It's the new hit record — getting on television," said lead singer Jeff Davis, who wore Ray-Bans and a polka-dot neck scarf as Belle and Sebastian played on the sunny patio of his popular North Berkeley cafe. Gary Calamar, Grammy-nominated music supervisor for True Blood and Six Feet Under, said over the phone from his home in Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon that he finds original music everywhere—from music blogs to the Hollywood Farmers' market—and that HBO is a uniquely music-conscious network, providing appropriate budgets to show creators who wish to feature original music prominently in their series.
The Golden Era of Bhi Bhiman - East Bay Express
Since the 2012 release of his eponymous Americana album, Bhi Bhiman has performed at a Prince tribute concert at Carnegie Hall, appeared on one of Britain's most popular talk shows, and played a sold-out Scandinavian tour with Roseanne Cash. A recent San Francisco show marked the release of his EP, Substitute Preacher, acoustic covers of Seventies and Eighties rock hits which Bhiman affectionately refers to as the Golden Era of Shit. The amazing thing about Bhiman is that no matter what he plays — a slow, yearning version of "Wild Thing"; the comic polemic "White Man's Burden Blues"; or his deeply melodic hit "Guttersnipe" — his singing is beautiful. Now thirty, Bhiman has been developing his voice for the past ten years, but it sounds like the voice of someone with a lifetime of stories to tell.
Sharing Fido - East Bay Express
In a town of start-ups, where there is a social network for every need, City Dog Share, a free pet-sitting co-op founded in San Francisco in May 2011, stands apart. (Think Couchsurfing.org rather than Airbnb.) Rather than creating micro economies in which neighbors can exchange services for pay — as sites like Rover.com or DogVacay.com do — or following a venture-capitalist model, City Dog Share is a nonprofit whose mission is twofold: to end dog overpopulation and to build communities.
Raw Pet Food Diets on the Rise - East Bay Express
In 2008, Stephanie Suzanne Brendle — a longtime vegan and registered dietician — decided it was time to stock her freezer with raw meat. It wasn't her own diet that Brendle was changing, but her cat's. Five years ago, raw meat diets for pets were still very niche — the trappings of eccentric hippies, obsessive foodies, or the very well-to-do. But today, nearly every pet store and natural grocery in the East Bay sells some variety of frozen or dehydrated raw food.
For the Benefit of Jay Korber - East Bay Express
Late in the evening on December 12, 2012, experimental metal musician Jay Korber was caught in a grisly bicycle accident with a street sweeper that dragged him for 41 feet. He lay in critical condition with a compound fracture of his pelvis, a shattered tailbone, several broken ribs, a torn colon, and a ruptured bladder. Korber's recovery depended on more than surgeons and physical therapists. That's because, like roughly 20 percent of adults in the United States, Korber didn't have health insurance.
Raising Rock's Next Generation - East Bay Express
Every week, rock and jazz drummer, Nick Tamburro, drives four hundred miles from Long Beach to San Francisco for a weekend of work. It's not that there aren't jobs for drum teachers in Los Angeles, but Tamburro, had found a gig in San Francisco that was too good to give up—teaching drums and directing youth bands at the San Francisco Rock Project, a tight-knit community that rose from the ashes of the San Francisco chapter of the decidedly corporate School of Rock.
Get Your Geek On - East Bay Express
There's a new speakeasy in town — one where you can use hot-glue guns, wander through a life-size maze, and sidestep an outdoor waterfall to enjoy a star-dappled panorama of the entire bay. Geek Out, a seasonal series of interactive science events launched last fall at Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science, invites the eighteen-and-over crowd to enjoy the hands-on museum in a way most of us haven't experienced since elementary school field trips.
Teach a Girl, Change the World - Mills Quarterly
The United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative reports that 39 million girls globally are not enrolled in school, and that two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women. Four Mills alumnae are working to educate underserved girls in some of the world’s most economically and socially disadvantaged communities, spurred to action by a shared commitment to using their skills and resources to advance women through the power of education.
Paper, video, tweet - Mills Quarterly
TWO YEARS AGO, while pursuing my I MFA, I agreed to manage the multimedia lab for a reporting class taught by Sarah Pollock, professor of English and head of the Mills journalism program. She had found it increasingly critical to include digital media analysis in her journalism courses, and was about to launch a hands-on lab that would support students' efforts to develop audio and video stories.
Editors on the Campanil, the student newspaper, had already begun publishing digital stories on their website, which had won an impressive second place in the statewide Califomia College Media Association awards competition n 2005—beating out larger schools like Stanford, Cal, and UCLA. (They would place second again in 2010.) I didn't hesitate to sign on.
Editors on the Campanil, the student newspaper, had already begun publishing digital stories on their website, which had won an impressive second place in the statewide Califomia College Media Association awards competition n 2005—beating out larger schools like Stanford, Cal, and UCLA. (They would place second again in 2010.) I didn't hesitate to sign on.
Pop Culture: Black Swan sparks "ballet" diet craze - The Campanil
The Odette/Odile role in Swan Lake presents the destructive virgin/vamp dichotomy long applied to women. Nina Sayers’ own severing personality further displays this impossible schism.While this film may have been intended to exhibit, at least, the manipulation of women’s bodies in the ballet world, and, at most, the predominant warping of women’s sense of self in the greater media/entertainment industry—the achievement of the principle role required Portman to put her own health in jeopardy.
If Men Can't Dance, They Don't Want to Be Part of the Publishing Equity Revolution - The Campanil
On February 2nd, VIDA — an organization supporting women in the literary arts — published The Count 2010, a statistical analysis of women writers published and reviewed in influential magazines. But even VIDA, who seems to have rocked the boys’ club status quo boat with the publishing of its study, has contributed to myth that the literary world can’t stand up without its men.