There's an exquisite, life-affirming quote by Audre Lorde in which she says, "I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood."

For Lorde, reticence was the ultimate killer - not only of creative expression but of the psyche and the spirit. In that sense, she equated freedom with the capacity to voice your truth, consequences be damned.

Audre Lorde was part of a lineage of African-American thinkers that criss-crossed from James Baldwin to Toni Morrison, Sojourner Truth to Angela Davis, Billie Holiday to Nina Simone to Gil Scott-Heron and back again. It's fair to say that, in our age of digitized apathy and carefully-curated online inertia, you can add singer-songwriter and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello to that long line of creative polymaths who have not only injected vital energy into the culture but repeatedly spoken truth to power. To accomplish all of this whilst creating some of the sexiest, most blissed-out music you'll hear is an astonishing feat.

Every Ndegeocello fan remembers the first time they heard one of her songs. For some it was the palpable ache of 'Fool of Me' from the critical smash Bitter. For others, it was the bombastic thrill of 'If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)'. I came to Ndegeocello late and discovered her through her fifth album, Comfort Woman. That disc, with its sex-funky, space-age soul hymns, was an ode to pure, unfiltered passion that spoke to me because I was giddy with love. I still listen to that LP on loop because it reminds me not only of the generosity of spirit that it takes to nurture love but also how love ultimately transforms us into better, more fully-realized human beings.

Comfort Woman, with its woozy, dubby rhythm and electro-kinetic energy, managed to combine the smouldering quality of Portishead with the funk of Fela Kuti, and presaged the rise of the electro-soul stylings of Janelle Monae, Solange, Miguel, Kelela, The Weeknd, Frank Ocean and Drake by nearly a decade. Now, more than ten years after the release of Comfort Woman, Ndegeocello returns to that musical territory and expands on it with renewed passion, vigor and vulnerability.

Her new album, Comet, Come to Me (Naïve Records) is one of the best, most seductive and sonically layered LPs you'll hear this year. From the funk-driven ferocity of the Whodini cover, 'Friends' to the Nashville-tinged soulfulness of 'Tom' and 'Good Day Bad' to the reggae riddims of the title track, these songs are powered by ambiguity, melancholy and confidence. One gets the sense of an artist pushing against her own parameters by delving inward to reveal something of herself. This takes courage, which is why Comet is such a thrilling record. This is not the sound of an artist twenty years into her career but of someone in a state of sustained self-discovery and renewal. It's the sound of an artist who's unafraid to take risks or reveal her scars.

Comet, Come to Me is the sound of a gifted musician in constant forward motion and, crucially, one who is not afraid to take her listeners along for the ride. It's the sound of the future.

Meshell Ndegeocello's Comet, Come to Me (Naïve Records) is out now. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.


Diriye Osman is a British-Somali short story writer, visual artist, essayist and critic. His acclaimed collection of short stories, Fairytales For Lost Children (Team Angelica Press) can be purchased here. He is currently at work on a long-term series of paintings about the link between cultural identity, fairytales and sexuality. You can visit his website www.diriyeosman.com to explore his short stories, photography, visual art, videos, audio recordings and essays.

One thing that's great about short stories is how quickly they can ruin your life. Maybe you start reading one over your lunch break and, if it's the right one, before that peanut butter cup you brought for dessert even has a chance to finish its melting shape-shift into some kind of sugary cement, the whole world has been destroyed around you and then rebuilt, and nothing is quite the same again.

This happens whether you like it or not. Great stories practice this violent beauty on you in a variety of ways: some by making an absurd world familiar (or vice versa), some with a slow burn, some with a voice that colonizes your thoughts. Some do it quietly, almost without you even noticing, and some do it with high wire acts of imagination or intellect that make you into a breathless witness.

The trick, then, is finding the right story, one that is capable of such a thing. This is no easy task. Tastes differ, of course, and it can be confusing to spot the small boat of a great story on the wide sea of fiction. What any reader can offer you in terms of guidance is actually the same thing that any good writer can offer you with the story itself: a way of saying, This is what moved me and made me feel strange and alive in some way; here, why don't you give it a try?

In that spirit and in no particular order, here are ten short stories you might've missed that ambushed me with their odd wonder:


1. "The Zero Meter Diving Team" by Jim Shepard (BOMB Magazine)

This curious, masterful story is about a set of brothers who work as managing engineers overseeing the Chernobyl power station on April 26, 1986, but, as with most of Shepard's work, it's also about the invisible planets of loss that our personal lives orbit. It is both an education and an elegy. Shepard's forthcoming novel of the Warsaw Ghetto, Aaron Only Thinks of Himself, promises more of the same.


2. "A Tiny Feast" by Chris Adrian (The New Yorker)

Titania and Oberon, the immortal Queen and King of the Fairies, live under a hill in a modern city park. To save their marriage, they adopt a mortal toddler and begin to raise him, only to discover he has developed terminal leukemia. What follows, set in a fairy den and an oncology ward, is one of the best (and, somehow, realest) short stories ever written, a haunting exploration of love and death that has followed this reader, at least, into marriage, parenthood, and nearly every subsequent day spent on this earth.

3. "Lorry Raja" by Madhuri Vijay (Narrative Magazine)

One of the newest voices on this list, Vijay tells the story of Indian children mining the ore used to construct Olympic stadiums in China with remarkable poise and vision. While the inherently political nature of the story is certainly important and the writing is ruthless in its detail, to approach "Lorry Raja" in only that way is to miss the quiet power of Vijay's prose, as well as its ability to look honestly into the subtleties of family and the scales of desire without denying beauty where it lurks.

4. "Bluebell Meadow" by Benedict Kiely (The New Yorker)

Published in 1975 at the peak of The Troubles in Ireland, Kiely's unlikely story of a small country park and the two young people who spend a few afternoons together in it is sly, funny, and tremendously affecting. A lesson simultaneously in understatement and heart, this story is really about the near misses of the lives we almost live, as well as what time does to the things that could've been. Long forgotten by most, author Colum McCann miraculously resurrected it for The New Yorker's fiction podcast, and it is best experienced in his wonderful voice.

5. "Some Other, Better Otto" by Deborah Eisenberg (The Yale Review)

It's difficult to say exactly why this story--the reflections of intelligent, grumpy Otto about his aging partner William, his own aging, his uneasy relationship with his family, the sanity of his troubled sister, loneliness, and the new baby of his upstairs renter--is as wonderful as it very much is. The story is, in the end, a testament to the power of a whole person--caustic, funny, articulate, alone, lost and found, cruel and loving--given life on the page. Originally published in The Yale Review, eager readers can find it in The Best American Short Stories 2004 anthology.

6. "City Lovers" by Nadine Gordimer (The New Yorker)

Also published in 1975, sixteen years before she would be awarded the Nobel Prize, this is Gordimer's story of the relationship between Austrian geologist Dr. Franz-Josef Von Leinsdorf and a mixed-race Johannesburg shop girl, an affair that is illegal in apartheid-era South Africa. One of the most overlooked pieces of Gordimer's writing, this is also one of the quietest, and most effective. The uneasy dynamics of race, class, and power (especially when it comes to love and sex) are nimbly explored here, and build to a devastating end. It was similarly saved from obscurity, this time by author Tessa Hadley, for The New Yorker's fiction podcast.

7. "Spring in Fialta" by Vladimir Nabokov

"Spring in Fialta is cloudy and dull," begins this amusing and heartbreaking story, perhaps the most underappreciated narrative Nabokov ever wrote. Waiting behind Nabokov's admittedly long and wry sentences is the plainly moving story of a love affair pursued through the years. Every detail works together here to render Nabokov's testament to the illusiveness of love and memory, and a reader's patience is richly rewarded. Those interested can find it online, or in the excellent anthology of love stories, My Mistress' Sparrow Is Dead.

8. "Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order SVU" by Carmen Maria Machado (The American Reader)

By turns funny, disturbing, canny, and inventive, this novella takes the form of fictional episode summaries of the famous show (but if the show, as one reader puts it, were directed by David Lynch). Machado, another new voice in American fiction, manages to create an engaging, strange, and wholly original story that draws into conversation sexual violence, popular culture, and our own weird-feeling relationships therein.

9. "Inventing Wampanoag, 1672" by Ben Shattuck (FiveChapters)

While this very short, very tricky story purports to be about the birth of the tribal language used to print the first Bible in the Americas, it is really about the death of it, and the way history itself is a colonizing narrative. Shattuck's facility with prose makes this a funny, winning story, even as it is a bitter and sad one: a clever and unique creation that will stay with you long after you're done reading.

10. "Painted Ocean, Painted Ship" by Rebecca Makkai (Ploughshares)

This humorous, deceptive story, loosely descended from Coleridge's most famous poem, follows an unreliable English professor as a single compound error (mistaking a bird, then a student) births another and another, eventually threatening her potential marriage, job, and fate. The best part, however, is the turn at the very end, which reveals the entire story to perhaps have been something different all along, a sneakily stunning mediation on the limits of self-awareness, guilt, and penance. Originally published in Ploughshares, curious readers can find it in the pages of the Best American Short Stories 2010 anthology.

It was one of those puff-piece New York Post assignments that landed in my lap once in a while back in the day, and that was fine by me -- no crime, no chalk outlines on the street, no survivors to interview.

Instead it was Eileen Ford, the force behind the supermodel phenomenon, introducing a crop of young models to the world at an outdoor press conference in Manhattan.

All I had to do was slap together a few clever sentences to go with the pictures. Piece of cake.

Until I saw the photographer the Post had sent to cover the job -- a bearded, beret-wearing artist named Michael Norcia.

I don't use the word "artist" lightly. You knew his work before you saw the photo credit -- his pictures jumped off the page.

There probably wasn't a better lensman in the world than Norcia, but he considered himself a serious news man, and this job did not fit his definition of news. He was grumbling even before he took off the lens cap.

The young girls stood in a row with Eileen Ford, and the other photographers were clicking away, but Norcia didn't like what he saw.

The girls seemed stiff and awkward, so Norcia -- a perfectionist, even on jobs he considered silly -- took one of them aside for a solo shot.

He asked her to lean against a pillar, and tilt her head back -- seductively, you could say. Then he started clicking away.

"That's it," he said. "That's it..."

Eileen Ford saw what was going on, and she went ballistic.

"What does he think he's doing?" she screamed. "This is NOT a cheesecake photo session!!"

In a heartbeat, I went from reporter to referee. This happened a lot when you were on assignment with Norcia.

"I'll talk to him," I assured Eileen Ford. Norcia was oblivious to the drama until I got in his ear.

"Mike," I whispered, "Eileen Ford doesn't want cheesecake shots."

Norcia's big brown eyes widened, and he responded as he always did in situations like this.

"Oh, what the ----!" he said, in a voice not to be mistaken for a whisper.

Eileen Ford's jaw dropped. In her world, this kind of language was an even greater offense than using the wrong fork.

"What did he say?" she gasped.

I went back to Eileen with uplifted hands. "Mrs. Ford, he's a terrific photographer, but he's temperamental," I said. "Believe me, he's going to make the girls look great in tomorrow's paper."

We all calmed down. We got the job done, and everybody was happy with the photo spread in the Post.

I bring that day up now because Eileen Ford is dead at 92, and I realize that blowup she shared with Michael Norcia on the streets of New York is one of the great things about this city.

Two people from totally different backgrounds -- Norcia from the streets of Little Italy, Eileen Ford from a world of privilege -- weren't really so different after all.

They were both passionate, and passionate people are going to clash from time to time. Truth is, it's kind of fun when they do.

Michael Norcia died eight years ago at age 59. I wish I believed in heaven, because in my idea of heaven everybody is in their prime, which means Eileen Ford would enter as the young model she once was.

And my old friend Norcia would be waiting for her at the Pearly Gates, camera to his face, saying: "Tilt your head back...that's it..."

Charlie Carillo is a producer for the TV show "Inside Edition." Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/baileywalk

If there's one part of my education in which I consider myself to have been extremely fortunate, it's the fact that I've had some wonderful teachers and professors -- inspired educators who could ignite a student's curiosity and encourage him to always pursue the answers to his questions. As a result of having grown up in a family of teachers and librarians, certain entertainment choices are almost a given.

• If a musical or drama takes place in an educational setting (The History Boys, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Gidion's Knot, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Education of H*y*m*a*n K*a*p*l*a*n, High School Musical) I'm curious to see how the story will play out on stage.


• If I'm attending a film festival, I'll usually try to schedule a screening of any movie that focuses on education. Whether it be a documentary (Pressure Cooker, Race to Nowhere, Speaking in Tongues, Mad Hot Ballroom, Waiting for Superman) or a narrative piece (Art School Confidential, Half Nelson, The Paper Chase, Stand and Deliver, Up The Down Staircase, Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting, Mr. Holland's Opus), I'm a willing audience member who is eager to learn.

Why do films about the educational process immediately capture my attention? There's bound to be some conflict between generations and personality types. With horny students pushing back against their teachers, an audience can count on some wise-ass doing his best to question authority.

While some stories focus on competitions (spelling bees, science fairs, student elections, debate teams), the twin processes of teaching and learning usually foster a growing awareness of empathy, problem-solving techniques, and fair play. Sometimes they even help people realize that the greatest challenge they face is overcoming their own fears and insecurities.

Two productions new to San Francisco are set in niche educational situations that each have a peculiar sense of urgency. In one, immigrant children attending a school in Paris are doing their best to learn the French language in order to assimilate into a new society. In the other, a small group of narcissistic, pretentious, and insecure writers have paid big bucks to participate in a 10-week long seminar to help them prepare their work for possible publication.

What I found remarkable was how easy it was to empathize with the young students in the documentary and how completely unsympathetic all five characters were in the stage play.

* * * * * * * * * *

One of the more curious entries at the 2014 San Francisco International Film Festival was a documentary by Julie Bertuccelli entitled School of Babel. Set in a "reception class" at La Grange aux Belles school in Paris, the film takes a fly-on-the-wall approach to observing how an extraordinarily supportive teacher (Brigitte Cervoni) works with 24 students who have just arrived in France from 24 different nations ranging from Senegal, Ireland, and China to Brazil, Morocco, and Mauritania. Some arrive speaking various romance languages, Others speak Mandarin, Wolof, and Russian.




Poster art for School of Babel


Unlike many middle school or high school classes (whose students would all be roughly the same age), Cervoni's charges range from 11 to 15 and come from all over the globe. While most are eager to learn, some face peculiar challenges.

• One girl who loves attending class is forced to drop out because her family must move into subsidized housing in order to meet certain requirements of France's immigration procedure.


• One young boy from Venezuela has moved to Paris to study cello at a music conservatory.


• One girl from an Arab family is caught between a culture in which her parents only want her to stay at home and speak exclusively in Arabic and her natural desire to learn French and blossom among her new friends.


• One student comes from a Serbian family that had been persecuted by Neo-Nazis.


• One Chinese girl lived with her grandmother for 10 years while her mother worked long hours in Chinese restaurants in Paris.

There are many touching moments in School of Babel; some more predictable than others.

• An argumentative young girl from Senegal (whose family has sought political asylum) is constantly having trouble getting along with the other children in the class. Hypersensitive and prone to sulking, Rama's persecution complex goes a long way toward alienating her fellow students as well as a swimming coach who is not the slightest bit interested in her bullshit.


• In one beautiful scene, a father who can barely speak French looks on with pride as Cervoni congratulates his daughter on her progress.


• In another scene, a concerned parent explains to Cervoni that her son has been diagnosed with a mild case of Asperger syndrome.

While some of the students are highly energetic, a common bond exists between those who relish math as their favorite subject. As Bertuccelli notes:

"These are courageous children who carry heavy responsibilities. They face their destiny. The film can counteract prejudices, give empathy to those who lack it. There is a scene that I find beautiful, where secularism is required. Each was to bring 'his' object. Some had a doll or a photo. Youssef came with a Koran; Naminata with a Bible. And class started at quarter turn, discussing, arguing. Suddenly, Djenabou said: 'We do not even know if God exists!' Perhaps she would never doubt that without coming in the French secular school."

School of Babel may not have the forward momentum seen in some of the more competitive documentaries about American education, but it goes a long way toward showing the value of diversity, inclusion, and a multilingual education. Here's the trailer:





* * * * * * * * * *


One night, about 25 years ago, I was marching in a candlelight parade from the Castro District down to City Hall. As I chatted with the man marching beside me, I mentioned that I was a freelance writer. "Oh, I'm a writer, too!" he exclaimed.

When I asked what he had written, he confessed that his output mostly consisted of entries in his journal. "One of these days, though, I might let The New Yorker have a look at one of my short stories," he boasted.

As someone who was working hard to get paid for his writing, that statement opened up a deep gulf between us. Why? The man had never subjected his writing to another person's judgment. Other than his mother (who was obliged to encourage him), he had never risked trying to get the kind of approval that would result in selling his writing to a magazine, newspaper, or book publisher.

Many aspiring writers pay handsome fees to attend a writers' workshop led by a celebrity author. Some regard such workshops as an opportunity to learn; others attend in search of emotional validation. What one usually learns is that the people who are serious writers are too busy writing to attend.

With today's electronic publishing technology (blogs and e-books) at their disposal, it's often easier for a committed writer to self-publish his work and spend more time on marketing it than to attend expensive writers' workshops and seminars. The old "publish or perish" model has bitten the dust.

San Francisco Playhouse recently presented Theresa Rebeck's 2011 play, Seminar, in a production directed by Amy Glazer. The setup is simple. Four aspiring writers have each paid $5,000 to participate in a 10-week seminar conducted by a ruthless but talented editor.



James Wagner, Lauren English, Patrick Russell and
Natalie Mitchell in Seminar (Photo by: Jessica Palopoli)

• Kate (Lauren English) is a young woman who, thanks to her family's long-term residency in a rent-controlled apartment with nine rooms on Manhattan's Upper West Side (with a monthly rent of only $800), doesn't have to worry about cash flow. An extremely insecure woman who keeps trying to polish the one story she has written in six years ("People said they liked it"), Kate quickly seeks solace in potato chips, ice cream, and other comfort foods as a means of coping with rejection. A graduate of Bennington College who probably had to cope with a fair share of mean girls on campus, she has her own way of standing up for herself.


• Martin (James Wagner) is the most talented writer in the group. Although he has churned out hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of pages of text, he has spent his last dime on the tuition for this seminar. Desperate for editorial help, he is too insecure to let anyone look at his work. Having been kicked out of his former living situation, he has asked Kate to let him crash at her apartment throughout the 10-week course of the seminar.

Lauren English (Kate) and James Wagner (Martin)
in Seminar (Photo by: Jessica Palopoli

• Douglas (Patrick Russell) is a smug young man who, having been accepted at such prestigious writing retreats as Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, has become a pretentious buffoon. Having boosted his writing career through a variety of family contacts (his uncle is a famous playwright) and his own networking skills, Douglas has become a cartoonish representation of the theory that getting ahead depends on who you know (or who you blow).


• Izzy (Natalie Mitchell) has long shown talent as a writer. Terrified of rejection but confident in her ability to handle a man's sexual interest, she ends up being the first person in the group to sleep with the professor.


• Leonard (Charles Shaw Robinson) is the merciless, acid-tongued editor leading the seminar. In his early days as a writer, he was accused of plagiarism. Leonard eventually built a secondary career as a talented editor who is quick to shatter the illusions of aspiring writers. Midway through the play he leaves New York for a quick trip to cover a story in Somalia for a magazine assignment.

Charles Shaw Robinson (Leonard) and James Wagner
(Martin) in Seminar (Photo by: Jessica Palopoli)


As always, Rebeck is masterful in crafting sharp intellectual putdowns and letting her characters expose their weaknesses. While I am a great admirer of her writing, Seminar, alas, is not Rebeck's strongest work. Two things, in particular, rang false during the evening.

• Leonard's snap judgments about his students' work were usually delivered after he had quickly scanned barely half a page of their writing. It's a great visual gag, but hardly reflective of an editor who is going to spend 10 weeks evaluating the work of only four students.


• The sounds used to signify breaks between scenes belong to those of an old manual typewriter. With Rebeck's script set in the present, I'd be willing to bet that Leonard is the only character who ever heard that sound (all of his students are doubtless writing on computers).

Working on Bill English's stylish rotating set, Glazer's direction scores strongest in the play's final scene, when a distressed Martin goes to Leonard's apartment in a futile attempt to get a partial refund of his tuition (only to discover that Kate has dumped him and is now shacking up with her professor). The confrontation between the three over writing talent, sexual fidelity, and unrealistic expectations provides a suitable, if somewhat unpredictable climax for the audience.




Charles Shaw Robinson, Lauren English, and James Wagner
in Seminar (Photo by: Jessica Palopoli)


In his program note from the Artistic Director, Bill English states that:

"Writing is supposedly one of our most civilized attributes. And yet what the initiates in Rebeck's Seminar learn is that words must be scalpels that we use to cut through the fat we build up around painful truths and primitive selves. The writer, like the actor, must be ruthlessly honest and fearless if anything of value is to come from our work. Seminar is a euphemism that quickly devolves into the competitive dog-eat-dog world where our human competitiveness is shown for what it can be at the worst: the survival of the fittest."

That being said, Rebeck's play takes place in a comfortable and remarkably unthreatening environment. By contrast, someone once described pure hell as "being stuck out of town with a new musical in Philadelphia." Here's the trailer:






To read more of George Heymont go to My Cultural Landscape

As Director of Film Programs at The JCC in Manhattan, one of the most important festivals for me to attend is the Jerusalem Film Festival, Israel's leading film festival. I not only get to spend a week seeing dozens of Israeli films for our Israel Film Center, but also view the annual great crop of Jewish and International films, which often inspire our program in New York. This year, I was planning on attending with a little extra stress -- for the first time I would be away from my 8-month-old son for 12 days. I did not anticipate the stress of attending the festival while rockets are falling throughout the country.

Some might picture Israel as a war zone, but anyone who has visited here knows how normal day-to-day life is, even in the worst of times. In the past, wars were kept far away... Lebanon, Gaza, the cities of the south -- places that do not impact the vibrant life in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In many ways, Israelis have been more interested in its economy than the "political situation." But now rockets are falling on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and disrupting this carefree lifestyle. Life goes on, and the cafe's are open, but now the mood is one of stress and caution.  

The first time I heard a siren going off in Jerusalem, I was at the new trendy hangout that they made out of Jerusalem's old train station. People were drinking fabulous boutique beer, eating Israel's world famous foods, almost forgetting that dozens of rockets disrupting life throughout the country, not to mention Israeli Air-force strikes in Gaza. When the sirens went off, most people did not know exactly what to do. Is there a nearby shelter? Can I take my beer with me? Is it even necessary to go inside?

Most slowly shuffled inside the semi-safe structure hoping that the 100 year-old train station will hold up. The women with children looked stressed. Mothers ran in to the station that has been transformed into an Eataly-style restaurant, gripping their innocent children tightly, while the men mostly stayed outside and looked up at the sky. The whole incident lasted about a minute. The sirens stopped and everyone looked around as if the pilot turned off the fasten seatbelt sign. Suddenly, someone noticed an unattended pocketbook in the station. I asked if someone lost a bag? And when no one answered, all the mothers and children shuffled out of the restaurant as quickly as they had entered.

Outside, you can see in the beautiful blue Jerusalem sky a mark from what must have been Israel's shielding rockets diverting the threatening missile. People took out their phones and started taking pictures. Selfies for Facebook. Life was very quickly back to normal. All and all, not such a stressful moment. My heart went out to the children and the mothers who are with no doubt more impacted by this than they can even imagine. I would not want my son to have to grow up with this kind of experience.

But what I realized was that even though the situation is well-managed, and people realize that the odds of the rocket hitting them are extremely slim, there is a new underlying tension in the air. When are the sirens going to go off next? How can this ever end? Will our lives always be interrupted by these sirens? Weddings, openings of festivals, can we have major events? Will normality ever return?

The rockets might not be hitting many targets, but their success is in its disruption of normality that Israeli's have been (possibly naively) enjoying. The Jerusalem Film Festival opened on a toned down note. It's usual outdoor screening extravaganza, which takes place under the old city walls, was postponed by a week and replaced with an intimate cocktail party on the cinematheque lawn. We were told that the safest place we can be is in the cinema. The cinematheque has always been an oasis of peace in a chaotic region. Now, it serves as a safe space for people to escape the outside dangers. Or maybe that's what cinema has always been... a place to escape. Till this quiets down, I will seek refuge at the movies.

I've been going to the Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna for four years, and it's always a treat. There's the joy of discovering newly restored old films that are often better than most new films. There's the spectacular city of Bologna, site of the first university founded in Europe in 1088, and graced with the most amazing churches on every block. And then there's the food. Bologna is the center of the slow food movement in Europe, and the combination of traditional Italian food made with local organic produce is unbeatable.

The festival, now in its 28th year, is a celebration and showcase for many of the films that have been restored in the preceding year. Think of it as the annual harvesting of the restoration work. However, the general public may not be aware why restoration is so critical.

The harsh reality is that every year countless films disintegrate because the chemical base of the film corrodes over time. Once the camera negative, internegative and last print of a film are gone, the film is gone forever. One can read about it, but never have the pleasure of seeing it as it was meant to be seen, in pristine condition on the large screen. Fortunately, a few dedicated teams around the world work in concert to track down worthy and endangered films and begin the expensive and laborious process of reclaiming them for posterity. Thanks to these film scholars, researchers and film detectives, film students and the general public are now able to see excellent versions of films that have been significant in the history of film. Film restoration serves not only the broader goal of art preservation, but also has a pedagogical mission: it makes it possible for those of us who are educating the future filmmakers of the world to have access to the riches of the film past. Several years ago I invited Cecilia Cenciarelli, a top Cineteca di Bologna curator known for her Chaplin restorations, to our campus to present a program about film restoration, and I could see how eye-opening it was for our students. It's important for film schools and educators to participate and support restoration so that the next generation of filmmakers has the opportunity to see the films that have shaped our history, keeping the flame of cinema alive.

Although the primary focus of the festival is presenting restored and rarely seen films, it does so in a most audience-friendly manner. Every year the festival is organized around honoring individual filmmakers, film movements and historical periods, including a section on what happened 100 years ago. This year the festival honored, among many other cinema legends, the 100th anniversary of the creation of Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character. On a much more sober note, World War 1 is a hundred years old, and there were a number of films about the war.

I saw a Belgian pacifist film Maudite Soit la Guerre (War Be Damned) about two close friends, both flyers, who discover themselves on opposing sides in the war and end up killing each other. Shown outdoors at night in the Piazza Maggiore before thousands of spectators, with live music and astounding aerial shots of dogfights, this recently discovered and newly restored color film made in early 1914 carries a powerful, dramatic message.

Also shown that night were archival shots taken from a dirigible in 1918 at the end of the war, flown over battlefields, villages and towns totally annihilated by massive bombing. This recently restored and never-before- seen footage of massive destruction makes its own silent case against war. I also saw the little seen gem by Ernst Lubitsch, The Man I Killed, his only dramatic sound film, about a French soldier who is haunted by the German soldier he killed in the war. This surprisingly modern film is as relevant today as when it was made in 1932.

Besides having the opportunity to view such powerful films, over the week-long event I was able to speak with a number of film scholars and journalists, cinephiles, curators and festival directors. One night, I attended the Mercato della Terra slow food market held near the festival headquarters where I shared grilled fish at a picnic table with my friend Pierre Rissient, the great French "man of Cinema," as he was called in the Todd McCarthy documentary on his life. Pierre, who was assistant director to Jean-Luc Godard on Breathless, has been the indispensable man for French and American filmmakers for 50 years.

That same evening, I saw a screening of the Jin Xie's Stage Sisters (1964), an emotionally realistic dramatic film about young provincial opera stars who come to the big city of Shanghai in 1940 as civil war rages in the background. Afterwards I chatted with Gian Luca Farinelli, the charismatic director of Il Cinema Ritrovato and its guiding light for 28 years, congratulating him for presenting such a powerful film. He said his restoration laboratory, L'Immagine Ritrovato, had been working five years with the Shanghai Film Museum and the Shanghai International Film Festival to restore this masterpiece. I could feel in Gian Luca's voice how proud he was for this achievement. It is what the Cineteca di Bologna, the umbrella organization of the festival, is all about.

In 2011, when I was writing for the now defunct Shanghai-based publication Public Art and Ecology, I wrote an article about the global trend toward repurposing materials in the fine arts. The article was accepted for publication but the magazine ran into undisclosed difficulties and was unable to publish their second issue. Since then, the universal trend to repurpose or salvage materials has grown and I thought it a good time to 'repurpose' the article for The Huffington Post giving these distinctive artists their proper place in the discussion.

Repurposing with a Passion

The process of repurposing materials has immeasurable benefits. There are instinctive, economic, esthetic, philosophical, and even political reasons to recycle, and visual artists are a very big part of this process. In an attempt to bring together compelling examples of this trend, I asked a number of artists from various parts of the world to answer four questions with the hopes of clarifying this ever-increasing phenomenon of repurposing with a passion.

The Questions

1. What sorts of materials do you recycle in your art, and where do you find them?

2. What specific incident or realization, if any, brought you to incorporate discarded materials in the making of your art?

3. What message do you hope to send to the viewers of your art in terms of esthetics and ecology?

4. Do you have a political or philosophical agenda?

The Replies

James Boman, who has his studio in Archway, England, makes art that is puzzling, His method of mixing metaphors in a non-linear narrative is somewhere between wild childhood fantasies and lucid dreams - even waking dreams, and they remind us that our world is filed with useful surprises that fuel the imagination.

Mr. Boman's responses: "Bike parts found in skips mostly, I'm a cyclist in London (Bethnal Green) and I absolutely hate it when I see abandoned bike parts left to rust. I have grown attached to my own bike and feel as though it has a lot of personality, it is alive to me and it saddens me to think that something that could be giving someone so much joy and excitement is just abandoned. I use a lot of objects from charity shops, I feel that these objects contain the most history and its fun to think of the journey that the object has taken to get to the charity shop and what the next stage in the objects history will be in my possession."


James Boman, In a Bit of a Pickle (2010), found objects, 6.5" X 3" X 3" (courtesy of the artist)

"When it comes to materials, I suppose money was always the issue, but that's not why I use found objects in my work - it goes a bit deeper than that. My passion is cycling, and I can't afford bicycle parts, I search through skips finding old bikes, build them up, replace parts - eventually I had amassed a great collection of parts, and I suppose, instead of throwing them out, I use them to make sculptures. I addition to bike parts, I collect all sorts of things - I suppose I enjoy making use of a discarded object and exploring the nature of it."

"I want to express character within my objects, and my hope is that people will simply enjoy the composition of these 'orphan' objects. I want my works to be fun, and thought provoking. I feel as though these objects all have a story to tell."

Ross Steven Caudill maintains a studio in Brooklyn, USA. His art is beautiful, absurd, challenging and thought provoking. His sculptures are about the subconscious - how it connects thoughts and memories - and how connections become both real and physical in his conscious mind.

Mr. Caudill's responses: "Lately, I have been working mostly with stainless steel which I purchase from a local metal yard. They acquire a majority of their metal from both the energy production and food industries. Then they will process and separate the alloys for recycling. I find it interesting to make artworks which provide philosophical nourishment from the very materials that make up the machinery which supports our physiology and civilization."


Ross Steven Caudill, The Great Resonator (detail) (2009), stainless steel, cast bronze, brass, 98" X 48" X 52" (courtesy of the artist)

"Moving to Providence, Rhode Island for my undergraduate schooling had a huge influence on my use of the "found object". Being in an urban setting formed from the industrial revolution allowed for the discovery of objects that had patinas and character shaped by manual labor. I was infatuated and nostalgic for these parts and inspired by connecting them in inventive and poetic ways."

"I believe art is an expression of beauty which is fundamentally derived from the observance of the natural world. If we can learn to appreciate with wonder the complexity of biology, we will gain a better understanding of how to relate to each other as humans. I feel an existential drive to build a dialog within my work that will address this goal."

"My philosophical agenda is to create works that may inspire some enlightenment or introspection in a viewer. I want to find links between the governing principals and forms of nature and how they relate to the human desire to understand purpose and consciousness."

From his studio in London, England, Wayne Chisnall creates art that references such things as structure, time and Modernism as they pass through a very contemporary mindset that focuses on humor, transience, functionality and futility. There is also the presence of popular culture in his thinking, as he addresses the differences between reality and perception, and how that affects the needs, wants and even the formation of the human psyche.

Mr. Chisnall's responses: "Although I have used plastic toys (which I collected from regular visits to car-boot sales, long before I knew what I was going to do with them) in one of my sculptures I am normally drawn to materials that I feel have a certain 'resonance'. These are usually organic materials that have either interacted in some way with the environment or with people. The materials vary according to the individual project but I generally use anything from wood, metal, glass, human hair, insects to bones and teeth."


Wayne Chisnall, Magnet (1999), plastic toys, wood and casters, 44" X 18" X 18" (courtesy of the artist)

"As I prefer to use existing materials as opposed to freshly manufactured ones I tend to find my materials from all around me. This can become a slight problem however as I have a tendency to hoard more stuff than I will ever use."

"The rusty nails and screws that I used to complete my Nail Box sculpture where mostly just picked up off the ground and collected over a four year period. Although most of the nails were found here in London, a good portion of them were also collected whilst I was travelling round Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Europe, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Mexico and the US. A couple of them even came from inside the dome of Saint Paul's Cathedral, when I was working there on a project."

"One of the most abundant sources of materials for me over the last decade has been the skip where I work. I'm fortunate enough to work part-time at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and with it being the biggest, if not the oldest, design museum in the world it produces an interesting array of waste materials (old and new)."

"The work of animators such as the Brothers Quay and Jan Švankmajer inspires me. As a child I grew up in awe of their dark animated short films and was hypnotized by the way in which they imbued tatty old bits of detritus with life. I don't know if this is where I gained my love of old things or if it just reaffirmed my passion for them, but either way, when I moved from 2D to 3D and started employing the use of found materials in my work, I felt that I was finally being true to myself as an artist."

"Through my art, I hope to show that there's a richness and beauty to be found in old and used objects that isn't evident in newly manufactured goods. By using materials that already show signs of their own personal histories I hope to build narratives where much of the story telling is already in place. Used objects tend to have an evident patina which we can all comprehend and by building with ready-loaded materials we can communicate with the viewer at an already engaged level."

Peter De Cupere has studios in Antwerp, Belgium and Paris, France. His primary intention is to produce scents using what, for ease of definition, I will call garbage. With this garbage, combined with other found materials, Mr. De Cupere creates wild and wicked combinations of textures, colors, shapes and juxtapositions that lure and assault every one of the five senses. With his art, he confronts the viewer with voluminous amounts of debris all in one place, posing some very difficult realities to inhale.

Mr. De Cupere's responses: "I recycle different sorts of materials in my art. Most of the time, the choice of the recycled materials is made based on the concept and context I am working on. I began working with recycled materials years ago as an art student, when I had little money to buy stuff. I depended on waste materials that people threw away. I found a beauty in it. First, it was the combination of recycled objects that gave meaning to the work. Later, it started to change when I combined found objects in with herbs, vegetables and fruits. This evolved into making works with recycled food exclusively. Like the work G-perfume I created in 1996-1997. A perfume made of the foods from my daily life. Over time, I kept the food that I didn't eat and let it ferment. Later on, I distilled it creating a perfume. I kept a list of all ingredients (9 pages) and presented this list with the perfume. The G stands for garbage with a double meaning."


Peter De Cupere, Smoke Room (2010), olfactory installation: 750,000 cigaret butts, fragrances added: bacon-smoke and asphalt, 87" X 118" X 106" (courtesy of the artist)

"The most common things I find, cigarettes, where combined with smoked bacon to make a painting in 1999. In 2010 I made a room covered with more than 750,000 cigarette butts (not so pleasant smell). For this installation, I asked students to collect them for me, and for this, I paid their payments in the local pub. It took months to finish the work."

In her studio, and in the environs in and around Kent, England, Ruth Geldard turns her world into a place where fact and fiction can sometimes collide. Her art can be sensitive, and at other times pointed, but it is always testing our preconceived notions of strength and beauty, and the interconnectedness of our world in its many states of being.

Ms. Geldard's responses: "I employ dead stuffed animals, unwanted and abandoned things; things I can do things to that are "useless," lost with evidence of age and wear that I can glean or scavenge. I look everywhere: in second-hand shops, skips, bins, Ebay, on the street and in the countryside."


Ruth Geldard, ToCover 2, found log, remnants of kid glove leather, pink silk thread and glue, 25" X 9" X 7.5" (courtesy of the artist)

"My understanding of the emotional and relational nature of my interaction with certain objects (my collecting behavior) gave rise to research into the possibility of a gendered phenomenology. My work from that point on, has involved speculative experiments using objects materials and processes."

"My current work investigates and allows for a gendered response and awareness of subtle behavioral difference. The materials used are deliberately, aesthetically and phenomenologically seductive and oddly juxtaposed. The processes are constrained by complex and ambiguous verbs: To Nurture, To Smother, To cover, To Secrete, To Augment. Interaction with the work mirrors and magnifies behavior, sometimes provoking self-conscious recognition as part of a wider gendered identity. As the objects used are often from the natural world, this can induce a kind of nostalgic and almost reverent re-connection in the viewer's relationship to objects and materials."

"The possibility of a gendered phenomenological response to objects and materials, allows for the possibility of gendered behavior. For example: the public reception of Tracey Emin's My Bed 1998 exposed cultural and gendered anxiety, shame, and secrecy connected to issues of feminine hygiene. In retrospect, My Bed could be seen to function as a metaphor for women in the same way that Duchamp's Fountain became a metaphor for conceptual art. The feminine specificity of My Bed insinuates itself into the cannon of contemporary art. Cixous could be suggesting in the quote below, that women need to fully accept their female specificity in order to fully express themselves.

'Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. Write yourself. Your body must be heard.'

Current scientific research into gendered brain difference, allows for the possibility of a gendered phenomenology. Understanding how human's work could greatly inform ideas of and approaches to social ecology in the future."

Krzysztof Gliszczynski has his studio in Sopot, Poland. With his art, he pursues the flexibility of the past. He destroys as he creates, like a graffiti artist, but the difference is the intimacy, and his use of personal memory. He relives his past with forward thinking, and sees art as being an endless dialog that is never totally complete.

Mr. Gliszczynski's responses: "Initially, I started using the remains of my own artistic work - the "leftovers" after my creative process, scratched slivers, layers of a painting - the remains of painting substance, including pigment, wax, marble powder, vaporous substances. To be able to reuse that material, I put it into a water bath. Thanks to the ingredients I applied, the matter melted, so I could use it again. I added new features to that matter in the melting process thanks to additions, which were substances related to existence such as ash and soot. Recently, I have started using other materials like disposable gloves which I use while working, tins-vessels in which I melt the used material in water bath."


Krzysztof Gliszczynski, Impressed Memory Object (2010), paint scratched off the floor of family household and paraffin, 18" X 47" X 118" (courtesy of the artist)


"In 1992, while I worked on my work Dialogue with the Absent One in Worpswede, I removed the final layer of my painting to reveal the drawing underneath. The matter spilled onto the floor and that made me reflect. Valuable material, prepared especially for that painting suddenly became some unnecessary trash, fated to non-existence. That reminded me of the work of a room decorator who removes the old layer of paint from the walls. Since that time on, I have been collecting the remains of my working."

"This practice is for me, is a dialogue I have with Ad Reinhardt's statement: "I am aware of the fact that I am painting one of my last pictures." An urn has some characteristics of painting itself, as, naturally, it stems from it, and, at the same time, it proves to be its classical opposition. An urn is precious enough to store remnants left after the process of painting. Or, it is precious enough to be buried with due honors. An urn is grief itself, a strong relation of loss and the desire to regain what has been lost. An elegiac feeling of loss, a feeling that nothing would ever be the same - becomes an inspiration for me. Destruction itself brings a need for order and organization. This is why my "urns" are given numbers and dates (usually relating to the timeframe of the work)."

"What is most important is the philosophical message, which touches upon the material and the spiritual. There is a certain dichotomy that appears between matter itself and the significance it carries - or that which we give to it. A rejected thing, considered unnecessary, has some value within itself that we can notice upon reusing it. The context of the memory comes in between the personal and the social, so do the empty vs. the full and the internal vs. the external."

From his studio in Ghent, Belgium, Olivier Goethals produces haunting sculptures that reference urban decay. He is an architect and a teacher, yet his sculptures bring the uneasiness of absurd combinations and juxtapositions. Most importantly, he brings us a world of personalized intimate decay that has a tinge of joyous discovery.

Mr. Goethals' responses: "I use recycled materials I often find and collect on building sites: cement, plaster, wood, brick, paint, sand, concrete, paper... mixed with other idyll minutiae that lost its usefulness, but still has a history or story to tell. For example, I have used milk glass in my sculptures that was once owned by my grandmother, something I know I used when I was a child.


Olivier Goethals, BRICOLAGE 1 (2010), mixed media, 20" X 20" X 71" (courtesy of the artist)

"I am very interested in the esthetics of non-design, of coincidence, as well as the esthetics of the normal. Discarded materials have a history; they have different layers; they had a life and a different meaning before I re-incorporated or re-use them for a sculpture or installation. This resulting multilayered texture is an interesting starting point to work with; it is free for anyone to use.

"I have no specific message that deals with ecology as such. It is more about sustainable thinking and behavior of people. I dislike the culture that everything should be new; spotless and traceless. I believe that history/time and usage can enrich objects/places/architecture. Being young is not an achievement; not for people; not for things. we should allow things to alter, change and deal with what results as an enriching patina, and not as a reason to consume for the goal of the new and fresh that is often find boring. Venice is only beautiful because of the imperfection of its architecture; its visible multilayered history in a contemporary, and tourist-centric setting."

Catherine Johnston maintains a studio in Victoria, Australia. The art she creates is curious, mysterious - the thoughts she inspires settle somewhere in our minds as a semi-conscious thought. The line between reality and fantasy is not necessarily blurred, it's banished. Her art makes us think of the possibilities, whether they are practical, dangerous, fluid or factual.

Ms. Johnston's responses: "I recycle most materials within my sculptures. Discarded leather furniture becomes pattern pieces in new works; these are found by the side of the road or donated by friends and family. Broken watches and watch batteries get encased in cast resin shapes and breathe new life; these have been accumulated over the years in my 'past life' repairing watches in the UK while starting out on my sculpture path, and also from approaching jewelers who happily clean out their scrap piles for me. Op shops (opportunity shops) are also a great source of reclaimed objects constantly used in my sculptures.


Catherine Johnston, Monkey (2011), molded leather objects on leather suitcases, on wooden frame, 67" X 90.5" X 71" (courtesy of the artist)

"As an art student... 'who can afford to buy materials?!'. Factory recycle bins, theatre props bins, found objects and more formed the core elements of my works. And now, as a full time practicing artist I am still a creature of habit and necessity. Using old objects in new works lend the work strength of concept and depth of life that a new object cannot possibly achieve. They create new possibilities and by familiarity of a common social history, create stronger connections with the viewing public."

"My works deal with quite powerful messages and thoughts. The strength of these messages can often be quite confronting to the everyday viewing public. I find by being true to the traditional sculpture methods of making a beautifully crafted work, and making it to excite and connect with people, I am able to draw people in to engage with my work. And once they are 'there' they are open to absorbing the subtle and not so subtle messages my work hopes to generate thought and response about. Though I can appreciate the concept and bravery of the ephemeral in other artists work, in my practice I am not interested in the 'throw away' nature of current western society - my sculptures are made to last. The photography and installation work I do often comments on mass production and consumerism gone wrong, and the resulting depersonalization of humanity. In the darkest of places beauty can still be found. I believe by showing this beauty you allow people to go into the darkest of places, and through that journey they are changed.

"In my residencies lately I have been working with disadvantaged youth and victims of domestic violence. By giving thought a voice, giving a form to the formless, I see these people blossom in their self-belief and awareness of their power to make a difference in their world. I see their pride and hope fire up... and I know that I am making a difference."

"And so... with a smile on my face and empty pockets... I keep scrounging bins and scraping the accumulated muck off a falsely constructed reality... like a creative little pig in mud."

Ismet Jonuzi's art, like his life, carries the scars of a bloody war. His art is direct and symbolic, and his desire to tell his story, the story of his homeland and his people is his passion. He maintains a studio in Prishtina, Kosovo.

Mr. Jonuzi's responses: "I use the very same weapons from the war in Kosovo to make my sculptures. I discovered them in factory where they were collected to be destroyed. These weapons have been made useless, and in a way, I have given them new life. What better way to openly demonstrate the war is over."


Ismet Jonuzi, Black Hawk (2003), found weapons from the War, 47" X 23.5" X 71" (courtesy of the artist)

"I was always fascinated by the Nouveau-Realists such as César Baldaccini and Jean Tinguely, as I always try to do something strange and unknown. For a long time I have collected different found objects and materials to make my sculptures, such as car parts or everyday objects from life. But weapons, for me, are the most powerful material. They are the only objects which speak concretely about the war and the violence."

"With these weapons I can explain the reality of war in my Country. These are the actual weapons people fought with. Machine-guns, Kalashnikovs and knives that are made to take lives and destroy them . Through the shape, line and volume I have tried to express the drama that we have experienced as a community in this part of the Balkans. My work represents the wounded soul of my homeland."

"From the very first moment, when I saw the weapons, I immediately felt strange and afraid. Weapons are fear, war, power and death. For a long time I had them in my studio before I could do anything. I would think to myself, what should I do with all of them. That is when I started to make my sculptures. An even though they are sculptures to the viewer, they still remain weapons to me."

Masaki Kishimoto has his studio in Tokyo, Japan. His art is steeped in the culture of the popular, tourist memento. The resulting assemblages he creates are explosions of color and form that are mesmerizingly and insanely beautiful, and remind us of the gaps between the harshness of reality, and the promises of fantasy.

Mr. Kishimoto's responses: "I am especially inspired by an acquaintance's souvenir - the important ones that are not thrown away, but somehow not needed. I gather them not as garbage, but I intervene just before they are lost, tossed aside or broken."


Masaki Kishimoto, Muin (2007), mixed media, 71" X 98.5" X 19.5" (courtesy of the artist)

"My concepts or thoughts do not necessarily find there way to the viewer's thought process. The message often stays with me, the sender. What does translate well is the strength of the material designs and the vagueness that my work produces when seen is such accumulative forms."

"My art is a comment on the fragility of the materials, as much as it is about the event or reason it was created for mass consumption. To some, these objects are meaningless or unimportant. To me, they speak of many things."

Ana Krstić, who studied art and philosophy in Belgrade, Serbia, maintains her studio in Mionica. She creates works that make the viewer more aware of their wasteful consumption. Her sculptures, performances and installations also address stereotypes or preconceived notions about wealth, gender, even ambition leading us back to the actual natural beauty that still surrounds us.

Ms. Krstić's responses: "In my installations, I use mostly plastic, nylon and rubber - and later on, I combine it with video works. Sometimes I use material that was discarded, like plastic bottles, but more recently, I simply go and buy the material, usually in stores that sell plastic for domestic use, or in Chinese shopping malls. I don't feel happy about buying instead of using already used material, but I need my objects to be as shiny and as new as possible, because it is exactly the effect that these shiny objects have on us, that I try to use as an element in my work."


Ana Krstić, The City Girls (detail) (2010), mixed media installation at Nadežda Petrović Memorial, Čačak, Serbia, 138" X 197" X 236" (courtesy of the artist)

"To me, discarded materials are just like stone, wood and clay were to our ancestors. It is around, it is part of our lives, it is within our reach, and it is not to be ignored. During my classical sculpture studies, young people are required to accept that stone, wood and terracotta, for example, are precious materials. I agree on that point. However, taking an already beautiful peace of stone from nature to carve something in it - and I don't care how beautiful the final work is - it is, in a way, a blasphemy. There is nothing as beautiful as a rock, standing in nature, carved by nature, left there in peace. The work of Hamish Fulton made me realize that."

"I feel bad every time I go and bye new plastic for my work, I honestly do ( although I reuse them, and I don't throw them away). I talked about it with a friend and she said - "well it is going to be used anyway, for much less useful purpose than art, at least you are sending a message." So after this I thought to myself, I am sticking with plastic ... I can't see any other way of making people aware of how bad plastic is for them than using it in my work, putting it in a gallery, trying to break the magic of "pretty, pretty - shiny, shiny".

"We are living in a world of delusions. We have made a make-believe luxuriance for the minority, and everybody will pay for that - all while nature is turning on us. I try to break some of the delusions that affect my life, that I am aware of, and in that sense, my work speaks from primarily a female and feminist point of view."

Fiona Long is based in London, England. She's completed a residency at the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester, and has done research in Tokyo with a workshop collaboration on the theme of waste. She is also the chairperson of POST, a peer led network of artists who respond to place, so public art is something, which fascinates her as well. Ms. Long's art has a sort of whimsical futility to it. It's as if she is presenting us with a sense of humor, but with consequence and mystery.

Ms. Long's responses: "I like to use contemporary objects that have been weathered and look like they have a significant age to them in spite of their actual newness. I find the best ones either in the street or on beaches. I have to use the beach objects sparingly, however, or the beachy look becomes too obvious! I particularly like objects which are everyday and mundane but in being discarded pieces of things, become a mysterious puzzle. I get some of the larger objects like pieces of furniture from Freecycle - an online community, with the mission of recycling unwanted stuff instead of filling up the landfill sites. People clearing out their houses are pleased to have someone take things away and not worry about how to dispose of them, and the grateful recipient gets something they wanted or can make use of in some way. It's a really valuable resource for an artist like me!"


Fiona Long, Forest Fresh (2010), installation with reclaimed doors, natural timber, and oil on board paintings, 197" X 157.5" X 118" (courtesy of the artist)

"I have been acutely aware of recycling all of my life because my father ran his own consultancy business in waste management. But the process of incorporating discarded materials into my art really began when I moved back to London after a period of living in the country. My initial reaction was a very black and white opinion that the country was beautiful and the city ugly. I soon realized that some of the most overlooked aspects of the city can be the most sublime. I think that this happens most when nature begins to encroach on the man-made. This wabi-sabi aesthetic moves me and I aim to help others tune into these poignant phenomena. I stepped up the interest in 2008 having spent time on Orford Ness with artist Matthew Roberts. It's an extraordinary place scattered with derelict military testing buildings and ordnance. It is like a desert wilderness where nature is wreaking its own havoc now. There is a metal lamp with significant stalactites for example quite apart from all the rusty objects. Spending two weeks there and being privileged to stay on the spit meant experiencing the true emptiness of the place and it had a profound affect on my work. The nuclear testing made me conjure up a post apocalyptic vision, which dominated my work for years. It was not so much about the apocalypse itself but more about what the archaeology of the future might tell us about our civilization today."

"I want the viewer to regard the mixture of contemporary but old looking objects, combined with bush-craft techniques to make them puzzle about how this could have come to be. The aim was to play with anachronisms and create rather a romantic future nostalgia for a simpler time following our mass consumer culture now. The drawback was that people needed the word apocalypse to see what I was getting at, and the moment they heard that word, it coloured the way they saw the work. It was intended to be rather hopeful. The aesthetics of these works embraced wabi-sabi to show the beauty of transience and imperfection. I explore human ingenuity by assembling sometimes practical objects using contemporary fragments with bush-craft materials. Practical ingenuity seems to be something we are losing as we become adapted to urban living in an environment where cheap disposable plastics are easy to come by."

"I prefer my views to be subtle. I find that ecological art can become preachy and can become more of a political device if not carefully handled. Not to say that something can't be both art and politics but I believe that more subtle art has a better effect as people don't like to be told what to think. It's much better to make up one's own mind having absorbed information and messages but not having them thrust upon you. I want people to be more in touch with their physical environment and the materials available within it whilst placing this knowledge both in the past and the future."

Nancy Gewölb Mayanz has her studio in Valparaíso, Chile. She is a visual artist, as well as a poet and performance artists and it shows in her art, which has an ethereal or transcendent quality all its own.

Ms. Mayanz responses: "I use discarded leather that I find in upholsterers shops that came off of old sofas and chairs, and I turn them into sculptures and tapestries"


Nancy Gewölb Mayanz, Un Dia (One Day) (2001), photographs, knotted leather, string, ritual objects and bedframe in abandoned jail cell, 75" X 35.5" X 12" (courtesy of the artist)


"Sometimes I Feel I am like a bird looking for materials to make its nest. Once, I was in a shop looking how this man striped off a sofa covered with old, frail, dry, stained and scraped leather, and suddenly, I saw the memories imprinted in it: memories of bodies, human grease, spots of spilled meals, blood, sperm, tears, and above it, the animal that gave its life in exchange for being shown sprawled as a place to sit.

"I do not think that any message I would send to the viewers is received as I want it to be received, but I do not loose hope. I want them to enjoy the way I show my inner world, and through it I would like them to see with awe, the hidden questions and meaning of those works of art that I made out of that old and raw material, the memories imprinted in it, and the sadness of this planet that is also giving its life in exchange for being sprawled at our feet as another kind of trophy."

"I am a socialist to my core, I do not belong to any political party, I believe, as Ivo Andric says, that " life is a long illness that begins at birth and ends with death." I am not afraid to love my family, that I must have my solitude, that I need and love and hate the works of arts I am making, but I can not live without creating them, so I am at ease."

Alex Mazzitelli has his studio in Leicester, England. His art is as much performance as it is static sculpture. There is a certain element of viewer's mental or physical interaction that either completes or drives the work. He, with his art is a strange reflection of us, and it may bring us pause, surprise us with whit, or shame us into caring.

Mr. Mazzitelli's responses: "Almost every part of my work is found in the streets, junk shops, charity shops, markets and also secondhand shops - it is very rare for me to use new objects. I begin by combining the objects I gather them together until I get a combination I like. Then, I add paint or a material like plaster or latex to manipulate an object to get the desired effect."


Alex Mazzitelli, Ducks - Making Sence of Nonsence (2010), mixed media, 67" X 59" X 63" (courtesy of the artist)

"Well, I believe that any object or thing can be brought together to make art, and I believe found objects are there for anyone to stumble upon to be used for art. The found objects can also inspire or make us think. I believe things happen for a reason, and this is true with objects as well. If I see something, and I like the look of it or think it may come in handy I take it. Occasionally, it can be the very thing I have been searching for to complete a piece of work, or sometimes I will keep an object until it becomes useful to another piece or work."

"I hope that people realize that junk can be made into something interesting, that it can be something that makes people think differently. I believe that we, as humans, waste too much, and we should try to think more about the way we discard unwanted rubbish. I believe recycling is a big thing that we must address. Every object can be used for another use. An unwanted tube can be used to mix paint, hold pens, or even flowers."

Yehudit Mizrahi creates sculptures, which also include sound and kinetics that celebrate the strengths and frailties of life. Her assemblages are curious combinations that blend vintage objects with an occasional eye to the future. This makes her sense of time her most compelling feature. Ms. Mizrahi's studio is in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Ms. Mizrahi's responses: "Metal, water pipes, furniture, cloth, televisions, wood, basically everything which fits the concept of my art work."


Yehudit Mizrahi, CRANKY TONE GENERATOR (2008), closet, wood, metal and electronics (Kinetic Sculpture), 53" X 37.5" X 16.5" (courtesy of the artist)

"Each section of Amsterdam has its own garbage days spread along the week. It is a 'second hand shopping mall' where you can find things you never thought you will ever dare to buy. Since I am making kinetic art, I find most of my motors in car junkyards. I remember the first time I entered a Metal junkyard in Amsterdam's east. The workers there were fully surprised to see me climbing in to a huge container filled with mountains of goods. The celebration of the Dutch Queen's birthday (well it is actually her mother's birthday) allows everyone to sell whatever they want and this is a great opportunity to acquire unique objects."

"My interest in working with discarded objects started with an idea; I wanted to create an orchestra out of furniture. All along my search, I understood that I am searching for objects that I could feel a history or story behind it, and that I can mechanically manipulate it to be an instrument. Since I made this series of work called "If Grandma Had Wheels..." I was hooked.

"I never thought in terms of a message, at least not before I read your question. I do believe in recycling, I find a lot of beauty in old material. 'Old' things have scars, have wrinkles, have the dust of dreams and smells emitting from them. Such things have stories and, like time capsules, take us places. To reuse old objects and to bring it back to life is not a new idea. Back in the old days, things were made to last and when objects finished its roll it became something else. In those days, due to poverty, people had to be more creative. As for the viewers, I surely hope that they understand the importance of recycling, though I don't actively send this message via my art. It just happens"

"It feels like the world is out of balance due to my aversion towards mess production and its aftereffect disease: Consumerism."

Mona Naess has her studio in Oslo, Norway. Her art references both the physical and spiritual words. There is a reverence in her installations, like alter pieces or monuments, as Ms. Naess elevates the overlooked to the level of the divine.

Ms. Naess' responses: "I collect and recycle mostly what nature has discarded or what has been in contact with Earth over time. I often use materials that I find on the beach where I live; water-polished bones, dead fish and birds, driftwood, terra cotta fragments, smooth porcelain pieces, rope-tangles, corrugated iron objects and old rusty farm tools. I also collect dead animals, birds and horns that I find in the woods and human hair from friends. In addition to the "discarded nature", I use Pure Nature - clay and porcelain, naked - rarely glazed."


Mona Naess, Only the Muddy Fox Lives (2008), skeleton and silver, 169 fragments, 2" X 8" X 8" (courtesy of the artist)

"I've spent half my life helping commercial operators sell their goods as quickly as possible. After many years as a professional designer in the advertising industry, I decided I would no longer contribute to the disbursement of "new" objects. I wanted to use art as a tool to communicate an important ecological message."

"The aesthetics of nature is superior, but I am rearranging and staging an "awful & beautiful mix," and I hope that the viewer will recognize nature in an uncomfortable distorted way that would initiate a process of thinking beyond the simple art-object. I try to arrange an earth-dialogue; to present and twist the obvious."

"I am concerned about our interference with nature. My projects are grounded on a quest to explore the effects of the extinction of thousands of species each year."

Kalle Juhani Nieminen is visual artist from Helsinki, Finland. There is fun and frailty in his work, but there always remains optimism. His art is a celebration of life, and how life must hold both the flowers and the thorns.

Mr. Nieminen's responses: "I have used several recycled materials in my art work. Lately, I have been collecting cigarette ash from public ashtrays. Other recycled or discarded materials I have been using in my art are cardboard, beer bottles and cans, cast iron, different wood-based materials, six-pack-shells and several small objects. I found my materials from random places, sources and in different situations. I try keep my eyes open all the time.


Kalle Juhani Nieminen, B-Day (detail) (2010), site specific installation of ash-covered beer placed in sauna´s change room, size variable (courtesy of the artist)

"The starting point of artistic use and collecting these materials was my general interest for extremely cheap materials, combined with the possibility of making art and expressing poor economic conditions. Currently, I am working with cigarette ash and beer cans, as it relates to material and conceptual addictions in contemporary western society. Overall, my main subject is border-crossing and definitions between pleasure and slaving addiction."

"Esthetic and ecological qualities can be combined with imagination, thinking and intense attitude. Trash is just a word. Art is the widest way to approach and to be human. It is a void waiting to be filled with different transforming perspectives."

Frank Plant, who currently works out of a studio in Barcelona, Spain, makes sculptures that turn the familiar into a type of subtle propaganda. Mr. Plant mixes his metaphors in strategic, and at times, humorous ways creating works which are both familiar and foreign.

Mr. Plant's responses: "I use anything and everything from everywhere to make my art. Lately, bones and crushed, flat rusty, old tin cans have been my materials of choice. The bones I get from the butcher, and the cans I found walking next to the train tracks near Elche, Spain."


Frank Plant, Law of the Land (2011), bone and steel, 21.5" X 42" X 3" (courtesy of the artist)

"Every material or object has inherent qualities that are expressive by nature. With found and recycled objects, I am often dealing with the weight of their previous incarnation. In a manner of speaking, I hijack the objects to suit my needs, integrating them into my own previously established vocabulary. Found objects serve as a prepackaged bundle of values and aesthetic information."

"Most recently, I work with Flock (small fiber particles), especially the kind that model railroaders use to create mini landscapes. This allows me to mimic organic material to broach a variety of issues - some social and some political. These range from observations on the construction boom in Spain, to reflecting on individual's and asking if they were a garden, what type of garden would they be? A wild forest or Versailles?"

"My work is more political/social than philosophical, although one could see them as intertwined. I like to observe social and political dynamics. Sometimes my pieces are just that: observations on said dynamics. At other times, they are commentaries on those dynamics. I like to focus on balance and imbalance, harmony and discordance to discern the "composition" or tonal qualities, cut not necessarily in a formal sense of a situation. I think it's very important for creative minds to reflect on social and political issues."

Lina Puerta's art is steeped in natural forms, She creates fantastical scenes where color and texture are pushed to the limit, and life blooms and bubbles from the surface. But it is not all perfect - there is that tinge of danger - of not knowing if something in the mix has a poisonous offering for humans who get to close. Ms. Puerta, who was raised in Columbia, South America, has her studio in New York City, U.S.A.

Ms. Puerta's responses: "I use Styrofoam and wood, for building the structural form of a piece, to small plastic caps and ordinary found objects, such as in suitcases. If I have a specific material in mind, such as artificial plants, I try to buy from places that sell recyclables, for example, Film Biz, Build it Green, thrift stores and if I am creating a work for a non-profit exhibition space I may find materials from material for the arts."


Lina Puerta, Highness (2011), polyurethane foam, wood, resin, clay, paint, fabric, fiberfill, model trees, rhinestones, trims, notions, beads, chain, hardware, cotton thread, acrylic sheet, artificial plants, moss and found object, 40" X 22" x 15.5" (courtesy of the artist)

"I don't recall a specific incident but I think as an artist working three-dimensionally, you are quite aware of everything that is form into space, and therefore discarded objects become so attractive or hard to go unnoticed. Personally, I have been interested in working with different materials and textures, and very often discarded materials naturally acquire interesting forms or surfaces, as they have been modified by time and wearing."

"We are one with nature, and what we do to it we do to ourselves."

Kevin William Reed has a skateboard, tattoo, streetwise esthetic that powers his work. He turns found and decrepit pieces of wood into wildly brutal and beautiful narratives that are a big part of his life-long esthetics and beliefs.
Mr. Reed has his studio in Brooklyn, U.S.A.

Mr. Reed's responses: "I recycle such things as wood, scrap metal or scrap fabric, cast iron spikes and windows in my work. I find these things throughout the industrial sector of Brooklyn that surrounds the Navy Yard, which includes a 30 to 40 block walk from the warehouse building that houses my studio, the industrial loading docks, corporate dumpsters and general piles of trash. These become the basis for my paintings of "Dead Things": half creature, half skeleton mash-ups."


Kevin William Reed, Roaring Screamer (2011), acrylic on found wood, 62" X 79", (courtesy of the artist)

"Ever since I was a child, I have had a fascination with dead things as craft materials. I find there is an inherent beauty in the nastiest and dirtiest of the discarded wood and palettes. The scavenging, the pulling apart, reconfiguring and reattaching the elements reminds me of the same quality of craft that my Grandmother and I would do every summer on her farm with found carcasses."

"I hope the viewer sees my work and finds a different perspective on what is beautiful. In terms of ecology, my intent is not to spread a green message or insight ecological care within my work. However, while this is not an initial goal of my work, I feel it does quietly emphasize ecological issues whereby the viewer may reconsider the "trash" that they and their neighbors have as being something else, something useful."

"In the past 75 years death has increasingly become more taboo, more avoidable and more removed from society in the U.S. and I think this is creating a less diligent, more fragile group of humans. The found objects in my work serve as a platform to communicate to the viewer that dead, discarded and derelict things are beautiful, and that there is nothing to fear."

Quim Rifà has his studio in Barcelona, Spain. His art bridges the gap between humor and the absurd, intriguing us with new and creative ways of viewing our everyday world. He can bring animation to an inanimate object, elevating the banal. Whatever Mr. Rifà makes, his art has the main purpose of activating the freethinking, wide-eyed child in all of us.

Mr. Rifà's responses: "The materials that I use there are several, such as old sewing machines or typewriters or tools of the kitchen. I like these materials because they already have charm.. Normally, my friends and family tell me in advance when they about to throw something away, and if the material is interesting I will pick it up and bring it to my studio for future use."


Quim Rifà, La Cosidora (2009), mixed media and objects, 27.5" x 20" X 10" (courtesy of the artist)

"My relationship used materials as an art medium started when I was living in Berlin. There, I had the first contact with artists who used recycled materials as primary material for their work. I was impressed by this potential because I was without a workshop or primary material to work with. These artists opened me to a new world."

"My hope is that the esthetics of my sculptures will inspire the public to think beyond the original purpose of objects and find new and creative uses for them so they don't end up in the streets or as garbage."

"Artists use their language to reflect the society and what happens in it; and it is at this moment that the world has a major environmental problem with the waste that humans create. I would like to help make the change toward a better world."

David A. Smith has his studio in Peterborough, England. His art is austere, focused and foreboding. His subjects are haunting, while the surfaces he creates are refined, and crisp. Smith repurposes natural materials, bones, teeth, minerals and a variety of earth borne materials in his art. This brings a spiritual presence to his figures, as well as life and death to his art.

Mr. Smith's responses: "I use a lot of natural materials and these are quite easy to find if you know where to look. In the past I have used discarded Deer antlers or animal bones from various sources. I would say I am as much of a salvager as I am a recycler."


David A. Smith, Glory (2010), rigid foam form, eL wire, red deer antlers, gloss black finish, 35.5" x 43" X 27.5" (courtesy of the artist)

"I have always been drawn to nature in one form or another. As such the surviving elements that are strongest after the demise of a creature are its teeth or skeleton, or antlers in the case of Deer that shed them. I would say for me those structures that life build on, cling to physically, are very special as they are present at the end of things. These lingering components of the body that survive decay are fascinating and deserve some sort of investigation and celebration."

"Aesthetically, I aim to entice the viewer with the natural form entwined with technology or adorned by luxurious finishes. I would say that given much of my work centers on the elements found from death, or the celebration of reclaiming natural forms, that in an ecological sense I want to show nature as the untainted lead. From beginning of life to the end it is based on instinct and sometimes ritual. I know that natural forms may be an obvious way to do this but it's always about applying light touches and careful consideration before any idea is realized."

"I only strive to produce what I am passionate about. If in turn that creates a social or political discourse then that can't be a negative outcome. However for nature to survive, and for us to survive, a balance and understanding is still needed. I don't think we are as harmonious with the environment as we could be."

Isa Tenhaeff has her studio in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her art plays the physical world against the psychological. Her compositions and installations conjure up all sorts of emotions and feelings that can be anywhere from political to playful, or mysterious to menacing. There is a frailty to her art as well, a vulnerability that is quite compelling, and at times, puzzling.

Ms. Tenhaeff's responses: "For my art I collect used objects ranging from broken toys, precious clothing and building ornaments from the trash to fine art prints and my own academy drawings and paintings. I look for "gem-quality" in the materials I collect: these things are often broken or worn-out but there is a spark - a classic sense of power or beauty that I can use. Also my objects have to bring up a lot of different (personal, public, historical references, etc.)."


Isa Tenhaeff, Trees in a Forrest (2011), mixed media installation, 138" X 138" X 275.5" (courtesy of the artist)

"I work from historical images and from a notion of historical continuum in which patterns, compositions, notions of proportion, etc. are repeated. As a sociologist I am trained at looking at people, and of seeing patterns in behavior and in the material outcomes of this behavior. In rough lines images and structures are repeated over and over, though details may vary. I look for these kind of patterns in 'old' art and architecture and find absurd similarities to our world today. Similar to the idea of golden ratio, I search for the best ways to bring out these immaterial references through ordering materials."

"History, meaning and beauty are not about power, status and priceless materials, but about ordering or arranging architecturally); finding the right 'engine' for an installation and seeing."

From Christchurch, New Zealand, and the surrounding countryside, Matthew George Richard Ward creates highly conceptual, ephemeral works that are as challenging as they are distinctive. He constantly pushes his art in any number of directions, incorporating many levels of conscious thinking and theory from the banal to the sublime.

Mr. Ward's responses: "I often recycle found materials that commonly coincide with my movements. Currently, I am nomadic, and my movements influence the work I produce. Materials can vary from internet sources to collections of personal documents, found to gifted to borrowed objects, or purchases from opportunity shops, free bins, or things I happen to find in alleyways, or in a pile of boxes waiting to be picked up, things I find in a public toilet, a government office - it really depends on when and where I am or who I am with - and often whether or not I have a camera. I am active online, notably on Facebook (utilizing a kind of subjective displacement) for storing and sharing images."


Matthew George Richard Ward, Wash it Down with Cola and it's the Temne Language of Sierra Leone (installation view) (2011), mixed media, size variable (courtesy of the artist)

"The relationship between usefulness and uselessness has always interested me since my discovery of Eastern religion(s) and philosophy. As humans, we consume in excess; I am drawn to the phenomenology that exists between subject and object, or the confusion in the affectation of language in time and space and how it affects our thinking and feeling of being and or not being. Being here, being there, what is a human life? I want to embrace this experience and examine difference and the dichotomy between the self and other through subject to object relationships. My work also deals with the pornography of information and communication. My fascination toward discarded materials is perhaps linked to my interest in sound collage and sampled music in my adolescence."

"I am open to new ways of seeing, through the realities and connections between our inner and external worlds. I am influenced by change, sometimes the line between beauty and hideousness, for what is beauty in the mind of the viewer? As media covertly saturates our minds, we become more and more effected by it in subliminal ways. This saturation is inspiring to me, and it helps me discover and constantly redefine what it means to be a human being and a contemporary artist. I am investigating ideas of authorship and authenticity; I believe that the conceptual, pragmatic and emotive are inextricably linked. What is necessity, what is superfluous? These are questions I hope that the viewers of my work may consolidate."

"I believe all art is political in one way or another. I am interested philosophy, some examples can include Anarchism, Neo-Marxism, Daoism, Ch'an and Zen Buddhism, Post-Structuralism and Feminism."

It's not often you see a new form of racism being created. But, if HBO goes ahead with its planned screening of Jonah from Tonga, that's exactly what's going to happen. And the lives of a whole lot of good people will get that much worse.

Jonah from Tonga is an Australian 6-part 'mockumentary' so brimming with a peculiar sort of deep Australian racism that's hard to even know where to start. So, let's go with the main character. Jonah is 14 and 'from Tonga', though living in Australia with family.

Jonah is in trouble with the law, is a horrific bully, homophobic, and regularly sexually harasses women teachers, his aunts and even a nun. Academically, he is failing and is being parked in a remedial education unit known in the show as "spaz" house (thanks, Australia, for breathing new life into that almost forgotten derogatory term).

And the thing is, get this, this racist teenaged pastiche is being played by Chris Lilley, a 39-year-old white guy, in a permed wig and brownface. Yes, brownface. In 2014. Really. Take a look at the promo shot. Even the logo is some sort of faux-'Tonga' tiki.



What are you thinking, HBO? This is not cutting edge. This is not a modern All In The Family. This is not, as the original broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) described it: "comedy and satire... with a sharp edge -- notions that extend back to Chaucer and Shakespeare."

The reference to Chaucer and Shakespeare is apt only in that this sort of 'comedy' is so old-fashioned as to be medieval. This is barely post-colonial racism. This is a middle-aged white guy putting on brown face paint and a curly wig and pretending to be a sexually aggressive, moronic, criminal, brown guy whose only saving grace is singing and dancing (or in this case, rapping and break dancing -- I kid you not). I thought the days of minstrel shows were over.

Oh, there's more. Jonah's all 'Tongan' school dance group is called Fobba-licious (from FOB -- Fresh Off the Boat). When Jonah inevitably gets sent to juvenile detention he forms another group: Juvi-licious -- helpfully showing the viewers the smooth transition from immigrant to criminal.

In lock-up, Lilley introduces us to another Australian racist stereotype and term. The violent criminal "Abos" (for Aboriginal Australian). The brown Islanders and brown Abos fight each other while the kindly white guards try to keep the peace.

Just as a bonus, the show also introduces a new slur that will make life hell for redheads. In the show redheads are violently bullied for being "rangas" (for orangutans). This largely Caucasian-only stereotype is the only one that Lilley has said he feels a bit bad about: "I get angry letters from rangas. And letters from parents whose kids are rangas. So I feel a little bit guilty, but it's funny and that overrides everything."

Really? According to ABC's defense of the show: "Our editorial policies provide a solid framework for this sort of programming: if there is harm and offence it must have a clear editorial purpose and be signposted." The editorial purpose here seems to be Lilley thinks it's funny.

Team Lilley is getting used to trying to come up with excuses for the inexcusable.

ABC's head of TV comedy, Rick Kalowski, said: "Jonah from Tonga plays with stereotypes but it's doing so to make an observation about the narrow-minded attitudes expressed by some of its characters, including Jonah's own." Let's start with the basics. Mr. Kalowski is blithely saying that, in his mind, there is a preexisting stereotype of Tongans as sexually aggressive, profane, dumb and criminal for Lilley to 'play with'.

That tells us a lot more about Mr. Kalowski than it does about Tongans. Who is he hanging out with? Certainly not the Tongans who are excelling at Harvard. Or the Tongan Marines who are serving alongside us in Afghanistan. Or the Tongan academics in Japan. Or Tongan religious leaders posted all over the world. Or the thousands of quiet, hard-working, devout, family focused Tongans living across Australia.

ACTUAL FACTS ABOUT THE KINGDOM OF TONGA

• A chain of islands in the South Pacific, near Fiji. Population 106,000. Large Diaspora in the US, mostly in California and Utah.


• Literacy 99%. One of highest per capital PhD rates in world.


• Practically no starvation or homelessness. Very safe.


• No traffic lights or chain fast food outlets (No McDonald's KFC, etc) in the whole country.


• Very family-oriented and devout Christians. No flights in or out of the country on Sundays.


• Former capital of a large Polynesian Maritime Empire.


• Never Colonized. Last Polynesian Kingdom.


• King Tupou I Wrote and signed one of first Constitutions in the region in 1875.

Mr. Kalowski's racist stereotype of Tongans does not (yet) exist in the mainstream American consciousness. Just for a nanosecond accept Mr. Kalowski at face value. Why in the world would HBO want to create a new racist stereotype, affecting the lives of thousands of Pacific Islanders in their schools, their communities, and at work, just for an Australian actor to 'play with'. What the hell?

And if anyone thinks creating a new derogatory stereotype won't have an effect, please watch PBS's classic Frontline Documentary A Class Divided about Iowa school teacher Jane Elliott's famous 1970's blue eyes/brown eyes racism experiment (or any of the thousands of scientific papers on the effects of racism and bias).

Tongans, Pacific Islanders, and those who understand racism know the attacks will come if HBO broadcasts, are they doing what they can to defend themselves, including writing articles, taking to Twitter (#MyNameIsNOTJonah), Facebook and urging people to cancel their HBO subscription if it broadcasts. Many of the comments on the change.org petition asking HBO not to broadcast the show are deeply touching pleas to save communities, especially the children, from the inevitable targeting. As Tevita Tapavalu wrote:

This perpetuates stereotypes beyond Tongans and makes a mockery of the migration experiences faced by every ethnic group. This narrative is more common than you think and by making a joke of these lived experiences, Mr. Lilley--moreover, HBO, makes it okay for open discrimination and racism under the premise that 'it's just comedy'.

It's worth making one thing clear. Throughout the series, Team Lilley shows it really doesn't know anything about Tonga and Tongans, and really doesn't care. For example, in the show, when a boy from Jonah's family becomes a man, he gets the 'traditional' family tattoo -- 'Tonganized' male genitalia. Jonah gets his done on his chest. His father's is on his butt. Hahaha, Lilley seems to be saying, Tongans are so stupid, they think they are being a man by getting traditional tattoos, but really they are just big dicks. Geddit? Where is the sophisticated "observation about the narrow-minded attitudes" in that segment, HBO?

Tongan culture is old, deep and complex. Social relationships, especially within the extended family have intricate but clear (to Tongans) parameters. The hardest Tongan Crip would never say the sort of thing that Jonah says to his sister (just two examples: "I'll punch you in the vagina" and "eat shit... bitch"). He just wouldn't. It wouldn't be Tongan.

In a letter defending the show to a concerned Tongan church group, ABC claims that "Jonah's clear lack of respect toward his family and ignorance about his culture is in stark contrast to those around him." This is complete nonsense. His father, sister, other relatives also do things no Tongan would do, including swearing at close family members of the opposite sex, and during prayers.

Another excuse given by Mr. Kalowski was: "It's also worth noting that while Jonah himself might be a heightened comic character, virtually every other Tongan or Islander character in the series is presented as a well-rounded, believable person without comic traits: Jonah's brother, sister, cousin, aunt and his social worker 'Kool Kris'."

I watched the whole series. All I know about Jonah's brother is that he has learning difficulties, was also in 'juvi', and his one saving grace, in true racist tradition, is that he can sing. The most defining characteristic of his sister is that, as Jonah repeatedly says to her, she is "fat." The cousin, whom Jonah lusts after, ends up being pretty lustful herself and dates the local 'Tongan' gangbanger. The aunt is an unmemorable benign non-entity with no backstory. 'Kool Kris' is another stereotype: the decidedly uncool, saving-himself-until-marriage, religious do-gooder (i.e. the only 'good' Tongan male character is self-emasculating). These characters are well-rounded only in the context of a two-dimensional universe.

Anyway, in an interview, Lilley himself said something completely different: "I had the example of the other boys that were Jonah's friends and that was intentional as I wanted to surround him with kids that were just like him in order to help the illusion and you could place him." Which is closer to the truth.

The 'Tongans' we see most, Jonah's gang, are a Greek chorus reinforcing and echoing Jonah's violence, profanity and disruptive behavior. And Jonah's father is dumb, foul-mouthed and abusive, frequently beating Jonah and shouting at him in public: "I'm gonna smack you in the asshole." Kool Kris calls him a typical Tongan dad.

As for Lilley's character research, he says: "I met Pacific Islander kids and just naughty teenage boys, those types of kids."

Which is possibly (one of the many reasons) why it went wrong. Cultures are not mix-n-match. A Tongan 'naughty boy' will not do things an Anglo-Australian 'naughty boy' will do. And vice-versa. As Kolini Fusitua put it: "we tongans view Jonah as a white teenager characteristic with possible disability that is not address by people in his environment." The core point is, if Lilley was interested in just 'naughty boys', why single out someone from a very specific culture, Tonga, unless he also wanted to make a point about Tonga?

Which brings us to another line taken by Lilley defenders, that he 'offends everyone'. Not like this. His only other stand-alone character series, in which he plays an obnoxious teenaged girl, was Ja'mie: Private School Girl.

Imagine if in Ja'mie was from another country and the show was called Ja'mie from China. Or Ja'mie from Mexico. Or Ja'mie from Jerusalem. Pretty ugly, right? It also limits the show's 'social commentary' as her characteristics can be dismissed as not referenceing a certain sort of girl, but as reinforcing/creating stereotypes about a certain sort of Chinese, Mexican, etc... Well, apart from the sex change, that's exactly what Lilley did with Jonah from Tonga.

Richard Finlayson, Director of TV at ABC says Jonah: "is not intended, nor should it be seen to represent all Tongans." Then why specify Jonah is 'from Tonga' (in the title no less) and surround him with similar criminal and disruptive 'Tongans': the Tongan ganbangers, the Tongans in jail, the Tongan boys in 'Spaz' House. In the context of the series, Jonah is not an outlier; Jonah is a bridge character between the disruptive 'Tongan' teens at school and the dangerous 'Tongan' gang members (the show's core question is whether or not he will end up in a gang). And it's not the soppy Kool Kris who gets the girl, it's (in the context of the series) the actually cool Tongan gang member.

Mr. Finlayson says Jonah's journey is "redemptive" and ends with him having "a sense of pride, direction, self-worth, spiritual awareness and greater purpose." Did we watch the same show? Because in the one I saw, the series ends with Jonah using Photoshop to trick his father into thinking he is doing well at school so he can go to Tonga to get his family dick tattoo.

Australian racism towards Pacific Islands is a major problem, at many levels, especially for Australia itself as it tries to find its place in the 'Asian century'. There is, in many Pacific capitals, the perception that Australia is an inept, condescending regional bully -- and that Canberra looks at national governments as little more than Jonahs in better suits. That deteriorating relationship has the potential to change geopolitics.

Jonah from Tonga has been a ratings disaster in Australia and the UK. This is not a 'good' sort of controversy. Apart from the effects on Pacific Islanders, it is bad for HBO. It is bad for the producers, Melanie Brunt and Laura Waters from Princess Pictures. And it is bad for Chris Lilley. With Jonah, Lilley jumped the shark. And the sad thing is, his friends didn't warn him.

Please, HBO, I get it, you like Lilley -- this isn't about the quality of his other shows. You may even think he is Australia's Shakespeare. But it's not the 16th Century. Nowadays, friends don't let friends wear blackface. Period.

There is a debate going on now about whether white Australia is still racist. Those in the 'yes' camp point to the treatment of Aboriginals, the series of attacks on Indian students, the assaults on Asians and more. Now they can also say Australia's establishment racism is so casual the national broadcaster will commission a brownface series trashing the reputation of a specific immigrant community while saying it's in the tradition of Chaucer. Australia, you are better than this. Aren't you?

And HBO, doesn't the US have enough divisions without having to import new ones? Don't be a hater. If you drop it, Lilley will be fine. If you run it, good kids will get hurt. And that is not funny.

Having arrived in Pelham, Alabama, several years ago and establishing a construction business, Joel Rivera walked into a small Mexican grocery store looking for a specialty item. "Necesitaba nopales y me querían cobrar cinco pesos para una bolsita. Con la cantidad de mexicanos por aquí pensaba que eso estaba mal. Fue cuando decidí abrir una tienda para servir a la comunidad." ("I needed cactus paddles and they wanted to charge me five bucks for a small packet. With all the Mexicans living around here, I thought that was unacceptable. That's when I decided to open up a store that served the community.") Mr. Rivera told me the story as we toured his flagship Mi Pueblo (My Town) Supermarket. He and his wife, Isabel, will soon open another 41,000-square-foot Mi Pueblo in Homewood, a neighboring southern suburb of Birmingham, which, like Pelham, continues to experience rapid Latino population growth. Alabama's Latino population expanded 154 percent since the last Census.

Isabel Rivera, known as La Jefa (The Boss), also operates three Spanish-language radio stations serving a broad swath of mid-northern Alabama. Isabel's flagship FM station is also known as La Jefa. Importantly, Isabel is also an active member of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's Latino advisory committee. Two doors from Mi Pueblo, the Rivera's are close to finishing a hall that will serve the community's social function needs (e.g., coming-out parties, wedding receptions, etc.). And, then there's the construction company, the goose that's laid the community's golden egg. These entrepreneurs have come a long way from their small towns in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí.

The Rivera's are now citizens and have four children, all born in the U.S. I note this because demographers following the rising Latino population in the region find birthrate, not immigration, as the principle factor driving the growth. Of the seven states experiencing the fastest Latino population growth, six are in the South.

The Birmingham area was the third stop on my recent Southern swing. I began in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a visit to the Levine Museum of the New South. The Levine is the lead museum in a tri-party collaboration that is looking at what is now commonly referred to as the Latino New South (El Nuevo South). The other participants are the Atlanta History Center and the previously mentioned Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. What unites these institutions is that they are cultural flagships in major "receiving communities," committed to "immigrant integration," no small task given the legacy of racial discrimination in the deep South, and nagging anti-immigrant fervor and legislation.

The South hasn't exactly rolled out the welcome mat for Latinos. These three institutions, on the other hand, have, and they and the communities they serve are better for it. Encouragingly, they are really listening and paying attention (creating what they call a "learning network"), and not shying away from tackling tough issues. While in Charlotte, I met Mexican artist, Rosalía Torres-Weiner, who worked with the Levine in creating Papalote Mágico (The Magic Kite), a 2012 exhibition featuring kites made by area children whose parents had been recently deported, which shed light on our dysfunctional immigration system and the over-determined role of local law enforcement. The list of thought-provoking exhibits at the Levine is a long and already distinguished one.

The Atlanta History Center takes a more traditional, formal route in interpreting and unpacking Atlanta's complicated racialized history. Fortunately, they've committed existing and new curatorial and program staff to carry forward, and have actively engaged with local Latino civic organizations in the design and promotion of ongoing programs targeting the Latino community. Before driving to Birmingham, I stopped by La Michoacana, a Mexican restaurant located in Plaza Fiesta, a huge mall along Northeast Buford Highway. I hadn't had a huarache (an open-face sandwich sitting on a thick corn tortilla) that good in a long time. I smiled all the way to Birmingham.

While waiting for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to open, I crossed the street and I sat on the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church -- holy ground. On Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, a bomb, planted by white separatist terrorists, exploded, killing four Sunday-school-bound children, ages 11-14. The bombing marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. It is this history to which the Institute is dedicated. Remarkably, when I entered the Institute, the first thing I saw was Para Todos Los Niños, a modest exhibit about Méndez vs. Westminster, a 1946 federal case finding separate "Mexican schools" in Orange County, California unconstitutional -- eight years before the more famous Brown vs. Board of Education. Not surprisingly, the exhibit was organized the Levine Museum of the New South. While at the Institute, I had lunch with its Latino advisory committee, dedicated local volunteers who understand that, in the Institute, they have an organization dedicated to addressing the immediate civil rights issues confronting their community.

In 2015, the Levine, in collaboration with its two partners, will open NUEVOlution (working title), a watershed exhibition comprehensively examining the Latino New South. The show will travel to Atlanta, Birmingham and other cities. If we're lucky, perhaps we can bring it to the Smithsonian.

While browsing the Levine's gift store, I came across The New Southern-Latino Table, a cookbook by Sandra Gutiérrez exploring the culinary confluence of Latin America and the American South. I smiled, at once understanding that Latino communities in the South are there to stay, and that we all have a role to play in ensuring that their lives are enabled and enriched, and that their experiences become truly part of a continually unfolding American Story.

The last 10 minutes or so of Robert Boswell's play The Long Shrift, at the Rattlestick, are richly dramatic. During them Richard (Scott Haze) and Beth (Ahna O'Reilly) finally get to the confrontation towards which some extremely tense events have been leading.

Classmates at Seattle's Lancaster High School, Richard and Beth didn't travel in the same circles. Nevertheless, Beth invited Richard to her 1999 post-prom party and during it led him to an upstairs bedroom, where they had a sexual encounter. She subsequently claimed she was raped. Richard was tried, convicted and sent to prison. When Beth recanted five years later, he was released. He's now home after another five years drifting, and he's considering whether to attend his 10th Lancaster reunion.

The strength of Boswell's final scene is his bringing together two characters whose mistakes a decade earlier have condemned them to severely constrained lives. Richard has turned into a hardened and hating young man, and Beth has become a local pariah. As Boswell contrives it, their hammering out the past is the only way either of them can hope to break through to anything approaching a promising future.

It's a heart-rending situation that -- as played by Haze and O'Reilly and directed by ubiquitous polymath James Franco -- is thoroughly riveting. The prospect of two damaged people seeking salvation through each other isn't something at which you quickly turn up your nose.

The shock of Boswell's script is that just about everything leading to the denouement is confusing. Some of it is merely extraneous; some of it doesn't rise above the comically two-dimensional; some of it is downright bad writing. Sitting through it all to arrive at the final scene is nothing less than tedious, particularly when there's no promise, given Boswell's poor construction, that a final scene will be any better than what's preceded it.

The Long Shrift begins with Richard and Beth nowhere in sight. Instead, his battling parents Henry (Brian Lally) and Sarah (Ally Sheedy) are discovered 10 years earlier moving into the unwelcoming home to which they've been driven as a result of the legal fees they accumulated for carrying out Richard's ultimately unsuccessful defense. (Andromache Chalfant's set strongly resembles the downscale abodes frequently viewed on the Rattlestick stage.)

The first item Sarah takes from the packed boxes placed here and there is a phosphorescent vase. Uh-oh. Whether the valuable item breaks before final curtain won't be revealed here, but what's your guess? And that obvious symbol is only the beginning of Boswell's problems.

Sarah starts nagging and keeps it up, even though her presence in the proceedings -- she shows up later in a dream sequence with a flashback in it -- could arguably be eliminated without affecting the play's focal concern: whether Richard and Sarah can overcome the calamitous ramifications of their impetuous one-night stand.

Yet another scene gone haywire is one where Richard, having wavered on attending the reunion, does go and drags Sarah along with him. It's highly unlikely that the provocative speech he makes to classmates -- during which he reveals a tattoo of a swastika on his chest that he acquired in prison -- would be allowed to go uninterrupted under actual circumstances. Nor would any class reunion have been organized by dim-witted, 17-year-old Macy (Allie Gallerani), a current Lancaster High student, and not by a member of the reunion class.

Oh well, the cast works hard under Franco's gritty direction, even though for four-fifths of the time it's to modest avail. and only Haze and O'Reilly get to play the one truly tough-minded sequence.

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The brilliant novelist and essayist John Banville has such a passion for the brilliant but deeply disturbed Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) that he's completed contemporary versions of the earlier playwright's works -- The Broken Jug, God's Gift (based on Amphitryon) and Love in the Wars (based on Penthesilea).

Lucky for us, the latter 1808 work (pointedly not a translation) is having its world premiere at The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Or is it lucky for us? I'm not convinced the production, directed by Ken Rus Shmoll, is serving Banville as well as it might.

Though Marsha Ginsberg's white-and-grey set featuring a Biedermeier divan is elegantly spare and Oana Botez's contemporary costumes are fashionably sleek, the tale of the non-Homeric love-hate entanglement between Greek warrior Achilles (Chris Stack) and Amazon warrior Penthesilea (Birgit Huppuch) during the Trojan war doesn't play as well as a reading of the script, written in iambic pentameter, suggests it should.

At its core, both the Kleist and Banville plays are as strong a metaphor of the battle of the sexes as literary history has produced. (It's a precursor to Warren Adler's The War of the Roses, shortly to be a musical.) Initially, Achilles and Penthesilea -- among comrades Odysseus (Jeffrey Binder), Agamemnon (KeiLyn Jones), a High Priestess (Karen Kandel), Prothoe (Karen Pittman) and others -- are enemies. Then they're frenemies. Then lovers. Their affair, however, takes a losing games-people-play form, with Achilles conniving to surrender to Penthesilea in battle so that she can feel sufficiently superior to him and therefore will succumb to his romantic advances.

Known for mixing and mingling comedy and tragedy in helter-skelter manner, Kleist -- by way of Banville -- means to be funny about the situation until he isn't. But whatever the directorial and acting recipe might be for achieving that end, it isn't followed at the Fisher Center.

There's a difference between a singsong delivery to which iambic pentameter can too often lead and a manuscript's desirable musicality. As Shmoll guides it, a singsong delivery is nicely eschewed but, with the exception of Kandel's High Priestess, any consistent sense of musicality isn't reached. Rather, a large amount of playground shouting is prevalent; there's virtually no laughter attained. Granted, when Odysseus, who's observed the lovers wrangle for a while, says, "Take it from me--no man is worth all this," he definitely elicits a chuckle.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Love in the Wars and in Penthesilea is (spoiler warning) that at the end both Achilles and Penthesilea are dead. Prothoe says, "There was no help for her on this earth." The line echoes what Kleist wrote in a suicide note to his sister -- "There was no help for me on earth"--before he shot himself and his lover, the already dying Henriette Vogel. In other words, Kleist realized in his death what he'd already created for the theater. That's a hard fact to dismiss lightly.

Seth Tucker, Marty Thomas, Alex Ringler, Curtis Wiley, Nic Cory, and Nick Cearley in Pageant, photo by Jenny Anderson

Pageant -- the 1991 off-Broadway hit about a beauty contest, with the six contestants played by male actors in dresses and wigs -- was a clever, rowdy, dazzlingly funny and quirky musical. In revival 23 years later, Pageant is quirky and intermittently funny; the rest of the allure has gone the way of vanishing cream.

Mostly, Pageant back then was unexpected. And original, at least to mainstream audiences. Three years after Pageant came the international success of the Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, The Queen of the Desert, which humanized its somewhat similar characters, and compared to which Pageant is merely a sketchy spoof. In 2014, you've got Kinky Boots a few doors down from the tiny (and rickety) Davenport Theatre; you get more dazzle by simply walking past the houseboards at the Hirschfeld, on your way down the block, than you do at this revival.

Pageant recreates, before our very eyes, the 2014 Miss Glamouresse contest (and yes, the characters and content seem deeply rooted in 1990). Glamouresse is a manufacturer of dubious beauty products, like flavored lip-snack in oversized tubes that look like -- well, they don't exactly leave these things to the imagination. The evening is laid out simply: each "girl" is introduced, each offers her "talent," each does a raunchy Glamouresse commercial. There are also dress parades of gowns and bathing suits. If this sounds like the sort of thing dancers languishing on a long touring show might come up with in the wee hours to alleviate boredom, it is; Robert Longbottom, who conceived Pageant and served as director/choreographer of the original production, devised the thing while he was touring with 42nd Street and enlisted composer Albert Evans and lyricist/librettists Bill Russell and Frank Kelly to write it.

Longbottom's staging was perhaps the secret of the show's success. He was eventually given his shot at a big Broadway musical, the 1997 Side Show (written by the same Mr. Russell with Dreamgirls composer Henry Kreiger, and recently enjoying a successful revisal at the Kennedy Center). Pageant -- without Longbottom, directed by Matt Lenz and choreographed by Shea Sullivan -- is a pale affair. Whether this is due to Longbottom's absence, or the passing of time, or simply the dusty material itself, is impossible to say. But the bloom is off the beauty rose, if you will, and the show is mostly a faded also-ran.

What this Pageant does have is three canny performances which get us through the eighty-five minutes with intermittent spells of enjoyment. Mixed in with what might be considered obvious men-in-big-wigs performances are two very much nonobvious, droll performances. Nick Cearley (of The Skivvies) plays Miss Great Plains -- Bonnie Jean Cutlet -- with an air of bemusement that makes him stand out. His dramatic recitation, an ecological plea called "I Am the Land" which brings to mind that 1970s anti-pollution TV commercial featuring a crying Indian, pretty much wipes out the other contestants. (At the preview I attended, he was named Miss Glamouresse even though the votes of the audience member-judges favored one of the men-in-big-wigs.)

He is evenly matched by Seth Tucker, who gives a glazed and dazed performance as Miss West Coast. His special material is one of those "Seven Ages of Man" affairs, in which he emerges from the womb in a wild tie-dye outfit. Cearley and Tucker are performing material written by the same authors and staged by the same director as the other actors, yes; but their performances are on a considerably higher level.

Best of all is John Bolton as Frankie Cavalier, the fourth-rate master of ceremonies. Bolton--who recently emerged from a long career as a comic character man with the leading role in A Christmas Story -- has a lopsided smile, too many teeth, and a frozen enthusiasm; this might only be Miss Glamouresse, but he plays it like he is serenading Miss America. Yes, we've seen this sort of performance in this sort of role many times before, but Bolton seems to be convinced that he is the real thing--and he convinces us. (He is also the only person I've ever heard pronounce "cav-al-cay-ay-ay-ay-ayde" in seven syllables.) Bolton was rushed into the cast late in previews -- he started on a Sunday and played to the critics on Monday! -- but one can easily understand why the producers made the change. One can only imagine what this beauty Pageant would look like without Mr. Bolton.

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Pageant, with music by Albert Evans and book & lyrics by Bill Russell and Frank Kelly, opened July 14, 2014 at the Davenport Theatre

"Jesus, what a tramp!" George of the famous duo leading John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men exclaims with disdain after first meeting Curley's wife, the newly married young woman living on the ranch. The audience, notably younger than usual Broadway theatergoers, dependably erupts with laughter, and as that subsides, George threatens Lennie, his lovable, mentally disabled friend, "Don't even look at that bitch" when Lennie innocently remarks how "purdy" she is.

The insults are thrown at Curley's wife: bitch, tramp, tart. The further along in the production we go, the more I realize that the audience agrees. In rooting for our heroes -- the everyman protagonists who scorn and demean the only woman -- the audience finds themselves unquestioningly hating her, too. But why? Of course, in playing this character, as with any other project, I care for her and have found common ground with even her specific flaws; I would expect my affection for her to be above those watching from the audience. But in dissecting this piece for five months now, I've found that within the writing, there is both a lack of reason to truly hate this woman, and the inevitable and undeniable urge to do so.

A few months ago, I read a piece by Daisy Eagan, a Tony Award-winning actress who was aiming to condemn a misogynistic comment on my character in a New York Times review. The review stated that my version of the character was intentionally lacking in the vamp department so as to dissuade the viewer from thinking that "she was asking for it," -- "it" being her death. Of course, I agreed with Ms. Eagan's opinion in that no woman ever asks for violence or rape, and that ignorance was most likely what brought the Times writer to his conclusion.

However, during our four-month run, I've had ups and downs with this notion, in my own feelings of insecurity, and in studying the words of Steinbeck; not just the play itself, but in a letter that was passed on to me by our director at the beginning of our run, written by Steinbeck to Claire Luce, the actress who originated the role on stage. In the letter, Steinbeck sheds light on what is behind this character without a name, writing that, "She was told over and over that she must remain a virgin because that was the only way she could get a husband ... She only had that one thing to sell and she knew it." He goes on, "She is a nice, kind girl and not a floozy. No man has ever considered her as anything except a girl to try to make ... As to her actual sex life -- she has had none except with Curley and there has probably been no consummation there since Curley would not consider her gratification and would probably be suspicious if she had any." I can barely read the letter now without tearing up at the thought of this imaginary woman, what she stands for, and what she loses. It's only become clear to me during my time with Curley's wife exactly how subversive Steinbeck's work is, and how he must have intended it.

If this woman is purely a victim, why is she so hated? And if she is truly harmless, why is she so threatening? Without question, it was a commentary on the social climate at the time, which still surprisingly applies today. But if sexism is one of the featured themes, why not say it? Crooks, a character who is forced to live in the barn and away from the other men, says that it's "because I'm black. They play cards in there but I can't play cus I'm black." As clear as day, the color of his skin is the reason for segregation. A modern audience cringes and immediately identifies. Such an explanation is never given as to why Curley's wife is shunned.

From an outside perspective, one might see her desperate attempts to make a connection to these men as innocent: "There ain't no women. I can't walk to town ... I tell you I just want to talk to somebody." Yet somehow, invariably, a large portion of the audience seems to agree with George. They want her to leave so she doesn't cause any trouble. I understand, because watching Chris O'Dowd, Jim Norton and James Franco make their plans for a utopian ranch, I want them to have that dream, too. But why is Curley's wife's presence so disturbing? And why does the audience agree? It's the subconscious and inflammatory nature of Steinbeck's writing that makes the viewer join in on the bashing of this woman, punish her existence, snicker at her mishaps. The genius and relevancy behind Steinbeck's mission in writing this piece is that, to this day, it forces you to see yourself, to expose the depth of your own intolerance, prejudice, cruelty, and naiveté.

Literarily, Curley's wife is compared to an animal in an effort to reduce and humiliate her. She is mockingly referred to as a "Lulu," the same name for Slim's dog, described as a bitch who just "slang nine pups." "She'd be better off dead," is the opinion of Candy's old dog, and that attitude is undoubtedly mirrored toward the lone woman. But when the dog gets led off to be shot, protests can be heard from the audience, and as a dog lover, I have the same feeling. Complaints can rarely be heard during Curley's wife's death.

The final, eerie moment of her life is often accompanied by the uproar of laughter. She is violently shaken, rendered lifeless. It doesn't seem to get less painful for me, less terrifying, less tragic with time, yet our unusually young audience seems unfazed, if not amused by the savage act. Perhaps it's the only response that comforts them in an awkward or tense moment. Curley's wife's dead body lies still on the floor as Candy spits at her, "You goddamned tramp, you done it didn't you? Everybody said you'd mess things up, you just wasn't no good." And again, the audience cracks up. That isn't to say there aren't viewers undisturbed by the sight of this broken woman, and the lengthy scene that follows her death wherein she lies lifeless and untouched, center stage.

Throughout this run I've come to recognize these common reactions, and eventually understand them without resentment. Yet somehow, each time I enter the stage, as I'm faced with the audience who laughs or sneers, I'm struck with the loneliness that I can only imagine a woman like Curley's wife must feel -- the desperation for conversation, respect, and above all, dignity. Each time, I'm caught off-guard when I lose it.

"The Banquet" 48 x 60 in. Oil on Linen 2014. From her exhibition I Notice People Disappear at ArtHouse429 in Florida Feb 6 - March 6.

I became obsessed with this image of a banquet. Capturing a sense of many many people at a formal setting. I painted it over and over again. Big and small.

It was the late 1970s and one of Hollywood's hottest directors had undertaken an incredible challenge: to make cinematic sense of America's devastating war in Vietnam. The film shoot was wildly out of control: typhoons and cost overruns, a death from an accident on set, and a heart attack suffered by lead actor Martin Sheen. As some tell it, the biggest of all the problems on the terribly vexed set of Apocalypse Now was Marlon Brando.

According to director Francis Ford Coppola, Brando showed up entirely unprepared: he was grossly overweight, had not read Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness (the novel upon which the film was based), and was eager to stall the production to increase his already inflated salary.

Except this is not what happened. Letters between Brando and Coppola, audios of the two discussing the film's conception on a houseboat while filming was suspended, and Brando's personal script, notes, and the many books he read and annotated for the film -- reveal that Brando not only was well prepared for the production, but also contributed ideas and script revisions that shaped the entire film.

Marlon Brando died on July 1, 2004. Now in the aftermath of the tenth anniversary of his death, it is time to acknowledge what has been overlooked: that our foremost American actor had a mind. His curiosity about the world around him was even greater than his more legendary appetites for women and food.

Contrary to Coppola's claim, Brando read Conrad's Heart of Darkness (his 4,000 book library contained multiple editions of the novel). He shaved his head, deliberately, to suit Conrad's description of Colonel Kurtz, Brando's character, as "impressively bald."

Brando's reading to prepare for the film included numerous other books and materials: The Pentagon Papers, writings by anthropologist James Frazer and philosopher Hannah Arendt, T.S. Eliot's "Hollow Men," first-person accounts of the U.S. Vietnam mission, and more.

Coppola recognized how crucial Brando's knowledge was to his film. Writing the actor just before he arrived on set, Coppola admitted that directing the film had become a "nightmare" that he would rely on Brando to get through. "Together we can accomplish anything," he wrote -- "even make a movie about Vietnam."

In fact, Coppola relied on Brando so much that Brando himself -- who had famously remarked that the only people who could write better acting lines were Tennessee Williams and Shakespeare -- became uncomfortable with the authority he was granted. As he wrote to Coppola in a letter, "It's not really my job to be involved in the overall concept of the script."

Regardless of Brando's discomfort, audiotapes of discussions between the two confirm that Coppola drew heavily on Brando's vision of Kurtz, and of the whole film.

Michael Herr, the Vietnam War novelist who revised the screenplay on set, recalled that Brando "wrote a stream of brilliant lines for his character." Even Coppola's biographer, Peter Cowie, notes that Kurtz's domain "houses the core of the film's meaning, and Kurtz's scenes alight unerringly on the reasons for the American predicament in Vietnam."

If Coppola in fact relied heavily on Brando, then why have we been told otherwise? Coppola needed a scapegoat. By then a world-famous director who had won two Academy Awards, Coppola this time was in over his head. As the director later admitted, the film production was akin to its subject -- Vietnam. Instead of focusing on his inability to control the fiasco, Coppola turned on Brando.

The actor was an easy target: deeply idiosyncratic and ambivalent toward fame, he made a point of rejecting his celebrity and exploiting it on behalf of causes he believed in. In 1973, just after Coppola had won an Academy Award for the adapted screenplay of The Godfather, Brando had refused to accept the Best Actor Oscar for his role in the same film. Instead, he sent an Indian emissary -- Apache tribe member Sacheen Littlefeather -- to decline the award to protest Hollywood's denigration of American Indians in film. It was an act that won him praise among activists and aroused contempt in Hollywood.

What better way for Coppola to absolve himself, then, than to focus on Brando? He knew that Hollywood, with its resentments toward Brando, would jump on the story, and he also knew that Brando would not offer a counterargument. In typical fashion, Brando avoided a public slugfest and instead wrote to Coppola privately to express his dismay about the betrayal.

This is not to say that Brando was perfect: as he himself acknowledged, he had many flaws. He did not weigh 300 pounds in Apocalypse Now as some rumors suggested, but at 210 pounds he was still 30 pounds overweight, the result of an overeating habit akin to his family's propensity for alcoholism (his parents and sisters were all alcoholics). More generally, his self-indulgent lifestyle harmed his children and created untold misery for himself and the many women in his life.

But these personal qualities should not detract from Brando's legacy. His success was due not only to looks and talent, but to his extensive preparations for his roles. He was a genius in the minds of those who directed him (Elia Kazan), those who wrote for him (Tennessee Williams), and those in a position to know (Laurence Olivier).

With Brando's 4000-book library, his personal film scripts, his letters, his audio archive -- all available since his death -- we now have the documents to debunk the myths surrounding him, and give America's greatest actor credit for his contribution to the history of film.


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Susan L. Mizruchi is Professor of English Literature at Boston University and the author of Brando's Smile: His Life, Thought, and Work.

Henry Miller was one of those rare artists, like the English Romantic poet William Blake, to have achieved mastery in two media: language and paint. Though better known for his novels and essay collections, especially the notorious Tropic of Cancer, Miller was also a skilled and devoted watercolorist who painted throughout his writing career and beyond it. Unlike writing, which Miller considered work, his job, he regarded painting as play, a form of relaxation, a way to refresh and recharge his imagination. But watercolor painting also served Miller in a number of practical ways. When short of funds, as he often was, he used his watercolors to barter for services, such as dentistry, and goods, such as household supplies and food. Sales of watercolors at his numerous shows supplemented his slender royalty income from his published books. He also gave watercolors to people who had done him favors or sent him unsolicited presents or cash. After his banned Paris books were finally published in the U.S. during the 1960s and ran immediately to the top of the bestseller lists, Miller, on the advice of his tax attorney, used his watercolors to shelter his income by donating them to museums.

In The Paintings of Henry Miller, a collection of four-color plates of Miller's watercolors accompanied by several Miller essays on the art of watercolor painting, Miller tells us that he began to paint around the year 1928 when he was living in Brooklyn and struggling to find himself as a writer. His interest in painting had been stirred by watching his close friend Emil Schnellock at work in his Manhattan studio and listening to Emil discourse on various artists and their methods. Over the years of his evolution as an artist, Miller would write frequently to Emil, sharing intimate details about his goals and methods in both painting and writing.

One evening as Miller was walking home with a friend from an evening of unsuccessful panhandling, they stopped to study a reproduction of a painting by Turner on display in a department store window. Fired by the image, Miller went home and began to paint in a kind of frenzy, using whatever materials were at hand, including old coffee grounds. Painting gave him a creative outlet from his frustrations as a blocked writer. Though Miller never had formal instruction in art beyond a class in high school⎯the teacher found Miller utterly without talent ("I was an aesthetic leper, so to speak," Miller remarks) ⎯the experience of painting had a tonic effect on him. "I remember well the transformation which took place in me when first I began to view the world with the eyes of a painter. The most familiar things, objects which I had gazed at all my life, became an unending source of wonder, and with wonder, of course, affection." This discovery led Miller to formulate the credo by which he approached not only painting but all forms of art: "To paint is to love again."

Once in Paris, Miller continued to paint and made the acquaintance of many prominent artists whom he met in the bohemian cafés of Montparnasse: Zadkine, Max Ernst, Soutine, Tihanyi, and above all, Hans Reichel, from whom he took lessons.

Miller never became an accomplished technical painter. He admitted that he had no aptitude for drawing, his figures and shapes looking as though a child had lined them. He avoided putting ears on human heads because he could not draw them. But he was a gifted colorist, and painted fearlessly, uninhibited by his lack of mechanical skill. In an essay he titled "The Angel is My Watermark" that was published in Paris in 1936 in his book Black Spring, Miller describes his anarchic method of composition. He launches into his watercolor without plan or design, proceeding instinctively and impulsively. He begins to draw a horse, working from his memory of Etruscan horses he has seen on ceramics in the Louvre. The horse soon mutates into a zebra and finally is obliterated altogether as other shapes are formed by Miller's truant pencil. But Miller is not dismayed by his inability draw, to produce images that are representational. He glories in it. "When I get into a predicament of this sort I know I can extricate myself when it comes time to apply the color. The drawing is simply an excuse for the color..." What allows Miller to "succeed" as a painter, to produce works of art that satisfy him and give him pleasure, is that he does not fear failure. He incorporates his mistakes, his false starts, and builds on them until he achieves the desired result. Miller finds a larger life lesson in this process. "And this is precisely the ritual of life which is practiced by the man who evolves. He doesn't go back, figuratively, to correct his errors and defects; he transposes and converts them into virtues."

Beyond discoursing on technique and methods, Miller reflects on the significance of the act of painting and the aesthetic of the watercolor. "It's only when we look with the eyes of love that we see what the painter sees," Miller writes. "What the painter sees he is duty bound to share." Though Miller does use his paintings as a form of currency, selling them or using them to barter, he derives the greatest pleasure from simply giving them away. When he was trying to obtain a pardon for a reformed criminal serving a life sentence in Missouri State Penitentiary for repeated armed robbery convictions, Miller sent watercolors to the warden of the prison, who hung them on the walls of his office. The convict was pardoned.

Miller also muses on the nature of the watercolor, as distinct from other paint media. "The watercolor has affinities with the sonnet, or the haiku, rather than the jeremiad. It captures the flux and essence, the flavor and perfume, rather than the substance."

Miller's paintings are easy to look at, bold and striking, often bringing forth a smile of delight from the viewer. Themes and patterns recur in ever changing variations. Though he confesses no skill at portraiture, many of his paintings depict the faces of men and women⎯whether the subjects were people he knew or simply imagined makes no difference. They all look vaguely alike in shape. What distinguishes them is color. Miller likes to place strong colors side by side⎯orange and black, red and blue, yellow and green⎯often in the same painting. The effect is of richness and exuberance. He uses simple, roughly drawn geometric shapes⎯squares, rectangles, circles, cones, crescents⎯to suggest forms. Forms he likes are birds, houses, sailboats, and flowers. He spices the paintings with plain symbols⎯asterisks, Xs, Os, the Star of David, musical notations (sharps and flats), words. The cumulative effect is both charming and gentle on the eye. His favorite image is the clown, an archetypal self-portrait.

Miller learned to paint by studying the work of other painters, masters of the medium. His acknowledged sources include Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, as well as Turner, Seurat, and Rouault. He notes that many great painters, such as Vincent Van Gogh, were also gifted writers, and great writers, such as Goethe and Victor Hugo, also expressed themselves through graphic arts. "When one is an artist all mediums open up," Miller observes. "No one medium is sufficient to express the wealth of feeling which burdens the soul of an artist."


Mon fils avec son clarinet. Used by permission of Tony Miller.

In the "Selected Collections" of his resume, Irvine, California artist Jeffrey Frisch lists a variety of private buyers of his work and one "Anonymous Thief," referring to the person who stole one of his sculptures from an exhibition. That's putting a good face on the fact that the $500 artwork was uninsured, so all that remains for him is a laugh.

Purchasing insurance for one's own artwork tends to be an investment few artists make. It is not at all unusual that an artist will take out a business owners' or a general liability policy for their studios and fair booths, which cover injuries to visitors, damage to equipment and materials, and losses when pieces are harmed while in transit or on display at a gallery or fair. Those policies offer a minimum of $1 million in coverage and start at $300-400 per year, with a $250 deductible. (Premiums are also based on the state - California and New York are the most expensive, because of large awards resulting from lawsuits, along with hurricane-prone Florida - and the existence of fire and burglar alarms, as well as the age and type of building (wood-frame or concrete block), the proximity to a fire or police station and the type of door locks in use.)

Insurance coverage of the completed artwork, however, usually requires a separate fine arts rider, just as some art collectors include on their homeowner's policies, which are considerably more expensive. For artists, a fine arts policy would include artwork in their home, studio and in temporary locations (such as exhibitions or loans or on approval to a customer or at a frame shop), as well as while being shipped from one place to another. "Claims usually happen in transit," said Armanda Bassi, an insurance writer for the Washington, D.C.-based Flather & Perkins, which writes policies for artists and craftspeople. In many cases, the artists seek payment for a total loss rather than the cost of restoration, because "they don't want to show or sell work that is damaged." Flather & Perkins charges $1,250 per year for a fine arts policy that provides $50,000 in coverage, while Thompson & Pratt in Lancaster, California offers a $1,500 plan that includes $100,000 in coverage. BRI/Partners USA, an insurance carrier recommended to members of the American Craft Council, offers a property and liability package for artists and artisans, with premiums based on the insured's own stated values of artwork.

All-risk fine arts riders that are part of a homeowner's policy by law include terrorism coverage, but those who live in likely areas of potential acts of terrorism, such as Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C., may pay more for their policies than those residing elsewhere. For artists who have incorporated and whose artwork is owned by the corporation, they may find that insurance carriers no longer automatically provide coverage for damage resulting from a terrorist act to their commercial customers, a repercussion from the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. However, because of the federal Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, insurers are required to provide separate terrorism coverage for commercial customers, costing an additional two-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half percent of the annual premium. The vast majority of art galleries in high target areas have added these policies.

However, even modestly priced policies may strike many artists as unnecessary, since the problem of theft or horrific damage seems remote, and most will be proven right. There is, of course, the exception. "I hadn't any insurance on my art, because I couldn't afford it," said Joel Fisher, a sculptor in North Troy, Vermont who had 43 bronze statues stolen from his yard and house last November. "It's a lifetime of work for me," adding that he estimates the total value of the artwork at more than $1 million.

Art or cultural property theft, thought to be the third largest dollar-wise area of criminal trafficking in the world after drugs and illegal arms sales, typically affects private collectors, as well as museums and houses of worship. Police investigators of art thefts describe the robbers' intentions as one of three possibilities, the desire for a quick sale, insurance ransom or as card in negotiating downward the charges for a different crime. Stealing from the artists themselves occurs perhaps more often but at a lower price point at shows, in which a number of visitors may be crowded into a small booth at one time. Bruce Gray, a sculptor in Los Angeles who had a $3,000 tabletop piece stolen off a Hollywood set when he had rented the work for a movie production, speculated that the thief "just wanted it. The person wasn't looking to resell." That point of view, seeing thefts from artists as a form of shoplifting, accords with a number of sponsors of arts and crafts shows as well.

For Joel Fisher, however, the purpose of the theft of his sculptures was none of those. "It wasn't the art, it was the metal," he said, noting that the cost of bronze has tripled since many of the artworks were first made. State police found 11 of the 43 stolen sculptures in a truck en route to an out-of-state smelter.

Joan Myers Brown (photo courtesy of Philadanco)

Joan Myers Brown is a Philadelphia legend as founder and artistic director of Philadanco and establishing her school of dance, just for starters. Brown is also founder of the International Association of Blacks in Dance (IABD), a performance forum and broad-based cultural exchange.

Last year, Brown even received a National Medal for the Arts Award at the White House from President Obama, which she said she was honored to receive, but at the time was more concerned with the fiscal shape of her company. But, even at age 82, getting ready for her company's 45th season, there is no time for a victory lap.

"If I don't get the company back on its feet, financially, I'm going to have start from scratch," Brown said at Philadanco's home studio in West Philly last week. For years she has been one of the few companies to contract her dancers with year-round salaries and recently she was forced to put them on a two-month furlough. Brown spoke a week before her company performs the third annual Founder's Day Concert at the Dell Music Center in Fairmount Park. It is a celebration of Philly dance, but it is also for quick revenue.

Philadanco is anything but a static dance company, Brown nurtures new choreographers and new artistic collaborations with other city arts institutions like the Philadelphia Orchestra. 'Danco typically tours 40 plus weeks a year. Last season they premiered James Brown: Get On the Good Foot set to which opened at Apollo Theater in November to hostile reviews, but sellout audiences, in New York as well as LA and Florida.

Back home in Philly this spring they performed Blood, Sweat and Dance to fuller houses mid-season. But it is never enough in ticket sales to pay all the bills. Like many other arts organizations, dance companies have to secure grants and corporate funding to remain solvent.


Danco Studios in West Philly (ph: LW)

Brown's started her school in 1960 and and company a decade later for black dancers at the time hoping to nullify entrenched racism in ballet, modern and theatrical dance. Last month at a talk with fans at the Barnes Museum in Philadelphia, Brown talked about the industry impact starting 55 years ago.

"Those dancers stayed with me and then moved on the Ailey company, the Dance Theater of Harlem, here we are 45 years later, my dancers are still moving on to top jobs out of Philadanco. I always told them if you are going to leave 'Danco move to something better," -- and by that she means, for their specific career goals.

"... when people compare me to Ailey, I say why don't you compare me to Paul Taylor, or Hubbard St. too? It's because we're predominantly African American, but I can't talk about prejudice if I have an all-black company." Brown said that dancers from many ethnic backgrounds audition to be in her company. "I have a company that represents our culture, our city and I think that's healthy."

'Danco is scheduled for another International tour in January, "We have a European tour- Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Hungary, so I have to exist from now to then. We went to Chile last year. One of my former dancers, choreographer Christopher Huggins is going back to teach, choreograph, and we built that relationship, we do that kind of thing all the time," Brown assures.

Philadanco has been awarded many arts grants over the years, but in the last decade, dance grants are disappearing or becoming more bureaucratically arbitrary and difficult to negotiate. Brown echoes the frustration of a lot of artistic directors who have proven track records, yet still have to prove themselves worthy. "Being dictating to, what you can and can't do, so you are not allowed to do your art. I get grants, but there are strings attached," rather than lamenting, Brown is even more resolute. "After 45 years, what do I have to prove," Brown asks, half jokingly.

Meanwhile, Brown also continues to build new audiences with the Founder's Day Program, it is a celebration of multicultural with most of the concert tickets are priced at $10. Brown is looking to recoup the entire cost of booking the Dell from the city with sales and anything above to underwrite her upcoming season.

Philadanco will perform three signature works including Suite Otis set to the music of Otis Redding, and the electrifying Bam choreographed by Donald Byrd. Also on the program -- performances by Danco's apprentice and student troupes and guest companies The Pure Project, Fuego Dance Theater, Just Sole Street Dance Theater and Iquail & Company.

"I get a lot of money from New York, but what about backers in Philadelphia," Brown asks. Funded or not, Brown finds a way. Her unwavering vision and dedication to her dancers, her students, her city and the state-of-dancearts continues without pause. How priceless is that?

'Danco at the Dell - JULY 18, 2014 DELL MUSIC CENTER 2400 Strawberry Mansion Drive, Philadelphia, PA (215) 685-9566 | or check www.philadanco.org

In 1958 my father, Robert Rauschenberg, painted Thaw, which he later sold to an art collector for $900. Fifteen years later, that collector sold the painting at auction for $85,000. My father was rightfully angry. His hard work was beginning to pay off, but not for him. If not for his continued art-making and the profile he went on to build in the art world, it's unlikely that Thaw would have increased so much in value.

United States copyright law protects the creations of performing artists, composers, writers and virtually every other kind of creator - except for visual artists - by ensuring they receive royalties for the resale of their work. It's only fair that this law should protect artists too.

This Tuesday, Congress will consider the American Royalties Too (A.R.T.) Act, which would give artists five percent of the purchase price when their original works are resold at auction. This is exactly the issue my father tried to address nearly 40 years ago.

The principle of royalties for artists is not new; in fact, it has been largely recognized since the nineteenth century. The first "droit de suite" law passed in France almost 100 years ago and similar laws exist in more than 60 countries.

While my father was one of those rare and lucky artists who are able to make art for a living, no one decides to be an artist for the money they'll make. As the writer Théophile Gautier once said, one creates "art for art's sake." For the artist, the value of art is in its making, not the bottom line. And while artists do tend to live by that code - most of them deeply in debt or poverty - legislation of this sort would be the first step toward ensuring that artists receive a fair share of the value of their work.

The goal of the A.R.T. Act, put forth by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), is specifically written to correct current copyright law, which now benefits wealthy art collectors, not art creators. The A.R.T. Act seeks to rectify this imbalance by ensuring that artists get compensated, even modestly, when collectors earn large sums off of their works.

As I think of my father's legacy, I am reminded of the fact that so much of his art had a political component. My father believed in opening doors, making art accessible, and doing whatever it takes to uplift and encourage artists. When my father passed in 2008, he left behind the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, which carries on his work and his vision for art that speaks to social and cultural issues. All his life, he championed rights for artists, many of whom were close friends of his. Some of those artists became very successful; others struggled all their lives to earn enough to remain true to their calling. The foundation that bears his name continues that work today, and that is why the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is calling on Congress to do what's right for artists and pass legislation that provides a fair return to them as their works increase in value.

By the end of his life, my father was a wealthy man. Back in the 1970s, however, when his painting was sold for $85,000 without a cent going to him, he was still an emerging artist. He had a perspective and growing prominence, but certainly not the financial security that he had later in life.

The law should foster and support young artists if we want them to continue to create. Implementing legislation that equitably distributes the proceeds of creative output will cost taxpayers absolutely nothing, yet would mean a great deal to the artistic community. It's true that under this legislation art collectors and traders - a fairly small but very wealthy group - would receive 5 percent less from auction sales. But I am confident they will survive.

If my father were still alive, he would surely be testifying before Congress in support of the principles that underlie the A.R.T. Act. Because he is no longer with us, I am following his lead. It is his son and his foundation saying that a law such as this one will be supportive of creators working in the visual arts.

As the country marks the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, the landmark voting rights initiative that took place throughout the state of Mississippi in 1964, it's important to note the key but often overlooked role the arts and culture community played in the social change of that era.

That summer, which fundamentally changed the shape of American democracy, was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of the Mississippi branches of the major civil rights organizations -- the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Their efforts, which included Freedom Schools, voter registration and the noteworthy intervention of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in the 1964 Democratic National Convention, helped lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Right in the middle of it, the Free Southern Theater (FST), co-founded by my uncle John O'Neal, was born. The brainchild of O'Neal, Doris Derby and Gilbert Moses, this was theater designed to "act as a stimulus to the critical thought necessary for effective participation in a democratic society," a mission stated in the book The Free Southern Theater by The Free Southern Theater: A Documentary of the South's Radical Black Theater with Journals. Letters, Poetry, and Essays and a Play Written By Those Who Built It.

The founders -- O'Neal and Derby were SNCC field directors and Moses worked as a journalist with the Mississippi Free Press -- viewed live theater as the best way to counteract the degrading impact of inferior education, the misrepresentations of the local media and the paucity of cultural resources available to Black people. When I was a child, FST and its organizational successor Junebug Productions held revered places in my mind. My parents made it a point to see their performances whenever they held a show within driving distance, and I spent a teenage summer with my uncle as he worked on a theater production in Appalachia. The theaters' many accomplishments, which are rooted and reflected in our family of artists, educators and activists, have greatly influenced my own career and life choices.



Recently I've begun working with my uncle on an oral history project about our shared commitment to working at the intersection of the arts and progressive social change. During one of our interviews, he told me that FST, which became a New Orleans-based institution, had piloted its efforts during this pivotal era in Mississippi. He said: "[FST] was not held up apart from the Freedom Summer, but as an integral tool of [it]. It gave the energy for... FST to be transformed from an idea into 50 some years' worth of work so far. We're still trying to do the same thing we started out to do."

One of the company's first shows, staged at more than 20 Freedom Schools during Freedom Summer, was In White America by Martin Duberman. The play, which was performed as often as twice a day before students, staff, teachers and community members of all ages, is a sweeping look at the collective history of Africans in the United States. Stories included the Nat Turner rebellion, Frederick Douglass's abolition efforts and a depiction of school desegregation set in Little Rock, Ark.

"We did as many as two performances a day in a four-week period," my uncle told me. "And then the next day we'd drive and set up and perform." FST's intrepid eight-person crew, which included actress Denise Nicholas, who later starred in the TV shows "Room 222" and "In the Heat of the Night," took the production across Mississippi to towns including Macomb, Hattiesburg, Greenwood and Greenville. Freedom School staff used it as the basis of its curriculum development, and community organizers used the play as a text for their efforts in voter registration. "The whole curriculum of the Freedom School was built around the play, because the play was built around the struggle of African American people. From the earliest days of slavery all the way up. We'd read it and give a context to people who taught and organized the community that we were performing in," O'Neal said.

"Denise would be on one side of the auditorium and she would start singing 'oh freedom over me... and before I'll be a slave I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free.' And then from other places in the auditorium after the first phrase or two, someone else would join her very nice soprano voice in harmony. All over the auditorium we'd start singing and moving towards the stage from wherever we were."

The company was committed to staging free performances for the communities they served, so it drew support from individual and institutional donors, which included celebrities such as Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln. The theater's first donation came in the form of a check from Langston Hughes. "We wanted to save it for history's sake. He had such a distinguished signature -- written in purple ink with a felt tip pen. But we needed the money so bad we had to cash it," O'Neal recently told me with a laugh. "It was not a remarkable sum, except to people who were broke... so I'll say it was a major contribution. We were scrambling for rent every month and for a meal every day."

Have their efforts paid off?

Today, Mississippi has the highest number of Black elected officials of any state, a fact presented by director Stanley Nelson in his film "Freedom Summer," part of the American Experience series on PBS. The New York Times reports that African Americans currently make up 36 percent of the electorate in the state, one of the highest percentages in the nation. FST members have spent the decades since its inception writing and producing plays, launching workshops for actors and developing a model of community engagement and liberatory theater that made an invaluable contribution -- for many, work that continues well after a jazz funeral was held for FST in 1985.

As retrospectives honor those who faced danger for daring to register to vote and those who supported their sacrifice, we should not forget the integral role of the arts in social change. The book Free Southern Theater sums it up this way: "Through theater, we think to open a new area of protest, one that permits the development of playwrights and actors, one that permits the growth and self knowledge of a Negro audience, one that supplements the present struggle for freedom."


Shani Jamila (www.shanijamila.com), a Ford Foundation Public Voices Fellow, is a New York-based artist and the Director of the Human Rights Project at the Urban Justice Center. To learn more about the work of the Free Southern Theater and Junebug Productions, visit www.junebugproductions.org

The World Cup is over but Brazilian music has an extra period for fans in New York.

For the multi-venue Brasil Summerfest, one of the headliners is Bebel Gilberto, who plays Celebrate Brooklyn at the Prospect Park Bandshell on July 18th with the singer-guitarist Vinicius Cantuaria. Gilberto, somewhat of a de facto New Yorker, is about to release her first studio album in five years, Tudo, a dreamy mix of bossa nova, light electronic sounds and soft ballads that will most likely satisfy her international fan base.

Though she is uncomfortable with the label, she is, for many folks, bossa nova royalty: Her father, Joao Gilberto is arguably the founder of the quiet sophisticated distillation of samba, and her mother is the singer Miucha, and her stepmother is Astrud Gilberto, the voice of "The Girl from Ipanema."

Though she said she was never received formal musical training, she had an apprenticeship that many would die for: She grew up improvising melodies over her father's guitar chord changes and hanging around with the superstars of Brazilian music such as her uncle Chico Buarque, as well as Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Though she had sang professionally from a young age, appearing on an album with her mother at seven and at Carnegie Hall with Stan Getz when she was nine, she recalled being nervous singing a few songs with her father at his return to Carnegie Hall in 1994.

A few years later, all would change for her with the release of the enormously popular Tanto Tempo, which made her the leading figure of what you could call Bossa 2.0, a chilled out electronic version of bossa nova. She said living in New York and London led her to re-imagine the music she grew up with. "I needed to drink the water from other kinds of music," she said.

She described the making of her new album as an "intense" experience in that it was recorded in a relatively short spurt of activity in Los Angeles, New York and Rio. She said that during the five-year absence, she recorded a DVD on the beach in Rio, and was busy with other parts of her life, which included a divorce from the producer of her last, Grammy-nominated album.

As she turned her attention to the new album, she wanted to capture all the emotions of her life, so the album was called Tudo, or everything. "I'm finally getting older," she said with a laugh. "I'm finally feeling the 40s on my shoulders as I'm approaching 50. When I recall my 20s, I was so much more anxious and nervous. Now I'm just relaxed... and could make this beautiful album."

Lincoln Center Outdoors kicks off a series of events based on the new Brazilian dance, passinho or "little step," that has risen, in part through social media, from the favela shantytowns of Rio. On July 22nd, Lincoln Center has a dance party at the David Rubenstein Atrium and airs a documentary on the passinho, which grew out of the sometimes-violent baile funk movement. The hyperkinetic dance is the focus of 45-second dance competitions that fuse break-dancing, samba, funk and other styles. On July 24th at the Damrosch Bandshell, there will be a staged passinho "battle" and on the 26th a family day in the plaza where kids can learn some of the steps from some of the top passinho dancers from Rio.

Other highlights of the festival are a night of acoustic samba from Casuarina at Joe's Pub on July 23rd. The group, not well known in the States, has been among the leaders of a resurgence in down-home samba in Brazil -- the intimate samba heard in a bar, though in this case, done impeccably. The group made its first US appearance at Midsummer Night's Swing recently and filled the outdoor dance floor with sweet harmonies floating along on the soft chatter of samba's irresistible swing.

The rising star Roge is appearing at the City Winery on July 22nd and at Meridien 23 on July 24th with a silky mix of pop and samba from his recently released U.S. debut album Brenguele. With several albums released in Brazil, the ruggedly handsome Roge was selected to host 10 mini-documentaries about Brazilian life for ESPN to use during World Cup coverage.

Appearing at Le Poisson Rouge on July 22nd is Arto Lindsay who was raised in Brazil by his American missionary parents and who became a somewhat unlikely musical link between the alternative New York "no wave" scene of the 1980s and the gentle swing of Brazil. On several of his albums and in guest appearances, Lindsay has paired his spikey "skronk" guitar playing and quirky English lyrics with whispery soft bossa rhythms.

New Yorkers, deal with the tropical weather the way Brazilians do and listen to some easygoing music.

Bebel Gilberto performing the title track of her new album


An older video of Gilberto that includes some home movies of her musical parents


Clips from the documentary "A Batalha do Passinho"


The Brazilian singer Roge


The sambistas of Casuarina