| SFist Tonight
Ever wanted to dabble in different styles of dance but wasn't sure you wanted to drop a pocketful of cash for fire dancing lessons? Now's your chance. We're right in the middle of Bay Area National Dance Week -- you can test your skill at belly dancing, hula, ballet, classical, tango and more in a series of free lessons this week, all over the city. Tonight's selection includes hip hop, capoeira, and poi. Check back at the site regularly for free classes, lectures, open studios, seminars, and more running through Sunday, the 29th. Put your newfound dancin' shoes and impress the regulars at Duplex tonight, for their weekly soulful house dance party. Alchemystic Tuesdays at Duplex, 1525 Mission at 11th, SF. Mark Doty at Books, Inc. Doty reads from his new memoir, Dog Years, a meditation on feelings for animals and the lessons they teach us about life, love, and loss.
Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the US
PETER Carey and the Who's Pete Townshend make curious fellow travellers. Keen to fathom the siren call of Japanese popular culture to their respective teenage sons, they take different routes to the answer. Carey's ill-planned journey to unmask the real Japan was prematurely doomed to confirm, as his travel memoir avers, that he was wrong about Japan. He'd have been better advised to borrow Townshend's copy of Japanamerica, which the guitarist praises on the book jacket. Japanamerica is a stimulating guide to how Japanese pop culture has invaded the US. As a Japanese-American who divides his time between Tokyo and New York, author Roland Kelts is well positioned to explore the roots and ramifications of a steadfast and, to many, mystifying trend. Although artistic interchange between Japan and the West is centuries old, Kelts sees America's recent embrace of manga (comics), anime (animation) and video games as signifying and strengthening deeper connections between the two nations.
Kimberly's Blog updated 4/20
This is the first chance I've had to blog this week, as you can imagine. As we've been saying during our newscasts and special reports, our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who lost a family member, friend or other loved one in the terrible tragedy Monday at Virginia Tech. So much attention this week has been focused on the gunman, Cho Seung Hui. And yes, investigators need to sort through many disturbing pieces of that puzzle, as well as determine how well the response was in the hours that followed the first shooting spree. However, it's the victims that we need to remember most. We've tried our best to show respect to them and their families as we tell their stories. Each time a new name is released, and we see pictures of that person alive and happy and vibrant, it just breaks my heart.
ABC Poll Finds Twice as Many Blame Culture Over Guns, But 'World ...
ABC News polling chief Gary Langer, in a posting buried on ABCNews.com, revealed that a poll taken Sunday discovered that when “asked the primary cause of gun violence, far more Americans blamed the effects of popular culture (40 percent) or the way parents raise their children (35 percent) than the availability of guns (18 percent)." ABC's World News on Monday devoted nearly two minutes to results of ABC's survey, but didn't get to that finding which shows the public does not share the media assumption that gun availability is to blame for the murders at Virginia Tech. Although George Stephanopoulos did point out how “a strong majority of Americans, 52 to 29, prefer enforcing existing laws to passing new laws," anchor Charles Gibson led with a widely-held view, how “a new ABC News poll finds 83 percent of Americans say states should do more to report mentally ill people to the federal gun sales registry." He went how to highlight that “61 percent of the people in this country say they favor stronger gun control laws, although people are split right down the middle as to whether stricter gun control laws would actually curb any kind of violence, 49 percent saying yes, 50 percent saying no." The full text of the question, as listed in the PDF of the poll results, a PDF linked at the end of Langer's summary report: “7.
Larry King on pop culture, star power and suspenders
(CNN) -- Almost from the start of his broadcast career in 1957, Larry King has been asking questions, to everybody from the person next door to the man in the White House. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper sat down with the host of CNN's long-running "Larry King Live" to ask him about guests who have fascinated him over his 50-year career, the secret to a good question -- and how his trademark suspenders began. COOPER: So, Larry, what is pop culture to you? KING: The answer is very difficult ... Is it anything that's popular? It's a hard thing to answer. I don't know the definition. For example, is George Bush part of pop culture? Is Lindsay Lohan part of pop culture? The answer to both may be yes. If you're in People magazine -- someone said that People magazine determines what's pop culture.
Coming Up This Week in Theatre - 4/22/2007
Below is BroadwayWorld.com's Upcoming Events calendar updated on 4/22/2007. For the complete calendar of upcoming events, concerts, openings, closings and more, visit BroadwayWorld.com's Event Calendar. After the War - ACT - 4/22/2007 The American Conservatory Theater (ACT) at the San Francisco Geary Theatre, presents its season calendar for the 2006-07 40th-anniversary season. Tickets for all productions are available by calling ACT Ticket Services at 415-749-2228 or online at www.act-sf.org. Ticket prices for productions at the Geary Theater are $12-$80; season subscriptions are currently available. Single tickets for all of ACTs 2006-07 presentations go on sale Sunday, August 6. Group rates are also available. American Conservatory Theater is located at 415 Geary Street in San Francisco.
THE SSO AZ GUIDE TO QUEER SYDNEY
Parliament While many have suspected that more than a few queer folk have graced the corridors of elected representatives in the NSW parliament, in 1990 Paul O’Grady became the first to do so openly. O’Grady went on to champion parliament coming to the gay and lesbian community, inviting all members bar two Christian Democrats to join him in marching in the 1992 Mardi Gras. The multi-party delegation included Lis Kirkby, Clover Moore, Ernie Page, Jan Burnswood, Meredith Burgmann and Jeff Shaw, who would later back up his support with some key reforms as attorney-general. While a small group of MPs continued to march under party banners, the relationship between community and parliament became one-sided when O’Grady resigned in 1995 because of health concerns.
Those Bawdy Bratz Babes By Janice Shaw Crouse
I recently bought a doll for my 6-year-old granddaughter. It was a really beautiful, expensive baby doll. She looked at the doll; then laid it aside. To her mother's dismay, she displayed socially-incorrect behavior by firmly announcing, “I'm sorry, but I'm way too old to play with that kind of doll." Little girls don't get to “mother" their pretend babies any more; instead, they act out today's young adult values with the more popular “fashion dolls." Bratz dolls, those ghetto cool, sexualized dolls with skimpy miniskirts, high-heel boots, pouty lips and ‘bad' attitude, are now the #1 doll in America, having pulled ahead of Barbie as the most popular fashion-doll in the United States. One writer explained that the dolls made little girls “sluts-in-training," another said they promoted “hooker chic" and another claimed that they promoted “precocious sexuality." MGA Entertainment, which manufactures the dolls, spent $15 billion last year marketing to children in the 70 countries where the doll is available.
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