City Bell, Argentina — "That’s what freedom’s all about; learnin’ somethin’ then throwin’ it away." Rahsaan Roland Kirk One afternoon, about two years ago, I was sitting in my bedroom with a view of a strange, new city, listening to a piece on NPR about dreams and art. It was a cold day and […]
The Public Art of San Francisco
So which city in the USA has 600 murals on its streets, all available for public perusal? Well, it’s the same city that has a Cartoon Museum, a Spanish Mission dating from 1791 and a Museum of Modern Art, built on a reclaimed former industrial zone. The fact is that since the 1930’s, murals have […]
The Hands of Romeo
La Plata, Argentina — The old adage that necessity is the mother of invention is one Guillermo Gomez-Romeo, grill maker and owner of the custom barbeque supply shop Pigue, has taken to heart. In cow-obsessed Argentina, where per capita consumption of beef hovers at 150 lbs per year, the highest in the world, the […]
A Place to Belong
The Phoenix Theatre by day is a picture reminiscent of an after school daycare program. Inside the main auditorium kids are skateboarding on the multitude of wooden ramps set up against the walls. The lobby is filled with youth hanging out, and searching their pockets for change to buy candy or soda from the concession […]
Victims speak as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Barbara-Leigh Tonelli was 19 when she walked down the aisle and said the words “I do”. In her mind, there were no warning signs of domestic violence. However, not long after her wedding, Tonelli’s husband, a trained sniper in the military, began abusing her. “There were frequent random beatings,” Tonelli said. “There was constant berating, constant […]
Double-entendre Pontiff
Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to Turkey, thanks to being under tight security including shutting down major arteries, snipers and security checkpoints in Istanbul and portions of the public transit system in Istanbul went off with nary a hitch, and the main demonstrations during the duration of his stay were either far afield from his itinerary […]