Author: Ohart

When schoolchildren in Washington, D.C. are asked to say the first thing that comes to mind about Africa, they use words like hot, desert, sand, poverty, hunger, war and Ebola.

 

These are all accurate things to say about that part or the world — but they reflect an “incomplete” picture, says writer Austin Merrill, who together with photojournalist Peter DiCampo has set out to document African reality beyond common stereotypes.

 

They are the founders of Every Day Africa, an Instagram community of photographers who strive to capture ordinary moments of life, such as children picking flowers in a field, or girlfriends chatting at a coffee shop. Their Instagram following has topped 370,000.

In addition to the Instagram feed, the book “Every Day Africa, 30 Photographers Re-Picturing the Continent,” recently hit bookstores in Europe, the United States and certain countries on the African continent. The book is filled with images documenting life in Africa that aim to shatter misconceptions often found in Western media.

 

Readers see a teenager rollerblading in the streets of Dakar, a DJ playing music in Lagos, a couple looking at the Atlantic Ocean in Cape Town. The book displays the full diversity and visual richness of African life.

 

Both DiCampo and Merrill invited a diverse “community of photographers” from all over the continent to contribute to the Instagram project and the book. Some are professionals, while others are skilled amateurs.

Ethiopian-American writer Maaza Mengiste prologues the book in an essay focusing on the power of the ordinary. “We sometimes forget that no matter what is happening in our lives, ordinary moments find a way to move forward,” Mengiste writes.

 

Normality

 

Peter DiCampo and Austin Merrill, both Americans, met while serving with the Peace Corps in Ivory Coast. In 2012, they received a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington to cover the aftermath of Ivory Coast’s civil war.

While they were interviewing refugees and soldiers, Merrill remembers that around them “the vast majority of life was pretty normal, but that wasn’t coming through in the story that we were trying to put together.”

 

“We were seeing all these other moments, that were much sort of truer to our daily life experience in that part of the world,” says DiCampo.

 

So, they took their cellphones and started to photograph what was around them. They felt, says Merrill, that the normal, everyday scenes of life “might be the most important thing we had to tell about that place, about that moment, instead of the crisis story.”

 

Media organizations tend to focus on breaking news, often triggered by an evolving crisis. Africa has many of those; but, as Di Campo puts it, “It’s quite difficult to have a global understanding when all you see of other parts of the world are really extreme stories.”

This is the gap that the “Everyday Africa” book is trying to fill; to look at the continent from the inside and from different perspectives.

 

DiCampo and Merrill, with the support of the Pulitzer Center, have also created media workshops that train elementary school students in the United States on how to document their lives and recognize stereotypes.

 

“We use the story of how we we created Every Day Africa,” said DiCampo, “to engage the students in a discussion of how media representation affects them, their lives and their communities and we use our photography to teach basic photography lessons, so that by the end of the workshop, they have an everyday project for their own school or community.”

 

This social media model has hit a nerve. “The Every Africa platform on Instagram may very well be the biggest visual library of the continent,” writes Ghanaian photographer Nana Kofi Acquah.

 

“To task African photographers with the burden of changing how the continent is perceived, might be overwhelming,” writes Acquah; but, he adds, “a picture of the real Africa” is slowly emerging.
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Atop a lake covered by thick ice, fishermen in Northeast China cast out the first net for this year’s winter fishing festival. It’s an ancient yearly tradition that these days is as much an international spectator sport as it is a source of food. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Actress Heather Menzies-Urich, who played one of the singing von Trapp children in the 1965 hit film, “The Sound of Music,” has died. She was 68.

Her son, actor Ryan Urich, told Variety that his mother died late Sunday in Frankford, Ontario, Canada. She had been diagnosed with brain cancer.

Menzies-Urich played Louisa von Trapp, the third-oldest of the seven von Trapp children in the film adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that starred Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.

“The Sound of Music” captured five Academy Awards, including best picture.

Variety reports that Menzies-Urich is survived by two other children, several grandchildren and a great grandchild.

Her husband, actor Robert Urich, died in 2002.
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The Somali Football Federation (SFF) has announced plans to host international games beginning next year because of improving security, the head of the body has announced.

President of the SFF, Abdiqani Said Arab, says the time has come for Somalia to organize home games in the country’s soccer stadiums in 2018.

“Due to the betterment of the security situation in Somalia we have decided to stage our home games at home,” Arab said in a statement.

“The Somali people have the right to watch their national team play at home and we have to make that happen now that the country is going ahead.”

Arab said his federation will first invite East African soccer national teams to play friendly matches with the Somali national team.

He said staging friendly matches will be followed by hosting regional soccer tournaments, such as the CECAFA (Council for East African and Central Africa Football). SFF has not released the dates and fixtures of international matches to be played at home for next year.

Somalia hosted its last international match in Mogadishu in 1988. Following the collapse of the state in 1991, the Somalia national soccer team was forced to play its home games abroad in a neutral country, mainly in the region, like Djibouti and Ethiopia, denying it the all-important home advantage that other teams enjoy against opponents.

The Confederation of African Football chief Ahmad Ahmad approved Somalia’s plan to host international soccer games when he visited Mogadishu in April.

Somalia soccer has made steady development over the years despite the country’s difficulties.

In April 2012, a suicide bomber killed both the head of the Somali Olympic Committee, Aden Yabarow Wiish, and the president of Somali Football Federation, Said Mohamed Nur. But in December that same year, the SFF completed installing an artificial turf at Mogadishu stadium. Two years later in December 2015, the soccer body had showed the first-ever live stream of a football game on TV.

And in August this year, it was a bright night for Mogadishu as the first soccer game was played at night in more than 30 years.
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Management experts are always coming up with innovative ideas to improve the work environment, inspire employees and raise productivity. Big companies in Germany, like Lufthansa, Siemens, Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen’s Audi, are bringing harmony to the workplace by having symphony orchestras and encouraging employees to play music together. Faiza Elmasry has the story. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Quietly, Bonna Neang Weinstein wept. Her husband, Howard Weinstein, sitting next to her, held her hand, comforting her.

“It reminded me of everything and myself,” she said of a December 15 performance of “Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia” at the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The first major symphonic work to remember the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians under the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime undid Weinstein, a survivor, who arrived in the U.S. in 1984.

“I could not believe that I lived through that,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

The production is the first collaboration between composer Him Sophy and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Rithy Panh, who directed and designed the production.

Both artists survived the Khmer Rouge, which by some estimates killed 90 percent of Cambodia’s artists.

The two are in the forefront of Cambodia’s cultural renaissance, a movement to revive and preserve the ancient arts that were nearly excised, while educating new generations about their cultural heritage. Because of the Khmer Rouge genocide from 1975-1979, half of Cambodia’s population is younger than 25.

The production presented in New York is also aimed at the Cambodian diaspora. It has played on tour in Australia, where the Sydney Morning Herald described it as “light after utter darkness, a promise of resurgence…” and, after sold-out performances in Boston, it is headed to the Philharmonie de Paris next year before opening in Cambodia in 2019, the 40th anniversary of the end of the Khmer Rouge era.

Named after ceremony

“Bangsokol” is named after a ceremony performed at Cambodian funerals. A bangsokol is both the white cloth placed over the body of the deceased and the act of its removal, which signified the passage into the next life, where the spirits of the dead find rest. Bangsokol is also remembering the dead at a watt, the Buddhist temple, with prayer and offerings.

Each audience member found a bangsokol draped across their seat with a note: “We invite you to place this shroud around your shoulders for the duration of the performance.”

“Bangsokol” weaves Khmer traditional music enhanced by a Western orchestra and a Taiwanese chorus performing the libretto by Trent Walker.

Throughout the one-hour production, archival footage — the faces of Cambodian refugees and Khmer Rouge victims, black-clad Cambodians working in fields — flickered across three flat screens hung high behind the performers. Footage of aerial bombings was followed by a clip of then-U.S. President Richard Nixon saying, “Cambodia is the Nixon Doctrine in its purest form.”

“Whatever the film showed, it took me there,” Bonna Neang Weinstein said. “It has been more than 30 years, almost 40 years, but I still dream that I am in the Pol Pot regime.”

For many in the audience, the power of the past showed as quick swipes with damp tissues wiping away silent tears.

“If I’d know this was about the Khmer Rouge, I would not have come,” said a weeping To Voeun, 79, of Alexandria, Virginia. The Khmer Rouge killed her husband, leaving her to raise seven children alone, two of whom remain in Cambodia.

For Bonna Neang Weinstein, the owner of the Khmer Art Gallery in Philadelphia who attended “Bangsokol” with her husband and her three children, the Nixon clip hit home.

She explained: “I cried because I am hurt that the U.S. government bombed my country,” an event that many believe gave rise to the Khmer Rouge.

‘I cannot let it go’

“The U.S. has not admitted anything and not even apologized to us,” said Weinstein, who lost eight family members to the Khmer Rouge. “It mentions at the end ‘Let it all go.’ But I cannot let it go because the perpetrators have not acknowledged their guilt and apologized.”

Sophy Him, who composed the rock opera Where Elephants Weep, told VOA Khmer that his requiem does more than commemorate those who died under the Khmer Rouge.

“We remember the deaths, but also wish and encourage people in the world to have hope and love each other,” said Sophy Him, who lost two older brothers to the regime.

“This performance is for all people in the world who have suffered from genocides and wars,” he said. “This performance is also a warning to the world about the impact of war and genocide.”

That warning was not lost on Jonathan Hulland, a senior program officer at the American Jewish World Service in New York City, who told VOA after the performance that by putting on the white shroud, he felt he was part of the performance.

Hulland, who has been to Cambodia four times, most recently in October, appreciated the warning implicit in the performance. 

“I felt some shame and some guilt,” said Hulland, who was born in the United Kingdom and is now an American citizen. “I am an American now, and I do feel like this country has such a responsibility for what happened.”

Joseph Melillo, BAM’s executive producer, said, “BAM plays a very significant role, not only here in New York City, but in this country of introducing to our culture, the work of other cultures.”

Melillo, who has been to Cambodia twice, said he decided to bring “Bangsokol” to BAM because of Phloeun Prim, the executive director of Cambodian Living Arts (CLA), “who has a clear vision of what he wants for his country.”

The performance was commissioned by CLA, a nonprofit group that works to support the revival of traditional art forms.

Mary Read, who serves on the CLA board of directors, said, “Bangsokol” showed “that there is compassion.”

“Art comes to the heart,” said Read, an Australian known internationally for her Sydney fashion boutique and online store. “By healing the heart, you can heal the spirit of the country.”

The performance ends with Chhay Yam, a joy-filled Cambodian dance accompanied by singing. Two Cambodian-American children of the production’s volunteer helpers participated, learning the steps and how to play traditional musical instruments.

Hollywood luminary Angelina Jolie, who holds Cambodian citizenship and directed First They Killed My Father ​with Rithy Panh, recently saw the performance with her children Maddox Jolie-Pitt, whom she adopted as a baby in Cambodia, and Shiloh Jolie-Pitt. They all wore white shirts and black pants, traditional Khmer funeral dress.

Jolie told VOA after the performance, “I think this was a deeply moving performance. I think it is brilliantly done. I think it is very powerful. It put you into a meditation. It’s like an hourlong prayer to pay respect, to remember, and to help us think of Cambodia the past, the ancient past, the more recent past, the present, and take us forward into a more hopeful future.”
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The Guinea-Bissau Writers Association gathers dozens of people from different backgrounds who share the same goal: to improve the literature of a small West African country with one of the world’s lowest literacy rates.

The authors and poets trickle in one by one, to the meeting of minds taking place at a plain-looking educational building. Among them is a dancer. Another is an officer in the country’s military.

Despite their differences, they are all here for the Guinea-Bissau Writers Association’s poetry gathering. At these regular meetings, the nearly 40 members come to share their thoughts and help one another hone their craft. Many hope this will, in turn, help develop their country. 

But with only a 55 percent literacy rate, it is hard for authors to reach a large audience, say association members.

“The reading community is not that big, so we cannot expect to make money writing books, at least not for a living,” said Abdulai Sila, an author and the association’s president.

First step: Imagine it

Sila said that despite the challenges, the writers’ shared vision of improving their country and forging a national identity through literature keeps them going. 

 

“For someone to be able to fight for something, first of all he needs to be able to imagine it,” he said. “One of the tasks of the writers association and the writer is to draw that image that then can be shared by the rest of the citizens. If you are able to imagine something, you can be able to fight for it.”

The former Portuguese colony has been plagued by military coups and instability since its independence in 1974. Today it is ranked among the bottom 10 countries on the U.N. Human Development Index. Currently, the country’s president and ruling party are locked in a political battle that has left parliament out of session for more than two years and caused stagnation.

Of the 40 members of the group, at least half are poets — a style that meshes well with the region’s rich history of oral storytelling. The genre also provides a practical platform for shorter works for those authors who are busy with day jobs.

One of those poets is Manuel da Costa, a major in Guinea-Bissau’s army. 

Da Costa began writing during the country’s fight for independence, and more recently he has also written about drug trafficking in the country. The military officer said the genre allows him to be subjective and leave things open to interpretation. When asked whether he thought that writing about trafficking conflicted with his day job as a member of the military — a branch often implicated in the country’s drug underbelly — he said he did not worry about getting into trouble because of poetry’s nature.

“Poetry language is subjective. When are you writing, it’s only you who knows what you are writing. Anyone who is reading it can have their own interpretation,” he said.

Language choice

Da Costa, as most other poets in the group haved done, chose to write in the country’s Portuguese-based Kriol language.

Association member and author Antonio Afonso Te has just published a book focused on how to write in Kriol. He said learning how to write in Kriol and integrating that into the national education program can help develop the country — and its literary scene.

IN PHOTOS: Writers Seek to Form National Identity Through Literature for Guinea-Bissau

“Kriol should be introduced for education in Guinea-Bissau, because most people speak Kriol. And another thing that is important is the teachers,” Te said, adding that they have more mastery of Kriol than the other languages that they use for teaching.

Whether it’s poetry or novels, in Kriol or Portuguese, the writers of this country say they hope they can use their craft to help Guinea-Bissau turn a new page toward improved development. 
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The sounds of the holidays have a familiar ring in cities across the United States, and in cities in South Korea, Japan, Chile and many European countries. In November and December, bell ringers stand next to Red Kettles belonging to the Protestant Salvation Army organization. VOA’s Deborah Block takes us to Alexandria, Virginia, outside Washington, where bell ringers were collecting donations that will be put into local communities to help the needy.
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Mention “the fat one” in the United States in December, and someone might think you were referring cheekily to Santa Claus. But say it in Spain, and it’s a reference to the world’s richest lottery prize.

Spanish schoolchildren drew this year’s numbers for the Spanish Christmas Lottery on Friday, for a prize worth a total of $2.8 billion.

But not all the bounty goes to one winner. Multiple buyers can choose the same numbers, meaning the prize is divided among its multiple winners. Smaller prizes are also available in the lottery, which dates back to 1812. In all, thousands of prizes are awarded.

Holders of this year’s lucky number, 71198, are still coming forward. One town, the Costa del Sol capital of Malaga, has been reported to have racked up a total of nearly $152 million in prize money among 32 tickets.

At 200 euros each full lottery tickets are not cheap — but they can be subdivided into tenths, known as decimos, which sell for a more affordable 20 euros each. That makes playing the lottery a group activity.

After weeks of ticket sales, the winning numbers are read out by schoolchildren in a nationally televised broadcast from Madrid’s Teatro Real opera house. Watching the broadcast with family and friends is a Spanish holiday tradition. 

Spain began a national lottery in 1763 as a fundraiser for charity, but the Spanish Christmas Lottery that continues today began in 1812 and benefits the Spanish government and the merchants who sell the tickets, who make a 4 percent commission on each ticket sold.

Luckily for the losers, the Spanish Christmas Lottery is not the only one of the year. Those who failed to make their fortune in the Dec. 22 contest have another chance coming up: the El Nino drawing, held before the Feast of the Epiphany on Jan. 6.
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A U.S. jury has convicted two former soccer officials from South America on charges of corruption, the first trial verdicts in a U.S. investigation into world soccer’s governing body, FIFA. 

The federal jury in New York deliberated for a week before Friday’s verdict and will continue deliberations next week for a third soccer official. 

The jurors convicted Jose Maria Marin, former head of Brazil’s soccer confederation, and Juan Angel Napout, former head of Paraguayan soccer, of racketeering conspiracy, the top charge against the men. Marin was convicted on six of seven counts and Napout on three out of five.

Deliberations in the case of the former president of Peru’s soccer federation, Manuel Burga, who faces one count of racketeering conspiracy, will continue.

The three soccer officials were arrested in 2015, accused of agreeing to take millions of dollars in bribes to bestow television and marketing rights to soccer matches.

U.S. prosecutors have indicted 42 officials and marketing executives as part of the investigation that shook up FIFA. At least 24 people have pleaded guilty.

The U.S. government’s main witness, a former marketing executive from Argentina, Alejandro Burzaco, testified that he and his company arranged to pay $160 million in bribes over the course of several years.

The defense argued that the former soccer officials had been framed by Burzaco and other witnesses who were trying to get leniency in their own cases.
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For several decades Carol of the Bells or the Ukrainian Bell Carol has been an essential part of the American Christmas tradition – just like Christmas trees or presents. One can hear the song on radio or in TV-commercials, it has rock, jazz or metal versions. What makes it so memorable and popular? Mariia Prus and Dmytro Savchuk addressed the question to professional musicians.
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Dick Enberg, the sportscaster who got his big break with UCLA basketball and went on to call Super Bowls, Olympics, Final Fours and Angels and Padres baseball games, died Thursday. He was 82.

Engberg’s daughter, Nicole, confirmed the death to The Associated Press. She said the family became concerned when he didn’t arrive on his flight to Boston on Thursday, and that he was found dead at his home in La Jolla, a San Diego neighborhood, with his bags packed.

The family said it believes he had a heart attack, but is awaiting official word.
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Every year around the holidays there is a spike in the viewership of Christmas movie classics. According to the American Film Institute, Frank Capra’s 1947 heartwarming drama It’s A Wonderful Life tops the list of all time Christmas favorites. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with Todd Hitchcock, Associate Director of the American Film Institute’s Silver Theater and Cultural Center, about landmark Christmas films and what makes a movie classic.
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Grief-stricken fans braved Seoul’s winter cold on Thursday to bid farewell to Kim Jong-hyun, the lead singer of top South Korean boy band SHINee, who died in hospital in a suspected suicide.

Weeping, wailing and embracing one another, young men and women dressed in grey and black lined the road as the hearse carrying Kim’s coffin left the hospital.

“I am so sad that I cannot even cry. My heart aches so much”, 18-year-old Chinese fan Chen Jialin said.

Fellow singers, including SHINee’s Minho and members of bands Super Junior and Girls’ Generation, joined the funeral procession.

Kim, 27, was found unconscious next to burning briquettes on a frying pan inside a serviced residence in Seoul on Monday, police told Reuters.

Yonhap news agency had reported that the singer sent a final message to his sister asking her to “let me go.”

Kim spent nearly a decade as one of five members of SHINee, one of the most popular bands in the country, as well as a solo artist. His death was a massive blow to the worldwide fan base that Korea’s K-pop music has attracted in recent years.

K-pop is the rage in Asia and other continents, with a song by the group BTS maintaining a spot on the Billboard 200 for seven weeks as of the end of November.
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Cities around the United States are getting ready for Christmas. And when it comes to the season’s decorations, New York City stands out for turning Manhattan’s streets into a big, dazzling holiday display. Faiza Elmasry has this report narrated by Faith Lapidus.
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Clifford Irving, whose scheme to publish a phony autobiography of billionaire Howard Hughes created a sensation in the 1970s and stands as one of the all-time literary hoaxes, died after being admitted to hospice care. He was 87.

Irving’s wife, Julie Irving, confirmed that he died Tuesday at a hospice near his Sarasota home, The New York Times reported. She said he had been admitted there after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about a week earlier.

A novelist of little note in 1971, Irving conned McGraw-Hill publishers into paying him a $765,000 advance for a book about the reclusive Hughes. His elaborate ruse became the subject of the 2006 movie “The Hoax,” starring Richard Gere.

Irving served 17 months in federal prison for fraud after Hughes emerged to condemn the work as a fabrication. The bogus autobiography wasn’t published until 1999, when it was printed as a private edition.

‘It became an adventure’

The scam “was exciting. It was a challenge. It became an adventure,” Irving told the Los Angeles Times in 2007.

The International Herald Tribune called the fake autobiography “the most famous unpublished book of the 20th century.” Time magazine dubbed Irving “Con Man of the Year” in a 1972 cover story.

Irving said the idea of fabricating an autobiography of Hughes came to him after reading a magazine article about the billionaire’s eccentric lifestyle. Hughes’ hermit-like obsession with his privacy all but guaranteed that the “gorgeous literary caper” would succeed, Irving wrote in “The Hoax,” his 2006 account of the scheme.

“Hughes would never be able to surface to deny it, or else he wouldn’t bother,” he wrote.

Rising skepticism

At the time of the hoax, Hughes had long withdrawn from his life as a powerful industrialist, aviator and filmmaker. He reportedly lived the final 10 years of his life, from 1966 to 1976, in near-total seclusion, even neglecting personal hygiene to avoid contact with the outside world.

Hughes’ intense aversion to publicity gave rise to skepticism about Irving’s claims to have interviewed the billionaire.

Irving insisted that he had several clandestine meetings with Hughes. He submitted to a lie-detector test and produced documents purportedly from the billionaire, including a handwritten letter written to McGraw-Hill.

The letter, forged by Irving, was deemed authentic by handwriting analysts hired by McGraw-Hill. At that point, the publisher decided to move forward with the book.

Irving put the cash advance into a Swiss bank account, opened in the name Helga R. Hughes.

The unraveling

The deception unraveled when investigative reporter James Phelan, writing a book about Hughes, recognized passages of his work in an excerpt from Irving’s manuscript of the autobiography.

Hughes himself then surfaced to conduct a telephone conference with reporters during which he repudiated Irving’s story and said that he never met him. His lawyer sued Irving and his publisher.

At the urging of McGraw-Hill, Swiss authorities investigated the Helga R. Hughes bank account and learned that the deposits had been made by Irving’s wife, Edith.

Irving and his collaborator, Richard Suskind, were indicted on fraud charges and were found guilty in June 1972. In addition to his prison term, Irving returned the $765,000 advance to McGraw-Hill. Suskind was sentenced to six months and served five.

Edith Irving served a total of 16 months in U.S. and Swiss jails for fraud. She left jail announcing her intent to file for divorce.

Irving was unhappy with the movie version of his escapades and asked to have his name removed from the credits as a technical adviser.

“Movie Clifford has the energy of a not-too-bright psychopath. If I were that man, I’d shoot myself,” he wrote on his website. “The movie is best thought of as a hoax.”

Background, books

Born in 1930, Irving grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He attended public schools and his boyhood friends included William Safire, the late columnist and speechwriter for President Richard Nixon.

He attended Cornell University and stayed on for a year after graduation in 1951 on a creative writing fellowship. He worked odd jobs after leaving academia and traveled to Europe, where he finished his first novel, “On a Darkling Plain.”

He moved in 1962 to an artists’ colony on the island of Ibiza off the east coast of Spain. It was there that he wrote “Fake!” the story of art forger Elmyr de Hory. The reviews of the book were favorable, but it sold fewer than 30,000 copies.

In all, Irving wrote more than a dozen books. In recent years, he and fifth wife Julie lived in Mexico, Colorado and Florida.
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Throughout the year, young members of the Los Angeles Conservation Corps beautify the city — cleaning and planting trees, and creating trails and green spaces in the city. They get a break at the holidays to share holiday cheer. 

“We all come together to have fun,” says Corps member Chrishana Cameron, 21, who was enjoying the festivities at one of the Corps’ job sites. “It’s not always about work,” she said of the holiday celebration. 

Some members bring their young children. Others bring parents, brothers and sisters, and the youngsters all receive presents from Santa Claus.

The nonprofit organization helps young people at risk, says staff member Alex Lopez, a senior program director who once belonged to a street gang and served five years in prison.

“I made a mistake,” he says, “but I use that as a tool to reach out to the young people and let them know that I’ve been there, done that.” 

Lopez joined the Corps in 1991.  He was later hired to a staff job and became a supervisor. 

“Whatever they’re going through,” he says of the young recruits, “I use my experience to lead them in the right direction.”

The program combines job training and education.  “I dropped out of high school,” recalls staff member Denise Haynes, who grew up in the Watts neighborhood. I made some bad choices in my life, but I didn’t know you can turn all those things around.”  After joining the Corps in 1997, she completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

The LA Conservation Corps was founded in 1986 by Mickey Kantor, a Los Angeles lawyer who would later serve as U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton.  Modeled on the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, it is one of many groups that offer job training and a second chance to 26,000 young people around the United States.

There are many kinds of youth corps, says Jimmie Cho, LA Conservation Corps board chairman. Some focus on the city, and others on rural regions. Cho says “it’s really all about service and working to invest in other people.”

Corps members in Los Angeles say the work is hard but rewarding, and the holidays are a time to celebrate their accomplishments with co-workers and family.
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Laurie Metcalf has won three Emmys and a Tony Award in her nearly 40-year year career, but the veteran stage and screen actress still feels uncomfortable in front of a camera.

She says even after all her years on “Roseanne,” she still finds that a camera recording her makes her feel inhibited.

Metcalf is also feeling out of her element as a serious Academy Award contender for her role in the film “Lady Bird,” in which she plays the mother to a 17-year-old daughter who is going through a selfish phase.

The 62-year-old actress has already gotten supporting actress nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globe Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards. She says she’s flattered by the attention, which she also calls surreal. And on January 23, she might add the coveted Oscar nomination to her resume too.
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While most musicians seek to avoid a frosty reception at concerts, for Norwegian composer and performer Terje Isungset a chilly feeling is nothing to fear: he performs with instruments he makes himself out of ice.

A recent performance at London’s Royal Festival Hall featured a set including ice horns, ice drums and an “iceofone” — an ice xylophone — accompanied by the vocal stylings of singer Maria Skranes.

He sees his work as being about more than making music, since he also aims to display the beauty and fragility of ice.

“I see it as a part of something bigger. It’s not me and my project and my ego — it’s the elements,” he told Reuters.

The Norwegian, equipped with a background in traditional Scandinavian music and jazz, makes his instruments using chainsaws and pick axes.

Founder of an ice music festival in Norway, Isungset plays at about 50 festivals and concerts a year, many in the cold conditions of Norway, Canada or Russia.

At concerts in warmer climes, however, hotter temperatures can pose difficulties, as spending any more than 50 minutes at room temperature could damage the instruments.

All of the instruments for the London show were made in Norway and shipped over in special containers, highlighting the fact that, when it comes to making ice instruments, not any old water will do.

“If ice is from polluted water it doesn’t sound that good. If it’s from tap water it doesn’t work because there’s some chemicals in it,” he said. The best ice, he said, was from 2003 in the north of Sweden, adding “I’m very interested in that ice.”
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Brushstroke by brushstroke, muralist Robert Vargas is telling the story of this changing metropolis, using the facade of a 14-story downtown apartment building as his canvas.

Vargas suggests the massive painting, an homage to his hometown, was inevitable. 

He grew up in East Los Angeles “on a street called City View, and from my stoop, I had a clear sight line to the downtown L.A. skyline. So I think I was always destined to dream big and to paint big,” Vargas said. “I’m fulfilling my destiny.”

Vargas, of Mexican and Native American descent, began painting as a child. He studied at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, as well as New York’s Pratt Institute. His art has taken him from doing portraits on local streets to crafting scenes abroad — in Australia, Japan and, most recently, the United Arab Emirates. He showcases his work on an Instagram account that identifies him as “Artist based in Downtown Los Angeles, but for the world!”

The scale of Vargas’ painting has grown over time. 

His current mural stretches more than 5,500 square meters (6,600 square yards) — painted freehand, without a preliminary grid or stencils. He works from the kind of adjustable platform used by window washers.

Vargas started painting the mural this summer and expects to finish it in early 2018. He’s touting it, in numerous media interviews, as the largest done by a single artist. Guinness World Records has “received an application on Robert’s behalf, but we have not received any further evidence for the claim,” a spokeswoman told VOA in an emailed response. 

Hope, inclusion

Vargas’ mural depicts a multicultural metropolis.

“I want to convey a message of hope and inclusion, celebrating the diversity of Los Angeles,” the painter said.

His mural is ripe with symbolism, such as the image of a Native American girl.

“It’s really anchored by this Tongva girl — the original natives to inhabit the L.A. Basin,” Vargas said. Another figure will depict lightweight boxer Oscar De La Hoya, “foreshadowing the Olympics that are going to be here in 2028.”

De La Hoya won an Olympic gold medal in 1992 and served on the committee that landed the future Summer Games for Los Angeles. Vargas will paint the boxer holding an Olympic torch. 

The crowning figures for the mural, called “Angeles,” will be three angels. Vargas described the inspiration for two of them: One “happens to be a homeless woman that I selected from the streets,” he said, explaining that he wanted to recognize residents who are losing ground in a gentrifying area. 

Another has a more intimate connection: “One of the angels is actually [representing] my mother, who introduced me to downtown Los Angeles as a kid.”

“I’m just really excited about painting something this big,” Vargas said, “in the heart of the city where I grew up.”
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Pop star Lady Gaga is swapping touring for a two-year stint in Las Vegas, joining the likes of music divas Celine Dion, Britney Spears and Shania Twain who have recently taken up concert residencies in the entertainment mecca.

Gaga, 31, said on Tuesday she will start a two-year engagement at the 5,300-seat Park Theater at the Park MGM resort on the Las Vegas strip in December 2018.

“It’s the land of Elvis, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra, the Rat Pack, Elton John, Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli. It has been a life-long dream of mine to play Las Vegas,” the singer said in a statement.

“I am humbled to be a part of a historical lineup of performers, and to have the honor of creating a new show unlike anything Vegas has ever seen before,” she added.

Gaga made her name almost 10 years ago with catchy pop songs, arresting dance routines and outrageous stunts like setting her piano on fire and wearing a raw meat dress.

In February, she kicked off her the halftime show at the annual Super Bowl by singing “God Bless America,” from the top of Houston’s NRG Stadium.

But in September, the “Bad Romance” singer postponed until early 2018 the European leg of her “Joanne” world tour, citing severe pain. She was hospitalized in 2013 for a hip injury and more recently has said she suffers from the musculoskeletal disorder fibromyalgia.

Las Vegas residencies have become a popular draw for top music stars because they allow performers to remain in one place and draw large crowd without the rigors of touring.

Exact dates and ticket prices for Lady Gaga’s residency will be announced at a later date.

The Park Theater is part of the transformation of the Monte Carlo hotel on the Las Vegas Strip into a redesigned Park MGM resort.
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Artist Carlos Carmonamedina is curious about his surroundings. Since growing up in Mexico, traveling around to Europe for school, he’s always seen the cultures in a city’s periphery. When he moved to Washington D.C. two years ago, he was inspired to create a work that represents the city’s visual identity. 

“This project was for me a perfect excuse to get to know the city better and get out there and discover what’s going on around me,” Carmonamedina said. He has created almost 100 postcards in his DC series.

What was originally intended as a personal challenge, has gained popularity online and in the DC community. Carmonamedina sees it as documenting how people live in Washington D.C. at this current point in history.

“It’s just an extension of my personal curiosity and how I approach the world I live in,” Carmonamedina said. “So right now if I’m interested about how the city behaves and how the city changes, it’s natural that my art is gonna reflect that as well.”

Carmonamedina brings a perspective to the city that is different from its political reputation. His postcards include images of everyday human behavior: white collar workers taking their lunch at the fountain in DuPont Circle, a man and his child watching planes take off from Reagan Airport from Gravely Park, local musicians and artists celebrating their work at the DC Funk Parade—all parts of the city that are lost amid the headlines of Washington insiders, backdoor deals in Congress and the influence of K Street.

His ideas come from what he sees on a daily basis. He bikes around the city, looking for an area that he hasn’t been to before, and then sketches what he sees—the architecture, people and natural environment.

His most popular postcard, however, is from the Women’s March last January.

“I try to avoid any political involvement in my art, just because I want people in different audiences to feel comfortable with what they are looking at,” Carmonamedina. “But also, at the same time, I cannot avoid to escape the fact that we live in a very political city and protests and situations that they affect the rest of the country are happening right here.”

Christmas market

For two years now, Carmonamedina has also sold his postcards and prints at the Heinrich Christmas Market in downtown Washington. It’s one of the few times where he gets to interact with multiple fans of his work, rather than just one at a time. DC locals come by often looking for a postcard of their home neighborhood, or they request that he visit their neighborhood or favorite part of the city to draw next.

“I wanted to reach a larger audience,” Carmonamedina said. “Before I was working mostly in gallery circuits where very few people will attend. And this project allows to me interact with a different broader group of people.”

Carmonamedina grew up in Mexico, but left for Romania when he was 24 to pursue a career as an artist. He lived in the UK, Slovakia and France before moving to Washington D.C.

“I’ve been very much into the gallery circuit, trying to get exhibitions here and there, organizing residencies,” Carmonamedina said. ”But I have always been interested in comics and illustration and I wanted to do something a little bit more down to earth which I could also reach, again, a larger audience.”

This project is different from his pervious endeavors, but his art has always had similar elements. “How I approach things like humor, death, peripheries, and how people who live outside of the typical economic cultures … behave,” Carmonamedina said. “So it’s always about empathy and having a little bit of, putting yourself in other people’s shoes.”

As his project gains popularity, Carmonamedina is looking for new sources of inspiration that represent the city not only through his eyes, but through the eyes of the community.

“I feel like, so far has been very much my perspective as a newcomer, but I want to get to know people who have been here for a longer period.” Carmonamedina said. “I’m sure that they are going to give me a different insight of how the things are here.”
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Los Angeles artist Robert Vargas says he’s fulfilling his destiny by painting a huge mural in his hometown. A tall building in downtown LA serves as his canvas. VOA correspondent Arturo Martínez reports.
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In the two years since he came to Washington, D.C., Carlos Carmonamedina has created almost 100 postcards of everyday scenes in the nation’s capital. Many have DC landmarks in the background, like the White House, the Capitol and the Washington Monument, but all give a taste of what life in D.C. is like. Niki Papadogiannakis spoke to Carlos about why he documents D.C.
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Harvey Weinstein on Friday denied barring actresses Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino from working on the movie adaptation of “The Lord of the Rings” or blacklisting them from further projects.

Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual harassment by more than 50 women, including Judd and Sorvino, was responding to remarks by “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson.

Reuters is unable to independently confirm the misconduct allegations and Weinstein has denied having non-consensual sex with anyone.

In an interview with New Zealand website Stuff on Thursday, Jackson said he expressed interest in casting Judd and Sorvino in the movie while pitching the project to Weinstein’s production company Miramax.

“I recall Miramax telling us they were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs. This was probably in 1998,” Jackson said.

“At the time, we had no reason to question what these guys were telling us … I now suspect we were fed false information about both of these talented women — and as a direct result their names were removed from our casting list,” he added.

The “Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy later went to New Line Cinema and released in 2001.

Weinstein’s spokeswoman Holly Baird said in a statement that Harvey and his bother Bob “had no input into the casting whatsoever” on “Lord of the Rings.”

The statement said that Judd was subsequently cast by Weinstein in two other movies — “Frida” and “Crossing Over.” It added that Sorvino called Weinstein earlier this year to ask if her husband, actor Christopher Backus, could be cast in the TV series “Six” that he was producing “and Mr. Weinstein cast him.”

Judd, responding on Twitter on Friday, recalled having detailed talks with Jackson about “Lord of the Rings” but “then I abruptly never heard from him again.”

Sorvino said on Twitter that she “burst out crying” when she read Jackson’s remarks, calling them “confirmation that Harvey Weinstein derailed my career, something I suspected but was unsure.”

Representatives for the two actresses did not respond on Friday to a request for further comment.

Reporting by Jill Serjeant; editing by Clive McKeef.
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Jazz superstar Keely Smith, best known for her immortal duets with her late husband Louis Prima, has died of heart failure at 89.

Smith began her professional career her hometown of Norfolk, Virginia when Prima hired her to sing with his band while she still a teenager.

Smith was known for her cool demeanor, her deep smoky voice, and distinct black pageboy haircut, a counter-balance to the high-energy trumpet-playing Prima.

They won the very first Grammy award for best pop vocal performance by a duo for their 1959 hit “That Old Black Magic.”

Smth’s solo career thrived after divorcing Prima in 1961, making albums and becoming a top attraction in nightclubs in Las Vegas and New York.

 

 
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