Hand Held Visions: January 2010

The Golden Festival: Zikrayat and Supruli

Sami Abu Shumays -violin
Bridget Robbins - nay
Umut Kashmut - qanun
Tareq Abboushi -buzuq
Apostolos Sideris bass
Rami el-Aasser, David Buchbut,
Faisal Zedan- percussion

Rehearsing in a dark basement hallway, the chorus named Supruli tries out a few songs. For the actual performance several other members were present.

Labels: Apostolos Sideris, Bridget Robbins, David Buchbut, Faisal Zedan, Golden Festival, Inwood, Rami el-Aasser, Sami Abu Shumays, Supruli, Tareq Abboushi, Umut Kashmut, Zikrayat

Democracy Now! Goes to Haiti

Manno singing in Miami

photo by Sharif Kouddous

This is Manno Charlemagne singing at the Tap Tap Restaurant in Miami. Sharif took this photo on his way to Haiti with the Democracy Now! crew. They will be reporting from there tomorrow.

Manno did the music for the film Bitter Cane, which I made in 1983 along with Pennee Bender and Kim Ives. Manno watched all of our interviews then used the words from the interviews in the music he sang for the film. I don't think there are too many documentaries which have that quality of sychronized music track! For a while Manno was Mayor of Porte au Prince (during the Aristide years.) To get a copy of Bitter Cane, go to http://www.deedeehalleck.org/store.html

This is the hotel room where the Democracy Now! staff (Elizabeth, Sharif, Amy) are staying in Haiti!

Labels: Bitter Cane, Democracy Now, Haiti, Haiti Manno Charlemagne, TapTap

The Future

The best part of the party was the kids.

Peter Halleck took that lovely picture of Prajna.

Tamar, Ezra and Laura made a wonderful cake! A poppy seed tiger with stripes made from slivers of kumquat skins.

Labels: Birthday, Brooks Boneham

We're there for you

In the display at the Brecht Forum were these "doctored" poster ads from San Diego for the LA Times. The original ad images were part of a campaign that was rather ghoulish! Judith Williamson and I took them out of the newspaper kiosks and added the fang teeth with white out, then put the boards back in their ad slots. It was a perfect ad modification-- not enough to draw attention immediately (so they stayed up for quite a while!) but a strong comment on blood thirsty media. I saved one of the sets and was glad to see them again displayed at the party at Brecht!