Topic: Culture

V-Day events set to climax in New Orleans

By Debbie Boen | March 10, 2008 |

VDay events for 2008 will culminate this year in New Orleans.  Eve Ensler calls New Orleans the Vagina of America and she has chosen the New Orleans Arena to host the V-day event of the decade. V to the Tenth will be in New Orleans on April 11 and 12th, 2008. In one of her Vagina Monologues Ensler says about the fertile New Orleans: We brag about her music, the way she moves, we beg to get inside her, but disown her later when she has needs… We (can) change her story and the story of women.

This New Orleans celebration of two performances of the award winning Vagina Monologues will feature Salma Hayek, Oprah Winfrey, Faith Hill, Jane Fonda, Jessica Alba, Jennifer Hudson, Glenn Close, Julia Stiles, Ali Larter, Sally Field, Marisa Tomei, Calpernia Addams, Rosario Dawson, Kerry Washington, and musicians Common, Eve, and Charmaine Neville. See details and get tickets at: http://v10.vday.org/

Ensler has a big picture for vaginas. V-Day is a vision to see a world where women live safely and freely. The monologues speak openly about vagina stories that were collected from women. Ending violence against women is the driving force behind the production. Women don’t talk about their own sexuality; they don’t talk about what pleases them, and when raped, they don’t talk about that either. Most of the time, they think it was their fault that they were attacked and they walk around with the hidden fear and shame of it. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Issues | No Comments

Candidates on the Issues: Abortion

By James Butler | January 14, 2008 |

Tennessee voters go to the polls on February 5th for the presidential primaries in this state. Tennessee is historically not given a great deal of attention by most candidates, and this election cycle is shaping up to continue the trend.

Unfortunately, this means Tennesseans often have to rely on news media sound bytes to obtain information about the candidates. However, since news media are businesses and therefore have as their proper goal the making of money, this often leaves viewers with precious little information about how the candidates would actually go about running the county and a disturbing amount about their private lives.

Let’s be honest, does it really matter than Barrack Obama has an Islamic heritage, that Hillary didn’t leave Bill, that Mitt Romney is Mormon or that John McCain allows his adult children to live their own lives? «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics | 5 Comments

The Corporation: Examining the new world order

By Bill Larson | January 7, 2008 |

One hundred and fifty years ago, the corporation was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today’s dominant institution. But history humbles dominant institutions. All have been crushed, belittled or absorbed into some new order. The corporation is unlikely to be the first to defy history.

In a complex, exhaustive and highly entertaining documentary, The Corporation, Mark Achbar, co-director of the influential and inventive Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, teams up with co-director Jennifer Abbott and writer Joel Bakan to examine the far-reaching repercussions of the corporation’s increasing preeminence.

Based on Bakan’s book, The Corporation: The pathological pursuit of profit and power, the film is a timely, critical inquiry that invites CEOs, whistle-blowers, brokers, gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits on a graphic and engaging quest to reveal the corporation’s inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures. Featuring illuminating interviews with Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and many others, The Corporation charts the spectacular rise of an institution aimed at achieving specific economic goals as it also recounts victories against this apparently invincible force.

Among the 40 interview subjects are CEOs and top-level executives from a range of industries: oil, pharmaceutical, computer, tire, manufacturing, public relations, branding, advertising and undercover marketing. In addition, a Nobel-prize winning economist, the first management guru, a corporate spy, and a range of academics, critics, historians and thinkers are also interviewed. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues | 1 Comment »

‘Taxi to the Dark Side’ details U.S. torture

By Bill Larson | December 19, 2007 |

From the director of “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Dark Side is a gripping investigation into the reckless abuse of power by the Bush Administration.

By probing the homicide of an innocent taxi driver at the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, the film exposes a worldwide policy of detention and interrogation that condones torture and the abrogation of human rights. This disturbing and often brutal film is the most incisive examination to date of the Bush Administration’s willingness, in its prosecution of the “war on terror,” to undermine the essence of the rule of law. The film asks and answers a key question: what happens when a few men expand the wartime powers of the executive to undermine the very principles on which the United States was founded.

Incorporating rare and never-before-seen images from inside the Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons, and interviews with former government officials such as John Yoo, Alberto Mora and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, interrogators, prison guards, New York Times reporters Tim Golden and Carlotta Gall (who wrote the first stories about the homicides in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan) and the families of tortured prisoners, the film dissects the progression of the Administration’s policy on torture from the secret role of key administration figures, such as Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales and others to the soldiers in the field.

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Sections: Arts and Leisure | 1 Comment »

The Snowman: Perennial enchantment

By Christine Anne Piesyk | December 1, 2007 |

This review ran in Clarksville Online on Nov. 29, 2006. But as my granddaughter and I unpacked my collection of snowmen for the coming holiday, my carefully wrapped musical plush Snowman emerged, to the delight of both of us. Everything else was dropped as we sat in the living room, puling the cord that triggered a music box version of the film’s hit song: Walking in the Air. As a Christmas gift idea for the child all of us, and a reminder of just how good animation can be, I reprint this review, with an updated video clip. Enjoy.

I can’t recall how many copies of The Snowman I’ve bought over the years, but it’s been quite a few. I usually end up giving them away to children who watch and are captivated by its’ magic. And then I buy another copy.

To the uninitiated, The Snowman is a delightful, animated short film about a young boy, James, who builds a snowman that springs to life as midnight chimes. It has only a few lines of introduction at the beginning; the remainder of the film is a symphonic soundtrack that follows their adventures, first as Snowman explores James’ world, putting on pants with suspenders, trying on hats, discovering a music box and the dangerous warmth of a fire. James and his fantasy creation dance across the floor of the house before heading outside, where the he and Snowman, in his mossy green hat and scarf embark on a journey north, racing through the forest and flying through the sky to a magical gathering of snowpeople in the far, far north.

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Sections: Arts and Leisure | No Comments

Frolic on Franklin draws crowds downtown for a day of arts

By Debbie Boen | September 22, 2007 |

White tents lined Franklin Street as artists gathered to exhibit their individual crafts in the annual “Frolic on Franklin,” held Saturday in downtown Clarksville, sponsored by Downtown Clarksville Association, F&M and Planter’s Banks.

It was an open air gallery, with work by jewelry designers, visual and graphic artists, wood carvings, pottery, and plenty of food and entertainment, a day of festivities and a celebration of local artists and craftspeople. Children’s activities included the perennial favorite, face painting.

Exhibitors included Mitzi Cross (art, above left), with a striking geometric study in black and white, and Brandi Taylor (photo, below), with this vibrant floral study.

Despite the steamy weather and high humidity, and a downtown temperature reading of 99 degrees, people turned out for this event, walking the length of Franklin Street and back, browsing the booths, buying and investing in these arts. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Business, Events | No Comments

Customs House stages world-class exhibit with Olen Bryant retrospective

By Christine Anne Piesyk | September 16, 2007 |

Hundreds of friends and fans came to the Customs House Museum Saturday evening for the opening celebration of Olen Bryant: A Retrospective, a world class exhibit of ceramic, wood and stone sculpture, a sampling of Bryant’s work from the early 1950’s to the present.

A Tennessee native and Professor Emeritus of Art at Austin Peay State University, Bryant was introduced to Saturday’s crowd as “an educator, mentor and humanitarian of the first order,” one who has guided and prodded his students to “find their voices” even as he continued his quest to develop and expand his own.

Meandering through the crowds, one could hear the comments of friends, of art lovers, watch them inhaling in awe at the beauty and substance of this work. In an era where art is displayed but art lovers are kept at safe distances, the Customs House exhibit was presented in a manner that invited touch, that invited close inspection of the most minute detail of each piece, be it a small “sleeping stone” or a majestic chair with outstretched arms. The art itself invited it. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Events | No Comments

Artists showcased at Smith-Trahern

By Christine Anne Piesyk | September 8, 2007 |

Clarksville Online presents a small sampling of the art exhibited at the Smith-Trahern Mansion as part of the weekend RiverFest celebration.

Photographer and artist Debbie Boen toured the exhibit and took these photos, commenting “It took my breath away. Everyone is a winner in my book.” Our small photos do not justice to the works shown here; for that, a trip to Smith-Trahern is required.

Heidi Hopkins: Tentative Friendship (digital photography)

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Events | No Comments