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LumenoCity, the popular outdoor 3D light and music show, will return to Washington Park with five performances Aug. 5-9.
The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra will again provide the live music to accompany 3D projection lighting by Brave Berlin that makes the facade of Music Hall appear to come to life.
Performances include a dress rehearsal on Aug. 5 followed by four shows Aug. 6-9. All performances will begin at 8:30 p.m. with the Cincinnati Pops and the audio/visual show with the CSO will begin at 9:40 p.m. each night.
In addition to more performances, changes this year include an admission fee. Tickets cost $15-$20 and attendees must register in advance for a chance to reserve them. Ticket registration is open now through May 16 at 10 p.m. at lumenocity2015.com (limit one entry per person). A select number of registrants will be chosen at random on May 29, and those people will have the opportunity to buy up to four tickets (limit one selected registrant per household). Once selected individuals receive their ticket codes, they can then select particular performance dates on a first-come, first served basis. Codes should be redeemed as early as possible, starting June 1. Overall capacity has been reduced to 6,000 per night (a total of 30,000 across the four performances and dress rehearsal) to limit overcrowding.
Before Anne Rice and Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe set the standard for gothic creepiness. He's the inspiration for Gothic Halloween, a terrific program of music and Poe's classic stories guaranteed to chill the blood temperatures to appropriate Halloween levels, performed with wicked glee by the adventurous ensemble concert:nova. It's an evening of music from the dark side seamlessly interwoven with equally scary stories and songs.
Performed on the stage of Cincinnati Shakespeare Company's production of The Birds, it's the perfect setting for an evening of macabre and mayhem. Many of the musicians sported black capes but harpist Gillian Sella takes the prize —more on her later.
Bach's "Toccata" from the "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" is a horror standard and that's what starts the evening, performed with gusto by local treasure, keyboardist Julie Spangler. It's so familiar that the opening three-note sequence evoked laughter, which was quickly silenced by Spangler's artistry. She makes the small electric keyboard resonate with the power of a cathedral instrument.
The "Psycho Suite" features three pieces from the classic film score by Bernard Herrmann, performed by a string sextet — Eric Bates (no relation to Norman), Gerald Itzkoff, Mari Thomas, Rebe Barnes, Margaret Dyer and Theodore Nelson. There were also a few chuckles which quickly subsided. Those screeching string swipes don't need film to convey the murder in the shower scene or the ominous mood at the Bates Motel.
Baritone Edward Nelson gave a powerful performance of Schubert's setting of German poet Heinrich Heine's "Die Doppelganger," a song about a frightening encounter with one's alter-ego. Spangler accompanied and segued into Part II of Gyorgy Ligeti's "Musica ricercata," ("Researched music"). Entitled "Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale," (Sad, rigid and ceremonial), the music is a series of repeated notes, restless and menacing.
Sections of Ligeti's String Quartet No. 1 accompany a reading of Poe's "The Cask of the Amontillado," performed by Jason Podplesky and Edward Nelson. Podplesky seemed uneasy at first, stumbling over mispronunciations, but he recovered to bring the story to its macabre finale. Nelson did a fine job as the hapless victim. He remained onstage, joined by a string quartet for a performance of Samuel Barber's setting of Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach." Nelson conveyed the longing, passion and terror with elegant tone and flawless diction. The string quartet delivered an appropriately moody reading.
The second half opened with violists Barnes and Dyer slinking out on stage to perform "Viola Zombie," Michael Daugherty's duet that's a mashup of horror themes and plucked strings. You gotta love a piece with movements entitled "Jerks of Rigor Mortis" and "Zombie revivus." Barnes and Dyer clearly do.
The evening closed with Poe's ultimate horror classic, "The Masque of the Red Death," read by Podplesky, accompanied by French composer Andre Caplet's "Conte Fantastique: Masque of the Red Death" for string quartet and harp. In spite of a few mispronunciations here and there, Podplesky rendered the story with ghoulish delight. Caplet's score meshes fantasy and foreboding, and the harp glissandos add to the eerie atmosphere. Willowy harpist Gillian Sella nearly stole the show when she entered, garbed in a white satin cape and pointed hat.
c:n Artistic Director and clarinetist Ixi Chen doesn't perform in this concert but her creative mark is all over this terrific program.
You have one more opportunity to up your scare quotient on Monday evening, Oct. 27, at 7:30 p.m. A party follows the performance. You go, ghouls. Tickets and more info here.
Comic musical duo Igudesman & Joo performs at the School for Creative and Performing Arts' Mayerson Theater tonight, presented by the Constella Festival. Korean-British pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo and Russian violinist Aleksey Igudesman mix Classical music with other popular genres and humor for a wholly entertaining performance. Check out this popular performance (which has more than 7 million YouTube views):
CityBeat writer Anne Arenstein spoke to Joo about the duo's unique spin on performing the classics.
It was hate at first sight when Igudesman and Joo met. There's a hilarious account of what brought them together on their website, but according to Joo, the moment of truth came a couple of months later.
"We shared the notion that the Classical music world which we loved so much was taking itself way too seriously," Joo says. "Going to concerts was like going to a funeral."
"We were young and we didn't know much but we knew Classical music was full of life," he continues. "Through our own projects and the music we wrote, we could at least create events that we would want to go to."
Go here to read the full interview.
"An Evening with Igudesman and Joo" takes place at 8 p.m. tonight at SCPA's Mayerson Theater, 108 W. Central Parkway, Over-the-Rhine. More information and tickets: 513-549-7175 or constellafestival.org.
At last year's inaugural LumenoCity, a total of 35,000 spectators were dazzled over the course of two nights as Music Hall was lit up with three-dimensional graphics, bringing OTR to life with a visual and musical spectacle.
When tickets for a trio of concerts on Aug. 1-3 became available to the general public in June, CSO clocked more than 300,000 visits to its website, and the event capacity of 37,500 over three nights was reached in 12 minutes.
CSO has unveiled plans to make the groundbreaking concert experience open to an even larger number of Cincinnatians, streaming each concert live on the web at lumenocity2014.com and broadcasting to nearly 900,000 households throughout the region.
"From day one, LumenoCity has been guided by a spirit and character of equity, access and generosity," said CSO President Trey Devey. "Demand for the event far exceeds the capacity of the Washington Park viewing area."
"Now, we're able to make this free
event available on television, radio, live simulcast sites and the worldwide
web. It is our goal to reach as many people as possible with LumenoCity and
highlight the extraordinary creative energy of our community."
90.9 WGUC, Cincinnati's classical public radio station, will broadcast the performance live on Friday, Aug. 1, which will open LumenoCity up to listeners who can eye Music Hall from hilltops or rooftops. Public television station CET will air the event on Saturday, Aug. 2.
In addition to live Internet streams, the third and final performance will be simulcast at Fountain Square and Riverbend Music Center on Sunday, Aug. 3. Additionally, CSO will issue 5,000 free tickets for a dress rehearsal on Thursday, July 31.
CSO is also putting 3,300 newly released tickets for the trio of shows up for grabs, which will be issued for free via a drawing. Patrons may register at lumenocity2014.com, but those who already have reserved tickets will not be eligible.
The 2014 LumenoCity concert performances will begin at 8:30 p.m. each of the three evenings with John Morris Russell conducting the Orchestra as the Cincinnati Pops. After a brief intermission, Music Director Louis Langrée will lead the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
The visual effects will accompany a live 40-minute CSO program featuring works from Copland, John Adams, Tchaikovsky, Elgar and Borodin.
Five years ago, Over-the-Rhine was considered one of the most dangerous and dilapidated neighborhoods in the United States, a title earned through a controversial analysis of the area's crime statistics. Today it's a different story, with Over-the-Rhine at the forefront of community revitalization, and Washington Park at the core of that progress.
At last year's inaugural LumenoCity, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra brought in a total of 35,000 spectators over two nights to see Music Hall come to life through a visual and musical collaboration. The crowds alone were proof of the growth OTR has made as a neighborhood and the mark it continues to make on Cincinnati.
This year, the free concert experience will be expanded to three days – Aug. 1-3, rain or shine. The 40-minute, all-new visual performances promise heart-pounding music paired with stunning animation.
Using a technique called architectural mapping, three-dimensional graphics will be projected from trailers on Race Street onto the façade of Music Hall, quite literally shining a light on a cherished city landmark. Each performance will begin at 8:30 p.m. with John Morris Russell conducting the orchestra as the Cincinnati Pops. After a brief intermission, Music Director Louis Langree will lead the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the light show for the second time.
In an interview with CityBeat's Anne Arenstein last year, Langree stated why he loved performing in Over-the-Rhine over other venues: "There's a great sense of creativity and innovation you can feel. Washington Park is a great venue. I know that at one time it was a sketchy place but now it's alive and thriving. To see so many thousands of people gathered to celebrate the city was marvelous."
The visual elements for the concert's second half are being developed by Brave Berlin, a world-class creative design and production company based in Cincinnati. Music to be featured in the second performance include Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," John Adams' "Short Ride in a Fast Machine," the fourth movement from Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, Elgar's "Nimrod" and Borodin's "Polovtsian Dances." Details of the concert's first half with Russell and the Cincinnati Pops will be announced on a date closer to the festival.
LumenoCity isn't just a collaboration between some of Cincinnati's best music and art scenes, but a celebration of the city itself. In addition to the performances, organizers are planning an all-new LumenoCity Village with pre-concert performances, arts and crafts, and greatly expanded food and beverage services. Two additional speaker arrays are being added this year for improved sound coverage, as well as expanded restroom services. Performers from the May Festival Chorus, Cincinnati Ballet and Cincinnati Opera will also be showcased during the event.
The village will open at 3 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 1, and 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The designated viewing area inside Washington Park will be fenced in to ensure guest safety and comfort, and attendance within that designated area will be capped at 12,500 people each night. All are welcome, and this year's concerts will be free to the general public, but ticketed. Advance tickets will be offered starting May 19 to CSO and Pops season ticket holders. Complimentary tickets will be available starting Monday, June 9, at 8 a.m. at lumenocity.com and will be issued until capacity is reached. For audience members without a computer or Internet access, a supply of free tickets will be made available to several of CSO's partner organizations. In addition to the www.lumenocity2014.com website, the CSO has established a LumenoCity telephone information line at 513-744-3372.
The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) launched its new seven-week initiative, "One City, One Symphony" earlier this month. The goal of the program is to get the CSO engaged with people of all walks of life through nine listening parties across the region. "One City, One Symphony" concludes with three concerts Nov. 15, 17 and 18 at Music Hall featuring A Survivor From Warsaw by Arnold Shoenburg and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati and The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation host the free listening parties across Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. These parties are a chance for the public to interact with CSO musicians and conductors while listening and discussing the music from Schoenburg and Beethoven.
"I already feel a strong connection with our audiences, the supportive community and of course the incredible musicians of the CSO, and I am looking forward to deepening this relationship in the coming months and years," Music Director Louis Langrée said in a press release.
If you haven't attended a listening party yet, there are still several more chances to meet the players and discuss the music around town.
Tonight, Anderson High School welcomes CSO timpanist Patrick Schleker to host a listening party from 7-8:30 p.m.
To attend one of these performances or learn more about the CSO and One City, One Symphony, click here.
The rest of the listening parties are as scheduled:
Thursday, Nov. 1, 7-8:30 p.m. at the Xavier University's Bellarmine Chapel. This performance is hosted by CSO violinist Sylvia Samis and XU Director of Interfaith Community Engagement Abie Ingber.
Thursday, Nov. 8, 6-7:30 p.m. at Coffee Emporium. Associate Conductor Robert Treviño hosts.
Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2-3:30 p.m. at Mayerson Jewish Community Center. Again hosted by Sylvia Samis and Abie Ingber.
In 2007 Perri released a Folk-inflected album called Tiny Mirrors, which for the first time was presented under his own name. While the shift found him dabbling in more conventional singer/songwriter waters, it still left room for his more experimental leanings. His latest "solo" album, the addictive Impossible Spaces, expands upon Tiny Mirrors, employing a variety of sounds, instruments and textures — Arto Lindsay's Brazilian-tinged post-DNA solo records pop to mind — all anchored by Perri's understated yet oddly affecting vocals and guitar work.
The peeps at Pitchfork named Impossible Spaces one of the 40 best albums of 2011, and Bryce Dessner gushed when asked why he was compelled to have Perri play at this year's MusicNOW: "It's one of the best records I've heard in a long time. It's interesting because it's not the type of music I tend to be drawn to. It has a bit of a Jazz-inflected kind of range to it, and I tend to be turned off by kind of Jazzy songs, but his music is so incredibly well made, the melodies are so infectious and the playing so inventive."
CityBeat recently phoned Perri to talk about his creative process, his move from Electronic music to (relatively) more conventional songwriting and his hometown of Toronto.
CityBeat: How are you, Sandro?
Sandro Perri: I'm well. And you?
CB: Not bad. A little hungover.
SP: (Laughs) I'll be gentle.
CB: Were you familiar with MusicNOW before agreeing to play this year?
SP: I had heard about it, yeah, but I had never been to it and wasn't that familiar with it. I think I heard about it through Owen Pallett, who lives in Toronto and played there a couple of years ago.
CB: Right. Given your initial Dance-based Electronic recordings, I thought it interesting that you studied Jazz guitar in college for a time.
SP: Yes. Part of my training is studying guitar through Jazz theory. It's the kind of thing where you learn some of the techniques and the theory behind it, but it takes a lot more than that to really be a Jazz guitar player, to really embrace the whole genre fully in spirit and everything. I didn't quite have it in me to follow one specific sort of genre, so I just kind of studied the music and some of the theory. I'm a big fan of a lot of Jazz, but it's not by any means a foundational thing for me.
CB: How do you think it impacted what you're doing now?
SP: I got interested in Jazz mostly through the stuff that was considered outside (the genre) at some point — like mid-to-late '60s Miles Davis and Eric Dolphy and Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman, stuff like that. It's interesting for me because of the harmonic richness you hear in a lot of Jazz. There are also some challenging rhythmic things that you hear in Jazz that were appealing to me as a kid, and just the sense of freedom that you hear within a lot of Jazz. That's what has impacted me the most. It took a lot of studying to scratch the surface to how musicians start to approach that kind of style of playing.
CB: How then did you get interested in Electronic music? It seems like a complete 180 in many ways.
SP: Yeah. Partially it was a reaction to being in Jazz school, but more than that it was just being seduced by how good Electronic music really plays with timbre and texture and the idea of morphing sounds together and creating new sounds and having music which can end up sounding more liquid, I suppose, than a lot of performed music or acoustically made music. That's appealing for someone who thinks just in terms of pure sound.
Once I had been in school and sort of started to get over the idea of music having to be performed by live musicians, then it opened up this whole world of the seduction of working in a studio and creating music which is more like creating a painting or creating a film where you're doing it in real time but you're creating something in a medium that will be experienced outside of a performance. That kind of opens you up to this whole world of possibilities that doesn't really exist in performing music. I think Electronic music kind of embodies that idea, and that's very appealing.
CB: Creatively you can do almost anything when you're not limited by your own technical skill as a player and musician.
SP: Yes. The studio allows for all kinds of things to happen that might not happen in real time and don't necessarily need to happen in real time. I think the idea of music as a performing art is only one way of looking at it.
CB: Well, interestingly, the new album has a lot going on sonically, a lot of interesting textures. I'm curious how you go about presenting the songs in a live setting. Do you try to re-create them as they sound on the record, or is it a little bit of different take on the songs?
SP: By necessity it ends up being a different take on the songs because the kind of process that went into making the record and mixing it is not really possible in a live setting because there are so many factors that are unknown. It's a bit of a rabbit hole to try and control the live situation as much as you can control a recording. You end up working against the essence of performing live, which is to communicate in real time and to try and reach a place where you're needing more broad strokes to express what is at the heart of a song or a piece of music. A lot of details can't really be adhered to. As much as I'd like to — I'm tempted often to try and do that — it's just not really feasible. I think it would end up coming off as being hyper-controlling to try and do that in a live setting. Hopefully the essence of the music remains when a slightly different approach is taken live.
CB: Well, specifically, in the song "Love & Light" there is this rhythmic, kind of breathy, panting at the beginning that works so well on the recorded version. Do you try to re-create something like that live?
SP: We do usually, yeah. There are a couple of different ways that we approach it. We're sort of working out some of the details. We do things and we try different approaches and we're always sort of experimenting with different ways to play things live. I can't make any guarantees about any part at this point, but, yeah, we usually try and do stuff like that if we can.
CB: In recent years you've come to a more conventional singer/songwriter approach. Why were you interested in moving in that direction?
SP: It's a new challenge. I like words. I like the idea of putting words to music. After a while I got stuck in a place where I was repeating myself a lot with the Electronic music. The stuff I was doing had a very similar tone all the way through. I found it to be a little bit of a safe place once you find your thing. It can feel comfortable, but it can also get kind of boring. I get restless, and I think that writing words and music was just an extension of what I was doing.
I was doing that when I was a kid, too, but it was not something that I chose for whatever reason to have be part of my output. I initially started putting out the Electronic records because maybe it seemed more feasible at the time. Ultimately I think it just comes down to wanting more challenges and being excited about those challenges and deciding to try it regardless of whether you think you can do it or not, just stretching out and putting yourself in a place where there is an unknown factor.
CB: Can you tell me about your songwriting process? Do you come up with the sounds and the music and then write the lyrics based on that? Or is it more of a combination?
SP: It can be more of a combination, and it can be sometimes lyrics first, sometimes music first, sometimes just a melody first. It can be a very slow, laborious process with endless revisions and experimentation with instruments and with length of the songs and tempo and arrangements and the key. Often the things that end up on my records have been through so many revisions and re-workings that there might be 10 or 15 different versions of a song somewhere in my sketchbook or on my hard drive.
That's the joy of it, too — all of the possibilities that you can go through with a piece. But all of that just goes to the essence of what it is, and sometimes it takes a while to learn what a song actually is before it's ready to be finalized. The process can involve a lot of different approaches depending on the song and depending on how it came about. I've found that for me there hasn't been any standard way yet that I've hit upon to write.
CB: Do you basically create the songs on your own? You don't really have a full-time band, right?
SP: Most of it is on my own because my band tends to change from time to time. Different members will come and go depending on the music, depending on schedules and all kinds of things. For the most part the process is one that I do on my own. I often play things for friends and ask them what they think, but for the most part it's a solitary thing because sometimes too many options can come in the more people you involve. It can be easy to lose focus sometimes if there is something really specific that you're trying to get at. But it's nice to have other people involved later on, once you've worked on a bunch of ideas. It can help to re-energize when I start to introduce the music to other people and we start to work at putting it together in the final stages.
CB: I'm not that familiar with the Toronto music scene, but I go up every year for the film festival. It's a really fascinating city, much more multicultural than I envisioned before going there. I'm curious how Toronto and the arts scene there have impacted you as a musician.
SP: Well, like you said, it's very multicultural, it's very broad and it's very non-competitive, which is maybe more specifically a Canadian thing and a Toronto thing. There are a lot of opportunities to play regularly, and, coming back to a national thing, there is pretty good arts support in Canada federally, provincially and even locally within cities.
If you get to a certain level of seriousness as an artist you're eligible for funding for making records and for touring and stuff. I've been lucky with some of that — I've been turned down plenty of times as well — so it can be nice to make music in Canada for that reason. Or to make any art for that matter if you're serious about it. Even if you're not a full-time professional artist there is still encouragement to explore things and to try things even if you're just semi-professional or a hobbyist.
There is a lot of exchange that can happen amongst musicians, in particular, in this city. Over the last 10 or 15 years I've made a lot of inspiring connections with musicians and artists here in the city. It's hard to say or pinpoint exactly how that impacts your work, but I think overall just having people around you who support and who do similar things creates a feeling that you're not doing it in a vacuum. That gives you the confidence to keep working and to keep pushing yourself into new territories, but without it being a competitive thing. I find there is a distinct lack of competitiveness amongst the people I know in Toronto making music…
CB: What do you mean when you say "competitiveness"? Do you mean in terms of getting attention?
SP: I think just the general feeling between people. The feeling is very supportive and people help each other out and play on each other's recordings. There is just a general willingness to help other people out and to be involved in what other people are doing without there being a feeling of threat to your professional aspirations. It's maybe not a matter of survival like it is for some people in other countries. I'm really not sure. Maybe it's the way the social system is set up here in Canada where it's hard to feel like you need to cut the person beside you in order to survive.
I'm not sure what it is, but there is just a general feeling of support and friendliness between artists here that I think has had a pretty positive long-term effect both in your ability and your willingness to try different artistic mediums and try things and feel safe and entitled to do so. I might not be the right person to comment on this, because it's probably a lot more complex than that, but that's just my general feeling on making music in Toronto and Canada. As a result there may be people here in Toronto who are phenomenal talents but who just don't reach the outside world because they don't really care to or they don't try to. It's just about what they're doing and less about who they're reaching.
CB: I looked at your bio on your website the other day and it was interesting that the very first sentence describes you as "a songwriter and a producer of new music." I thought that was a curious way to describe what you do. What does the term "new music" mean to you? Is it that you're creating new music all the time, or is it that you're trying to do something new with the music?
SP: Maybe a little of both. It's maybe one of those things that just has a nice ring to it. You also have to be careful what you read into bios, because it ultimately can be sort of a meaningless thing. But to me the idea of making "new music" means not worrying too much about what genre you're doing or what someone will call it and just think about following your gut and your instinct. That to me is "new music." Anything else is when you say to yourself, "Oh, I make Hip Hop or whatever." When you decide and tell yourself, "I am this and this is what I do," then it informs in a lot of the choices that you make and what you are willing to do and what you are not willing to do, what you are afraid of and what you're not afraid of. There is a lot of music that just goes for it and doesn't try and define itself or whatever.
To me that's "new" music. I think it's a pretty broad term, but it's optimistic to me to call something new but without the trap of something having to be new to be relevant. That's maybe a dangerous way to read into it; that it's only good or relevant if it came out this week. New music can be found new maybe long after it's been made, long after it's been released into the world. The reason for that is that it comes from a place of just genuine curiosity and adventure, and that lasts through time. You can sort of smell that in music, you can sense it.
So, yeah, a longwinded answer, and perhaps meaningless, but that's kind of how I feel about it (laughs).
CB: I hear a lot of different influences on the new album, including, maybe surprisingly, a kind of 1970s and '80s Pop radio singer/songwriter thing. Did you listen to Pop radio growing up?
SP: Oh yes, I definitely heard all that stuff when I was growing up. I probably listened to a lot of Pop radio that was playing older music, like even for the '80s. I would hear a lot of Motown. I definitely wasn't in a vacuum growing up. I didn't latch onto a lot of popular music in the '80s, but I certainly heard it. Though sometimes it took me 10 or 20 years to get into music from my childhood, to really get into it in a new way.
much as I love listening to and exploring different and more
"difficult" music, Pop music has always appealed to me if it's
done well. If it speaks to me then I don't discriminate against Pop
music at all; I definitely love it. So I suppose there is probably a
lot of that in the new album. Trying to write melodies will often end
up sounding pretty Pop (laughs).
The Kaplan New Works Series (Sept. 6-16, Cincinnati Ballet Center): This annual season opener celebrates new ideas and creative movement showcasing the female choreographer and focusing on local artists. This world premiere features dancers Amy Seiwert and Paige Cunningham, two SCPA alum, Director Heather Britt and choreographer Jessica Lang.
Frisch's Presents: The Nutcracker (Dec. 14-23, Aronoff Center): Victoria Morgan re-imagined the classic for 2011's world premiere, The New Nutcracker. This whimsical interpretation returns in 2012, complete with dancing cupcakes, flying bumblebees and a Sugar Plum Parade, where audience members will be invited to walk acrid stage and get a closer peek at the sets, costumes and dancers.
Prodigal Son with Extremely Close (March 22-23, Aronoff Center): Neo-classical choreographer George Balanchine comes to Cincinnati with his rendering of the classic parable about sin, redemption and unconditional love. On the same bill, Extremely Close is Alejandro Cerrudo's thoughtful contemporary work. The performance opens on a stage of falling feathers, reflecting the delicacy and fluidity of movement, and connected throughout, punctuated by a surprising, thought-provoking ending.
Frampton & CB Come Alive (April 26-27, Aronoff Center): Legendary guitarist Peter Frampton will create a new work specifically for the performance and play live alongside choreography collaboration from Cincinnati Ballet and Exhale Dance Tribe.
New subscriptions and subscription renewals are now available at the Cincinnati Ballet Center (1555 Central Pkwy., Over-the-Rhine) or by calling 513-621-5282. Individual tickets to the following shows will be available July 22 at cballet.org.
Among the eight winners announced for the 2012 Governor's Awards for the Arts in Ohio are several Cincinnatians. Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park Producing Artistic Director Ed Stern, who retires at the end of the current theater season, and Executive Director Buzz Ward have been named the recipient of the year's recognition in the field of Arts Administration. Louise D. Nippert will be honored in the category of Arts Patron.
The Emery Theatre is finally on its way back. After years of dormancy, the 100-year-old Over-the-Rhine venue is in the midst of a restoration that will allow artistic endeavors of varying stripes to grace its stage.
The Emery Center Corporation Board and The Requiem Project — the nonprofit brainchild of Tara Lindsey Gordon and Cincinnati native Tina Manchise, a duo intent on restoring the Emery's historic legacy — announced over the weekend that the Emery has secured two architects to take on the renovation: locally based John Senhauser Architects, and Cleveland-based Westlake Reed Leskosky, a firm that specializes in opening closed arts venues.


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Lovers of Furby, Angry Birds, and all things addictive and a little bit strange, heads up – the digital pocket "creature" that ruled 90s-era homerooms is coming back.
This new breed of now-glamified LCD pets – rebranded by Japanese company Bandai as Tamagotchi Friends – will hit the market in fall 2014.
But don't expect "alien-creature blobs," New York Magazine: The Cut notes. These Tamagotchi Friends have a little more ambition than that. (Are you surprised? They, like you, survived Y2k.) Beauticians, robots, musicians, pet stylists. These are all careers the little egg-shaped nuggets are capable of.
Have to say, like any good former caretaker, I'm proud.
Read more on New York Magazine: The Cut.
By Joanna Berliner, Editor
Thoughts? Tweet us at @ruelala to share.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
I'd like to look into this but your sig has no link. It's in your Contact Info on your member page though.
This news is not old, but it's also not 100% new. However, we are new members here, so we're posting it for the first time. The Vintyri (TM) Project is in the process of releasing the free and open Vintyri Cartographic Collection under the Open Game License 1.0a. Being free and open means that it is available for both private and commercial use. The collection is being released in individual sets, each accompanied by a free, illustrated PDF. It is available in two versions, one with raster (bitmap) fills and symbols scaled for Fractal Mapper (TM) 8 and the other with raster objects and textures scaled for Dundjinni (TM). The first three sets are available for free download. They contain 128 fills/textures and 470 symbols/objects. About the same amount of material still is on the way along with an FM8 tutorial. The focal point of the collection rests with symbols and objects of structures based upon genuine European buildings of the Middle Ages. Each structure is available in varying roof styles. You can download this material free at the address in my signature.
Mark Oliva
The Vintyri (TM) Project
I'd like to look into this but your sig has no link. It's in your Contact Info on your member page though.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
I thought I had a URL and E-Mail address there. Thanks for the heads up!
Mark Oliva
The Vintyri (TM) Project
what's the catch with the licence ?=) I mean there has to be one.
In addition to everything the license allows, we also are open to issuing special licenses for things the license might not allow. If such a license were to be issued, it too would be at no charge. However, no one ever has asked for any such thing to date.
Our project group has a German business license to avoid problems, but we are strictly non-commercial. Everything we do is free and open. We earn our money in other fields.
Mark Oliva
The Vintyri (TM) Project
Sounds pretty good. I'll probably check the textures etc out then
Definitely someting to check out... thanks.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Ghoraja Juun, my largely stagnated campaign setting.
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Its very nice to have you guys on board now!
All Hail FlappyMap! Long Live MapFeed!
Robbie Powell - Site Admin
Damn....Dunjinni and Fractal Mapper only. No CC3 love
Can I download the symbols and extract, or do I need one of the above mentioned software to extract?
Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice!
Any questions on CC3? Post them with CC3 in the Subject Line!
MY 'FAMOUS' CC3 MAPS: Thunderspire; Pyramid of Shadows; King of the Trollhaunt Warrens; Demon Queen's Enclave
are all the textures just 300x300 pixels ? (in the dunjinni pack they were)


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Los Angeles, CA (Sports Network) - A.J. Ellis' grand slam in the first inning
helped the Los Angeles Dodgers take a 9-8 win over the Los Angeles Angels in
preseason action on Friday.
Luis Cruz went 2-for-4 with two RBI and a run scored while Matt Kemp had an
RBI and scored twice for the Dodgers. Josh Beckett was tagged for seven runs
on nine hits with five strikeouts in four innings.
Mike Trout hit a three-run home run and Alberto Callaspo added a two-run shot
for the Angels. Jason Vargas didn't make it out of the second inning as he
gave up eight runs on seven hits with a pair of walks.
These same teams will meet Saturday night in Anaheim to end the preseason.
The Sports Network


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Pat White talks football with the media, though he is ready for baseball
A few of the early questions in today's conference call with Pat White regarded his football career and his former coach, Rich Rodriguez, who is now at the University of Michigan. White answered those questions, though the 24-year old is eager to embark on his new journey as a professional baseball player. He's had the opportunity to play baseball before – White was drafted by the Angels out of high school in the fourth round in 2004. He instead opted to play football for Rodriguez at West Virginia University. White wanted to attend college at the time and didn't know if he was ready to be on his own as a professional athlete.
It has now been six years since White put on a baseball uniform. Scouts kept track of White and he didn't forget about baseball. He was selected three more times in the baseball draft – by the Angels in 2007, the Reds in 2008 and by the Yankees in 2009.
White kept in touch with the game by going to the batting cages and playing catch. Recently, he has taken cuts with a local college team in Miami. He will soon embark for the Arizona Instructional League, where he sees himself as an outfielder.
Reporters asked White if he would take the Bo Jackson approach and play both football and baseball. The fellow Alabaman downplayed the notion, simply saying that Bo is on another level.


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Segovia is full of hidden corners, but during the Hay Festival, which has just finished in the city, it reveals even more of its secrets.
Yesterday afternoon I was in a lush garden down by the Eresma river, listening to poems by Robert Graves and Antonio Machado. Set on a steep slope on the side of a gorge, the Romeral de San Marcos was created by the artist and landscape gardener Leandro Silva, who also restored the Botanic Garden in Madrid.
In the warm sunshine in the late afternoon, about 60 of us snaked along the narrow paths that wound up the hillside, in the shade of quince, plum and pear trees, catching an occasional glimpse of the Alcazar, the fairytale castle on the edge of the ridge on the other side of the river.
The person reading the poems was Ann Bateson, who I met in Madrid back in the 1980s. She now presents a programme in English on the radio station of the Circulo de Bellas Artes, one of Madrid's most dynamic cultural centres. On last week's show, she interviewed Peter Florence, the director of the Hay Festival, and asked him how they had decided to stage the event in Segovia.
He replied that it was actually Ann's fault, as she had taken him to Segovia in the late 1980s, when he was performing poems by Wilfred Owen in several Spanish cities. I clearly remember seeing the show in Madrid, in a small theatre in the university on a chilly winter's night. Ann was working at the British Council back then, and was in charge of bringing British artists, writers and performers to Spain.
Now, the journey from Madrid takes half an hour on the swish new high-speed train, but then it took three or four hours by boneshaker bus along mountain roads. The visit to this provincial capital of golden stone made a huge impression on the young Peter Florence, and years later, when he was asked where he would choose to stage Hay in Spain, there was only one possible answer: "Segovia".
While the events at other Hay Festivals mostly take place in marquees, in Segovia the talks, exhibitions, concerts and performances are held in palaces, convents and churches throughout the city – as well as gardens of course. I went to a fascinating discussion, hosted by The Telegraph's literary editor Gaby Wood, in the church of San Juan de los Caballeros, parts of which date back to the 6th century. She was talking to the writers Tiffany Murray, Gail Jones and Kishwar Desai, who explained their individual writing processes and sources of inspiration to the packed 'congregation'.
The great gastronomic speciality in Segovia is roast suckling pig, which we were lucky enough to eat in the stunning garden of the Palacio de Lozoya, overlooking the Roman aqueduct. Our lunch had been prepared by the chefs at Jose Maria, one of the best restaurants in the city. It is traditional to chop the meat with the side of a plate, to show how tender it is, then smash the plate to the ground.
One of those awarded the honour of carrying out this ritual was David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas, who was at the festival to talk about his new book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. He told the audience that the novel came about as a result of his getting off the tram at the wrong stop in Nagasaki in 1994.
I couldn't help wondering if any of his experiences at the festival will filter into one of his future books.


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CEA has combined live music and American history into a fun and educational assembly program for children.We bring this to students in our community's elementary and middle schools. Our mission is to continue to bring our enrichment program to young students everywhere and inspire them to remain excited and aware of America's landscape, history and musical heritage by presenting the material as a live cultural arts performance. CEA is committed to funding cultural arts programs in our schools.
eBay for Charity
Registered with eBay for Charity.


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Above: Munira Okovic, a young woman from Bosnia who was granted asylum with the help of Clinic students, speaking at a reception celebrating the Asylum Clinic's tenth anniversary.
In the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic, law students handle every aspect of representation in high-stakes cases that determine whether a client who has fled political, religious or other persecution in his or her home country will be granted asylum in the United States. In this intensive, one-semester program, students develop their legal skills and learn to exercise professional responsibility and judgment. They deepen their understanding of human rights issues while providing an essential service to clients desperately in need of representation.
Since its founding in 2002, the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic has handled 101 asylum cases to completion. In 93 of those cases, the Clinic's clients were granted asylum or other forms of relief from removal. In many instances, spouses and children were also beneficiaries of the asylum grant, so the total number of refugees who have been able to secure legal status in the United States as a result of the Clinic's work is into the hundreds. Many of the Clinic's past clients are now U.S. citizens.
The Asylum and Human Rights Clinic celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2012. It was honored with the Myra M. Oliver Award by the Connecticut Immigrant and Refugee Coalition for exceptional service to Connecticut's immigrant communities, awarded at the annual Immigrant Day held at the Connecticut State Capitol. Over the past several years, the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic has also engaged in innovative interdisciplinary collaborations with the UConn School of Social Work and UConn Health Center which has enhanced services to clients while enriching the professional education of law, social work, and psychology students.
Typically, 20 law students participate in the intensive Asylum and Human Rights Clinic program each year (12 in the fall semester, 8 in the spring). Students who have taken the Clinic may continue to do supervised casework in subsequent semesters by enrolling in Advanced Clinic Fieldwork. Other law students provide valuable assistance to the Clinic's clients, and gain insight into international human rights issues and legal advocacy, by serving as language interpreters in the Clinic's cases as student employees or pro bono volunteers.
More than 200 law students have participated in the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic since the program started in the fall of 2002. The legal experience, exposure to human rights issues, and commitment to public service that students have gained through the program have had a lasting impact on their careers. Asylum and Human Rights Clinic alumni have gone on to judicial clerkships, positions with the U.S. Justice Department, State Department and Department of Homeland Security, public interest law jobs, and positions in large and small law firms. Click here for an article profiling one of the Asylum Clinic's alumni.
Clinical Professor of Law Jon Bauer is the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic's director. He has been a member of the law school faculty since 1988, and has taught clinical and non-clinical courses focusing on civil rights, employment law, poverty law and mediation. He has been teaching the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic since 2002.
Anna Cabot co-teaches the program as the William R. Davis Clinical Teaching Fellow. Anna, who joined the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic in the summer of 2014, previously served as managing attorney of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Texas. She has also worked for Asylum Access, advocating on behalf of refugees in Tanzania, and for the ACLU's National Prison Project.
The Asylum and Human Rights Clinic is an intensive, nine-credit program, in which students
- Obtain extensive experience working with a client, strengthening their interviewing and counseling skills;
- Gain cross-cultural sensitivity, learning to communicate effectively across differences of language and culture;
- Conduct intensive legal research in a rapidly-evolving area of law, and learn about human rights conditions in the client's home country;
- Thoroughly investigate the facts, locate corroborating evidence, and organize the supporting evidence into a persuasive package;
- Work with expert witnesses, including country conditions experts, physicians and mental health professionals;
- Draft numerous case documents, including an asylum application, client and witness affidavits, and a legal brief;
- Present evidence, testimony and arguments at a hearing before the United States Immigration Court or the Asylum Office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
There are three major facets of the Clinic program: casework, case team meetings, and seminars. The casework is central. Students, working together in teams of two, typically spend a minimum of 30 hours per week working on their clients' cases. Each student team meets at least once a week with a faculty advisor for an in-depth discussion of the casework. These meetings are used to help students recognize, analyze and resolve the multitude of strategic, tactical, ethical, and interpersonal issues that arise in representing clients. Clinic students and faculty, together with clients and witnesses, also participate in "mootings" to prepare for each hearing.
The Asylum Clinic seminar meets once a week, for three hours. Classes are used for a variety of purposes. Early in the semester, a few classes are used to survey the substantive law involved in Clinic cases. Other classes are devoted to teaching essential lawyering skills that students will use in their casework; many of these classes involve role-playing exercises or workshops based on students' actual cases. Class time is also used for "case rounds," in which students share and learn from each other's experiences.
The remarkable stories of some of the cases recently handled by the Asylum and Human Rights are told below.
In May 2014, Tejal Patel '14 and Ruth Vaughan '14 convinced an immigration judge to grant asylum to a woman from Honduras who was raped and threatened with death by an abusive ex-boyfriend, a member of one of the notorious Central American gangs, after she tried to leave him. Their client was deeply traumatized by her experiences and had difficulty talking about her abuse. Through sensitive and empathetic interviewing, Ruth and Tejal gained their client's trust and were gradually able to get her to provide the horrific details. Their legal brief made a compelling case that domestic violence, in countries where women cannot get effective governmental protection from their abusers, constitutes a basis for asylum – an issue surprisingly still unsettled in the courts. Based on the submission of written evidence and the brief, counsel for the Department of Homeland Security agreed, at the start of a hearing in immigration court, that our client qualified for asylum, a concession that is rarely made.
Samem Jarbarkhail '15 and Ivan Tereschenko '15 took on the extraordinary challenge of representing a 13-year old deaf girl from a Central Asian country. In her family home, she had never learned to communicate and could not understand what was going on around her. She was frequently beaten and never allowed to leave the house. Her father eventually dropped her off at an orphanage, where she came to the attention of an organization that helped her learn sign language, enrolled her in school, and arranged for a scholarship in the U.S. Ivan and Samem balanced thoroughness with child-appropriate sensitivity in gathering the facts, obtaining supporting evidence, and preparing their client for an interview before the Department of Homeland Security's Asylum Office. They persuaded the asylum officer that their client was persecuted due to both her disability and her gender, and obtained a favorable asylum decision in June 2014.
In November 2013, an immigration judge granted asylum at the conclusion of a trial handled by Lauren Kostes '15 and Jade Baldwin '15 for a young woman from Central America. Their client suffered years of physical and sexual abuse from her father before fleeing to the United States. Despite two complaints to the police, the authorities in her country did nothing to protect her. Asylum grants based on child abuse are rare, and the success of this case depended heavily on effective advocacy.
In December 2012, Ariel McPherson '13 and Brian Ajodhi '14 won a grant of asylum in the Hartford Immigration Court for a young woman from Haiti who lost her home in the 2010 earthquake and was forced to live in a squalid tent city. There, she was sexually assaulted and saw a friend raped and killed. She fled Haiti in a small boat to seek safety. Over the course of a two-day hearing, Ariel and Brian persuaded the immigration judge that women exposed to sexual violence in the Haitian tent cities are a "particular social group" eligible for asylum, and that their client, although she might be able to avoid future persecution by living elsewhere in Haiti, merited a rare grant of "humanitarian asylum" (asylum based on past persecution alone) because of the severity of the harm she endured.
Maria Rodriguez '15 and Meisi Liu '14 won a grant of asylum in January 2014 for a young man from The Gambia, a small country in West Africa, who, despite a mobility impairment from childhood polio, would travel from village to village to organize people in support of democratic reforms. He was jailed many times by the country's military dictatorship, subjected to beatings and electric shocks, and buried up to his chest in the ground and forced to hold heavy weights over his head. A USCIS asylum officer was convinced by the client's detailed testimony and the extensive corroborating evidence that Meisi and Maria presented, including witness statements, medical documentation of physical and psychological scars from torture, and reports on rampant human rights violations in The Gambia
In April 2014, Daniel Dauplaise '14 and Valerie Letendre '14 won asylum grants for a client, his wife and their four children, who gave up a comfortable life in the Middle East to seek safety in the U.S. The students persuaded an asylum officer that their client, an ex-army officer, faced imminent arrest in torture in his home country because of his activism in a group organizing demonstrations against government corruption.
Advocacy by Conor Duffy '13 and Holadem Koffigoh '14 resulted in a grant of asylum for a young woman from Iraq who had been placed on a death list by fundamentalist militias because of newspaper columns she wrote advocating women's rights and a secular state. After coming to the U.S. on a scholarship, she converted to Christianity, compounding the risks she would face if she returned to Iraq.
Hendrik deBoer '13 and Greg Bennici '13 successfully advocated for a client from Burundi at a hearing held at the DHS Asylum Office in Boston. Their client was a recruiter and activist for an opposition party who was twice imprisoned for his political activities and then abducted, interrogated and tortured by the ruling party's youth militia.
In December 2012, Christina Canales '13 and Leah Rubega '13 won an asylum grant for a young man from Jamaica. Their 19-year old client had tried to hide his sexual orientation, but was perceived by his family, teachers, and schoolmates as effeminate and subjected from an early age to constant ridicule, verbal abuse, violence, and threats.
A young transgender client from Honduras who left to escape abuse inflicted by her family is being represented by Rosendo Garza '15 and Kyle Raleigh '15. While preparing their client's asylum application, Kyle and Rosendo learned that their client had already been ordered deported by an immigration court in Texas. They filed an extensive motion seeking to have the case reopened, both because their client never received notice of her original removal hearing, and because changed circumstances relating to the client's transgender status and new threats she faces in Honduras warrant giving her the opportunity to apply for asylum. The court granted the motion, and the asylum case is now going forward.
Two complex and hard-fought cases on behalf of Jamaican clients are ongoing. The clients are inmates in Connecticut state prisons, and their criminal offenses make them ineligible for asylum. They are, however, eligible for relief from removal under the U.N. Convention Against Torture if they can establish a likelihood of torture, with government acquiescence, in their home country. In a three-day trial held in the spring of 2013, Matteo Leggett '13 and Jeffrey Fletcher '13 presented detailed testimony from their client about the repeated violent attacks he endured in several different towns in Jamaica after people discovered he was gay, including a brutal anal rape with a broomstick. The client's testimony was supported by medical and psychological reports and extensive evidence about rampant violent homophobia in Jamaica that is condoned by government officials. The immigration judge denied relief and an appeal is pending.
Alexa Millinger '14 and Will Benet '14 handled another hard-fought, multi-day trial in the spring of 2014 on behalf of a long-time U.S. permanent resident from Jamaica who has received death threats from people in Jamaica because he is gay. He also has been threatened by a relative in Jamaica who sexually abused him as a child and now wants to kill him because he has spoken out about the abuse. Will and Alexa presented testimony from four expert witnesses as well as their client, together with human rights reports and press accounts showing that Jamaica remains one of the world's most homophobic countries. In July 2014, the immigration judge issued a decision that found our client credible, but nonetheless concluded that the evidence relating to the current situation in Jamaica does not show that a person in his situation is likely to be tortured or that the Jamaican government would acquiesce in his torture. An appeal has been filed with the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Rampant violence from gangs and drug cartels that have become de facto governments in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador has forced tens of thousands of people, many of them unaccompanied children, to seek safety in the United States. Court and agency decisions concerning gang-related claims for asylum have been generally unfavorable, but effective legal advocacy can help to make the case that many in this new wave of refugees do meet the legal criteria for asylum. The Asylum and Human Rights Clinic has, in the past several years, taken on many of these cases.
Joshua Fay '15 and Deven Sharma '14 handled a hard-fought, three-day trial in the Hartford Immigration Court for a young man who ran a small business in Guatemala. He was brutally attacked by members of the notorious Mara-18 gang after he refused to pay them extortion money. Because he filed a police report after the attack, the gang threatened him with death. When he fled to the U.S., the gang sent an ultimatum: "Return to Guatemala or we will kill your family." His wife and young children also had to flee. At the hearing, Deven and Josh presented moving testimony from their client, medical evidence, and testimony from an eminent expert on Central American gangs. They argued that in the social context of Guatemala, seeking redress from the authorities is a form of political expression, and that those filing police reports constitute a "particular social group" who face persecution that the country's government is powerless to prevent. A decision in the case is pending.
In the spring of 2013, Sean Acevedo '13 and Ling Liu '13 represented a 9-year old girl and 11-year old boy from El Salvador and their mother at the Asylum Office in Newark, New Jersey. (In December 2012, they were prepared to try the case in the Hartford Immigration Court, but on the eve of trial the government agreed to terminate the children's removal proceedings so that the case could be heard in the more informal setting of the Asylum Office.) The family's trouble began when the children's older brother refused recruitment into a gang and was killed. Not content with that crime, the gang threatened the entire family with death, held a knife to one child's throat, molested the other, and raped the mother. The case remains under review and a decision has not yet been issued.
In December 2013, Andrei Tarutin '14 and Matthew Ringland '15 represented a 14-year old Honduran boy who fled to join relatives in Connecticut after being threatened with death by a Honduran family that sought revenge after our client's father killed a member of that family in self-defense. Persecution based on family membership can be a basis for asylum. The immigration judge denied asylum, finding that our client had not established a well-founded fear of being persecuted. Andrei, after graduating from law school in January 2014, continued his work on the case by writing a persuasive brief to the Board of Immigration Appeals arguing both that our client was denied the right to have his case first heard by the U.S. Asylum Office (as unaccompanied minor children do under a 2008 statute) and that the immigration court erred in denying asylum.
The remarkable stories of the some of the cases handled by the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic in previous years are told below.
Protecting People Struggling for Freedom and Democracy
In December 2011, at a hearing held in the Hartford Immigration Court, Janie Crocco '12 and Susan Masters '12 won a grant of asylum for a former government official from Africa who was detained and brutally tortured after he blew the whistle on government corruption.
Clinic students advocated successfully for two clients imprisoned and tortured in Syria because of their support for democratic reforms. In January 2012, Laura Mangini '12 and Yaron Eisenberg '12 won a grant of asylum from the Department of Homeland Security's Asylum Office for their client, a businessman who put his life at risk by organizing and participating in peaceful protests against the Assad government. After being detained and brutally beaten, he fled the country upon learning he was about to be arrested again. In April 2012, Evan Buchberger '12 and Yifei He '13 won asylum for another Syrian client, who was threatened, detained and tortured because he helped people file complaints seeking redress for their abuse by Syrian security forces.
A Gay Man Facing Torture in Jamaica
In December 2011, Michael King '12 and Julie Lelek '12 conducted a hearing in the Hartford Immigration Court for a long-time U.S. permanent resident who faced removal to Jamaica because of a criminal conviction. Throughout his childhood in Jamaica, he was the victim of physical and sexual abuse. After he came out as gay, he received death threats from relatives still in Jamaica, including one who was a police officer. At the hearing, Julie and Mike presented moving testimony from their client, testifying via video from the prison, and powerful supporting testimony from an expert witness who described pervasive anti-gay violence in Jamaican society, fueled by laws that outlaw "buggery." The immigration judge issued a decision granting our client relief from removal under the U.N. Convention Against Torture.
Threatened with Death for Changing Religions
In April 2012, at a hearing in the Hartford Immigration Court, Keegan Drenosky '12 and Jan (Betsy) Walters '12 represented a Christian woman forced to flee Pakistan after she received an escalating series of death threats from religious extremists who had learned that she had changed the officially-listed religion on her passport from Islam to Christianity. After numerous warnings that she must return to Islam or face death, a final letter declared that time for repentance had passed, her punishment was ordered and "the sword is ready." In presenting the case, Keegan and Betsy built on a strong record created by Jessica Feldman '11 and Katie Yates '11, who had represented the client in earlier proceedings in the Asylum Office.
Refuge for Victims of Gender-Based Violence
Nora Grais-Clements '12 and Claudia Morgan '13 won a grant of asylum in the Hartford Immigration Court for a woman from Honduras who suffered years of physical and sexual violence at the hands of abusive men. The physical and psychological consequences of the abuse made it extremely hard for their client to tell her story, and it took tremendous work by the students to piece together a coherent account of years of horrific abuse. They used several expert witnesses, including a Honduran legal expert who testified by telephone from abroad, to explain why their client could not escape from the men who abused her and could not expect any help from the authorities due to police and judicial indifference to gender-based violence.
In February 2012, the Asylum Office issued a favorable decision in a factually and legally complex case handled by Miriam Godfrey '12 and Aaron Igdalsky '12. They represented a young Central American woman whose stepfather started sexually abusing her when she was seven years old. To escape him, she fled to the U.S. as a teenager, and was too traumatized and afraid to file for asylum until several more years had passed. Asylum based on child abuse is an uncharted area, and to obtain a grant of asylum Aaron and Miriam had to convince the Asylum Office to broadly interpret the asylum statute's vaguely-defined protection of persons who face persecution based on "membership in a particular social group."
Targeted by Gangs and Criminal Organizations
In three separate but interrelated cases, each raising its own distinct challenges, Ariel Hansen '13, Christine Giuliano '13, Rubaiyat Mahboob '12, Karen Rabinovici '12, Walter Menjivar '12 and Cherie Rosemond '12 won grants of asylum for three members of a Central American family who fled to the United States after being targeted for death by one of the gangs that operate with impunity in their home country. After a younger sister was raped by a local gang leader and then killed for reporting the crime to the police, the gang sought revenge against the entire family. Court and agency decisions concerning gang-based claims for asylum are highly unfavorable. In order to prevail, the students had to show their clients were being targeted because of their family membership, and not merely because they were potential witnesses who might testify against the gang. The students utilized an expert on Central American gangs to establish that the gang routinely seeks to wipe out the families of those who oppose them in order to punish their enemies and send a message to the community. In addition to gathering extensive corroborating evidence of the underlying events that put the family at risk, the students worked closely with their young and deeply traumatized clients to prepare them for their asylum interviews. The Asylum Office granted all three clients asylum.
Jessica DeLoureiro '13 and Shama Modi '12 won a grant of asylum for a young man who fled his Central American homeland at age 17 to escape deadly threats from a man associated with a criminal organization. When the man tried to recruit our client to sell drugs, he not only refused but actively tried to stop his friends from buying drugs from the man. As a result, he suffered escalating violence, culminating in a machete attack that left a deep scar. When our client attempted to report the incident to the police, they turned him away. He fled the country, taking a dangerous journey through Mexico, where he was kidnapped and beaten, before arriving in the U.S. In a factually and legally challenging case, Jessi and Shama convinced the U.S. Asylum Office that their client's persecution, when considered in the context of the political and social situation of his home country, could be viewed as being based on his expression of an anti-drug, anti-gang political opinion.
Irene Kim '12 and James Mortimer '12 handled a complex trial that stretched over two days in the Hartford Immigration Court on behalf of a client from Haiti who was employed as a chauffeur for a government official involved with organized crime. His boss ordered him to burn down tents in one of the tent cities housing people displaced by the earthquake. Our client refused, because he did not want to take part in human rights violations. When his boss sent a man to kill him, our client fled the country. James and Irene presented testimony from their client and two experts on Haitian politics, one of whom hired an investigator in Haiti who confirmed important aspects of our client's story. The well-presented testimony and painstakingly-gathered corroborating evidence convinced the immigration judge that our client was telling the truth. The judge, however, denied the claim on legal grounds, concluding that the harm our client faced was based on personal rather than political motives.
Clinic students won two victories in Immigration Court for women who escaped from abusive spouses, and could obtain no protection in their home countries because of police and judicial indifference to gender-based violence. At a December 2010 hearing in the Hartford Immigration Court, Angelina Lachhmann '11 and Hillary Wasicek '11 obtained asylum for a Pakistani woman who was the victim of severe domestic violence. And in May 2011, Keegan Drenosky '12 and Peter Smith '12, appearing before the same court, won asylum for a South American woman who endured decades of abuse from a man who stalked and beat her even after she obtained a divorce.
Several other cases involved both familial violence and the horrific practice of female genital mutilation ("FGM"). In February 2011, Mia Fioritto Rubin '11 and Kira Evans '11 won a grant of asylum for a 22-year-old woman from Guinea. Their client came to the U.S. alone at the age of 13 to escape from a forced marriage (to a man who had previously raped her) and the FGM that her family planned to inflict on her before the wedding. The case was particularly difficult because the client had missed the one-year deadline for filing for asylum by a full eight years. The students convinced the asylum officer that psychological trauma, as well as their client's young age, explained and excused the late filing.
In a hearing held in the Immigration Court in May 2011, Betsy Walters '12 and Eleni Alevizos '12 won asylum for a West African client who had been forced by her family into a marriage as the third wife of a much older man, in order to repay a debt. When she entered his household, he subjected her to constant rape and beatings, and insisted that she, like his other wives, submit to FGM. She escaped, while pregnant, just days before the planned circumcision ceremony.
In April 2011, Yikkan (Kennex) Chan '11 and Geoffrey Ong '11 obtained relief from removal in a long-running case on behalf of a client who was forced to undergo FGM as a child in Guinea. At her original removal hearing, held in 2006, the immigration judge ruled against her, finding that she lacked a well-founded fear of persecution because FGM, having already been performed, would not be done to her again. The Clinic appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which rejected that reasoning and required a new hearing. This time, the students convinced the immigration judge that our client's past persecution, along with her reasonable fears of other forms of gender-related violence that are prevalent in Guinea, such as rape and familial violence, qualified her for relief from removal.
At an April 2011 immigration court hearing, Amara Neng '11 and Jessica Stein '11 won a grant of asylum for a client who was brutally beaten and left for dead during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Although changed country conditions meant she would no longer be persecuted in Rwanda based on her ethnicity, the students won a rare grant of "humanitarian asylum" by convincing the immigration judge that their client's past persecution was so horrendous that returning to her homeland would be psychologically devastating for her.
Jeffrey Chase '11 and Philip Markuszka '11 won relief from removal under the U.N. Convention Against Torture for an African man who came to the U.S as a refugee in the 1980s, but later committed a criminal offense that led to his imprisonment and threatened deportation. Phil and Jeff met with their client weekly at the prison, and tracked down witnesses from as far away as Sweden. At an immigration court hearing held in May 2011, they proved to the court's satisfaction that their client faces likely torture in his home country because of his longstanding support for groups fighting against its repressive government.
Two children from a country in South Asia obtained asylum with the help of Meghann LaFountain '11 Christopher Lisi '11. The mother of the two girls refused to go along with a marriage that her family insisted on, and chose her own husband instead. As a result, she, her husband, and their children endured threats and violent attacks from a member of her family and an extremist group he belongs to. Hearings for the two young clients were held in the Asylum Office in December 2010. After prolonged review by the agency, decisions granting asylum in both cases were issued in August 2011.


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REVIVAL at Benchmark Baptist Fellowship
Wednesday, 17 October, 2012|
Benchmark Baptist Fellowship is celebrating 19 years serving the Fredericksburg community with a Homecoming & Revival October 14th thru the 17th. Our guest speaker will be Pastor Fred Marchand from Eastside Missionary Baptist Church in Stockton, CA. Inspirational music and messages for every age group from youngest to oldest. Fellowship Lunch will be served on Sunday. We look forward to meeting you.
Benchmark Baptist Fellowship
10510 Benchmark Road
Fredericksburg, VA 22408
Fredericksburg, VA 22408
Event ContactClyde Duncan
Phone: 540-373-9139
Website: Click to Visit


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A new party of fun-loving dots in our super quality tights from Europe. Year after year we hear from parents how amazingly well these wear, wash and last.
• Combed cotton/nylon/spandex
• Shaped-to-fit heels and toes (no lumps!)
• Machine wash and dry
• Certified by Oeko-Tex® Standard 100
• Imported
Item # WX39013


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Contract Provisions: The Out of Print and Reversion of Rights Clause
October 27, 2010
Most publishing contracts provide for both the establishment of the author/publisher relationship and its termination. Why should an author be concerned with the "out of print" clause if it rings the death knell of the book with that publisher?
As I noted in "Publishing Contracts: Grant and Reservation of Rights" the author usually grants rights to the publisher for the "full term of copyright plus renewals and extensions." The current term of copyright is life of the author plus 70 years, which is a long time. [More about the author's death and next of kin rights will be discussed in a later Note.] Most books, however, do not have a long shelf life. If your book is no longer selling in the market in which the Publisher has exclusive rights you will certainty want to invoke a provision in the contract to regain the rights granted. The "out of print" clause usually includes a "reversion of rights" provision, but it is not self-executing. The author must demand the reversion by giving notice.
What does it mean that a book is "out of print"? Is a book in print only if there are warehoused copies available for sale? What if the book is available for electronic download to a digital reader but there are no print copies for sale? A typical contract provision reads
The Work shall not be deemed "out of print" within the meaning of this Paragraph as long as a) the Work is available for sale in the United States either from stock in the Publisher's or licensee's warehouse, or b) the full-length, English language print edition of the Work is available for sale in the United States in regular sales channels, or c) a new full-length, English language U.S. print edition of the Work is in process, if published within six (6) months of Publisher's receipt of Author's notice, or d) sales of the work in electronic book form equal or exceed 100 units per year.
Whether a Work is "available for sale" or in "regular sales channels" [a) and b)] is too indefinite. What if there is 1 copy "available for sale" or 2 copies in "regular sales channels." The royalty statement may provide the information if it shows the number of copies originally printed and the total number sold, but some copies may have been used for promotion or sold to the author. Subparagraph (c) is satisfactory and standard. For sales of electronic books [d)] it is preferable to require the maximum number of units; one hundred units over a one year period is too small and lengthens the time before the author can send the Reversion Notice.
Better for the Author:
If the Work shall no longer be in print and for sale after [number of years to be negotiated] from the date of first publication, then the Author may give written notice to the Publisher of her desire to terminate the publishing agreement, and in such event the Publisher shall declare whether it intends to reprint or license a reprint of the Work within [a period to be negotiated]. If the Publisher within such time does not reprint the Work or license a reprint to be published within [a period to be negotiated] then all rights granted hereunder shall terminate and revert to the Author after [the stipulated period].
For electronic editions: try to negotiate a number larger than 100 copies sold plus "the Work shall not be deemed in print unless at least [a stipulated number of copies] are sold in the previous two successive accounting periods."
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text: You can always get some small packets of olive oil and throw it in some of the freeze dried meals. Flavor plus calories and adds taste too. For hunting trips, I'm like you guys in that I want a quick breakfast that's has some staying power like oatmeal, usually with nuts and fruit like raisins or dates. I will say if I'm going to make a real breakfast, I highly recomend Ova Easy instant eggs. They will ruin you for any other powdered eggs. I can't tell them from real. Throw in some shelf stable bacon or chorizo and it can't be beat.


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text:
So now that my archery antelope season is only a month away... I am practicing all the time, like I'm sure most of you do too.. So I have a couple of questions..
1. How do you practice? I have heard a lot of debate from people and I'm curious as to what everyone does to get all prepared. Some people say that shooting your bow as much as you possibly can is the best way to go.. I have also heard that you are just supposed to go out every 15-30 minutes and shoot one arrow, since you only get one shot when you are hunting anyways. So I was just curious of everyone's thoughts?
2. I get extremely bored at shooting at the same target all the time... Any thoughts on how to make it a little more fun? Should I strap an apple to my dogs head?


text:
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
DIY St. Patrick's Day Shamrock T-Shirt With Doily Print
The girls and I decided to make our own St. Patrick's Day t-shirts
inspired by our DIY Valentine Doily Print t-shirts we made last year.
We used grey t-shirts because they didn't have any cute green shirts at the store.
Everything else for this project was already in our art studio.
We used Tulip brand Soft Fabric Paint in Lime Green.
This paint is great, it washes well in the washing machine and isn't stiff on the shirt
when you wear it -- it's the same fabric paint we used on our valentine's day shirts.
You will also need: a small heart shaped doily, paper plate, and a foam craft brush.
* Note: Tulip paint did not sponsor this post
but I'd be more than happy to write some craft tutorials for them -- hint hint! *
To make the t-shirt, we laid one small heart doily down on the t-shirt
and carefully dabbed green fabric paint all over the doily and overlapped the edges a bit
to make each green heart. We repeated this step three times to make the clover shape.
Note: Carefully dab the paint so the doily doesn't rip.
Then, carefully peel away the heart to reapply it for the next shape.
Once all three hearts were printed for the shamrock shape,
we just drew the stem with green fabric paint and the brush.
Let your t-shirt dry overnight before washing it.
Both girls love their new DIY St. Patty's day t-shirts
and can't wait to wear them to school next week.
Happy Holiday Crafting!
Pink and Green Mama, MaryLea
Posted by pink and green mama MaryLea
Labels: Create, DIY T-Shirt, Doily Fun, Holidays, Printmaking, St. Patrick's Day, Tween Craft
4 comments:
- mommy of Five said...
my girls woul dhave fun doing these! thanks for the idea.
- March 6, 2013 at 6:37 PM
- Missy said...
I wish my craft supply stash were as extensive as yours! :-)
- March 9, 2013 at 6:41 PM
- pink and green mama MaryLea said...
Ha-ha Missy! My craft stash is embarrassing- I have a small craft store in my studio!
- March 9, 2013 at 6:43 PM
- pink and green mama MaryLea said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- March 9, 2013 at 6:43 PM
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text:
I for one like this map a lot . I get the feel of watercolors on weaved cloth. Waiting to see more
As this is your first post and for including a very nice work of Mappy Art with it, I here by dub thee, Reputed! *bonk*
and Welcome to the Guild, the Mappiest Place on the Web


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text:
Baltimore County News
Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger
As much as our smart phones and GPS gadgets make life easier for all of us, they also can be a great resource for thieves and other criminals to help them steal from us. Below are some scams which are making the rounds. Don't become a victim. Read on and protect yourself and your family.
A family went on vacation and left their car in the long-term parking lot at the airport. Someone broke into the car. Using the information on the car's registration, kept in the glove compartment, the thieves drove to the people's home and burglarized it.
What should you do?
If you are going to leave your car in long-term parking, do not leave the registration/insurance cards or your remote garage door opener in the car.
Someone had their car broken into while they were at a football game. Things stolen from the car included a garage door opener, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard. When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked. The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house and then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game so they knew what time the game was scheduled to finish and how much time they had to clean out the house.
What Should You Do?
DON'T put your home address in the GPS! Put a nearby location (like a store or gas station) so you can still find your way home if you need to, but no one else would know where you live if your GPS is stolen.
A woman's handbag, containing her cell phone, credit cards, wallet, etc., was stolen. Twenty minutes later when she called her husband from a pay phone telling him what had happened, he said, "I received your text asking about our PIN number and I replied a little while ago." When they rushed to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text 'hubby' in the contact list and got hold of the pin number.
What Should You Do?
Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list. Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Dad, Mom, etc. And very importantly, when sensitive information is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back. Or just don't text sensitive information. Also, when you're being texted by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don't reach them, be very careful about going places to meet 'family and friends who text you.
Revised April 6, 2016


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text:
Two More Cyclones Earn Top-10 Finishes at USA's
DES MOINES, Iowa – Throwers Danielle Frere and Christina Hillman represented Iowa State at day four of the U.S.A. Track and Field Championships, Saturday. Frere placed seventh with a throw of 55-00.00, and Hillman finished ninth with a best hurl of 53-11.25.
Frere threw for the second-best mark in her career, eclipsing the 55-foot mark for the second time. The Muscatine, Iowa, native used her top throw to advance to the senior shot put finals and compete against the nation's elite hurlers. Frere improved more than three feet over her performance at the NCAA West Regional (51-10.75).
Hillman failed to reach the finals of today's action, but her top throw of 53-11.25 was still strong enough to notch the fifth top-10 finish by a Cyclone student-athlete. Her best throw came on her second attempt of the day.
Current incoming freshman Anna Holdiman finished 10th in the junior women's 1,500-meter finals.
Women's Results
Senior Shot Put: 1) Michelle Carter, Nike 66-05.00; 7) DANIELLE FRERE, IOWA STATE 55-00.00; 9) CHRISTINA HILLMAN, IOWA STATE 53-11.25
Junior 1500-Meter Run: 1) Kelsey Margey, Villanova 4:25.45; 10) ANNA HOLDIMAN, UNATTACHED 4:41.98


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|Board contemplates support for Ed. Foundation
|Written by Brenda Johnson Brandt
Foundation looking to go forward in grant application to Heginbotham Trust for local track project funds
Encouraged by the activation of a local education foundation, Holyoke School Board members recently contemplated their approach for showing support for the foundation's effort to pursue grant funds for a community track project on school grounds.
Board members concurred the foundation is a wonderful asset to the school district, and expressed wholehearted support for the foundation itself at the Nov. 17 Re-1J board meeting.
With the local Heginbotham Trust having received a recent donation from an estate, the Re-1J Foundation, Inc. is looking to apply for grant funds from the Trust for a track project on the current site of the school's football field and track.
Timing is the issue at hand, as the application to Heginbotham Trust must be submitted by the end of the year. The track would be used in partnership with the city and school at-large.
Board members were firm in noting they're certainly not ready to commit support to a track project which was a key discussion item two years ago. Much more information is needed before the board is ready for that.
In fact, Supt. Bret Miles pointed out the Re-1J board voted March 18, 2008 that the board itself would not revisit the track project for two years. That timeline ends in four months.
However, support for the foundation pursuing the funds and earmarking them for a track project is the current topic on the table.
After considerable discussion at last week's meeting, board president Dan Kafka said he will draft a letter to the foundation for the board's consideration at the Dec. 1 meeting.
Significant discussion was held last week in an effort to prepare the board to be ready to act on the issue next week. Additionally, the board is hoping to obtain input from the community before the Dec. 1 decision.
Foundation established in 1996
In an Re-1J Foundation, Inc. update, Supt. Miles noted the foundation was set up in 1996. Colver and Killin, LLC has done work behind the scenes in keeping the foundation alive in its nonprofit status, even though it has not been active in the past 13 years.
A Foundation board has now been reassembled, and is looking to move forward on some projects.
Miles noted it is a familiar role for foundations to go after grant moneys and then to bestow gifts to the taxing entity it stands behind. Even though the foundation is separate from the school district, it has the same interests and connections.
"We're very fortunate to have this in place," said Miles, referring to the Re-1J Foundation. He sees the potential for an incredibly strong long-term relationship between the foundation and the school district.
Support for Foundation not to be misconstrued as approval of track project
Too many financial unknowns were cited by individual school board members, when expressing reluctance to commit to going forward with a track project.
A letter of support for the foundation going to the Heginbotham Trust to ask for money would link to the assumption the money will be used for a track, Kafka said.
Board member Kris Camblin said he would be willing to commit to the foundation to pursue a grant, but is not yet ready to commit to a track at the school.
Linda Jelden pointed out the timing for approaching the Trust is now, and she therefore supports the foundation in going for the grant and in earmarking the funds for a track.
However, Jelden added before the district commits to going forward, it will take a lot of information. She referenced discussion from two years ago which noted annual maintenance and track replacement in approximately 10 years as key financial concerns.
"We have asked for multi-year plans from transportation and technology, and we really need to look at those plans to see how it all fits together," said Jelden.
Saying she wouldn't be opposed to having track funds, Jelden admitted she's nervous about what the dollars will look like in the next couple of years. She specifically cited the need for technology dollars and training support.
Miles pointed out the Heginbotham Trust's desire to support projects that last. Technology needs are disposable, and are not what the Trust typically awards money for. Kafka noted the second phase of the HVAC project would fall under the same category as technology.
Jeff Tharp said he feels it's a given to favor a letter of support for the foundation getting funds, but he doesn't want to commit specific district funds at this point.
Tharp supports the idea of replacing some of the funds (close to $300,000) that were designated in the district's capital reserve fund for a track between 1996-2007. Those funds were used two years ago for a boiler project.
Tharp questioned how long the foundation can hold on to designated funds. Other similar questions will be routed through board member Kim Killin, who was called out of last week's board meeting on an emergency.
Expressing enthusiasm for the foundation this week, Killin cited its purpose is to assist in funding decisions and fund searching for projects for the school district. She emphasized elected officials are not allowed to serve on the foundation board.
Kafka pointed out having designated track funds with the foundation rather than the school district takes a lot of stress off the district. Tharp agreed the foundation is free to guide its funds as it sees fit, and it's much better than tying up school funds.
Jon King cited the long-range vision of potentially needing to seek taxpayer funding support. As a result, he said he is not in favor of putting money towards a track. While he sees the need for lighting at the football field, he doesn't favor the track itself.
King wants to have a grasp on costs and overall need for projects such as phase two of the heating and cooling project.
Early in the discussion last week, Supt. Miles noted if an independent foundation is going to request grant moneys for a project that goes to the school, it's important to give the foundation information regarding the school's feelings about the project.
Miles cited the huge upside of partnering with someone else, and noted the board's opportunity to work together with the foundation on a long-term basis.
While this is good timing in that the foundation is in place and local moneys are available, Miles pointed out it's bad timing in that there's not a clear idea of where the district will stand financially in six months.
Along this line, Miles said the district will look at long-term capital needs plans in January, inflation numbers for the school finance act will be received in February and the beginnings of the school finance act bill won't be seen until early March.
For the next Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) grant funding cycle, applications are due the first of April. Kafka noted it would take a lot of work to come up with a good proposal by April. He said he would be more prepared to support a track project if he had more details.
Miles said timelines would have to be running parallel to each other to have discussion in March, as it wouldn't be good to assume prices would be the same or in-kind commitment would come through as previously expressed.
Miles noted he hesitated to bring this up at all due to the board's action in March of 2008. At the same time, he said he thinks they would be equally criticized for not acting on this opportunity for funds that are available if applied for before the end of 2009.
Miles recommended the board approve a letter of support for the foundation's effort to pursue the grant funds to be designated for a track project.
Kafka said the issue two years ago wasn't necessarily opposition to the track project. Rather, it involved the uncertainty of financial times and the overall best use of money in the capital reserve fund.
Kafka added he spends half of his work time in Akron and has asked about their beautiful facility. He said the response indicates it's the result of a combination of several years and a lot of community support.