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Notsuoh Photography's blog

August 1st, 2008

The New Boomtowns: Latest Energy Crisis is a Boon for Many Cities Across the U.S.

Washington Independent: http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/the-new-boom-towns

Houston Strategies: http://houstonstrategies.blogspot.com/

The New Boomtowns

Latest Energy Crisis is a Boon for Many Cities Across the U.S.

By

Joel Kotkin

The steep hike in gas and energy prices has created a national debate about the future of American metropolitan areas -- mostly about the reputed decline of suburbs and edge cities dependent on cars. But with all this focus on the troubles of traditional suburbs, one big story is overlooked: the rapid rise of America's energy-producing metropolitan areas.

In many of the nation's strongest regional economies, $5 a gallon gas is less a threat than a boon. From Houston and Midland in Texas, to a score of cities across the Great Plains, today's energy crisis is creating new wealth and new jobs in a way not seen since, well, the energy crisis of the 1970s.

This reflects a global trend that is turning once out-of-the-way places, like Dubai and Alma Alty, into glittering high-rise cities. Other energy- and commodity-rich places are undergoing a similar boom -- from Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia, to Calgary and Edmonton in Canada and Perth in Australia.

What all these places have going for them is control of what Kent Briggs, former chief of staff for Utah's late Gov. Scott Matheson, once called "the testicles of the universe." These cities base their wealth not on clever financial technology, cultural attributes or university-honed skills but on their position as centers of the global commodities boom.

In the process, there has been a shift in the balance of economic power away from financial and information centers like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. These cities are deeply vulnerable to the national financial and mortage crises. New York, according to David Shulman, former Lehman Brothers managing director, faces upward of 30,000 to 40,000 layoffs in its financial sector. San Francisco in the last quarter gave away a Transamerica Pyramid's worth of office space.

In contrast, things have never looked better for cities now riding the energy and commodity boom. By far the biggest winner is Houston, whose breakneck growth has been fueled by its role as the world's premier energy city. As with Dubai, this is less a function of the city's proximity of actual deposits (though the Gulf of Mexico represents one of the most promising energy finds in North America), than to its premier role as the technical, trading and administrative center of the worldwide industry.

This prominence is, in historic terms, relatively recent. As late as the 1980s "oil bust," notes historian Joe Feagin, Houston's energy sector remained "a colony of New York," where many of key industry corporate and financial decision-makers still lived.

Yet, today, Houston's national, even global dominance, of the energy business is palpable. With the lure of low-cost office space and housing stock, as well as myriad personal ties among executives and leading engineers, Houston managed to consolidate its position as the predominant center of the oil and gas industry. In 1960, Houston had barely one of the nation's large energy firms, ranking well behind New York, Los Angeles and even Tulsa; today it has 16, more than all those cities combined.

High wages offered by energy firms -- annual salaries for geologists average $132,000 or more; while blue-collar workers make roughly $60,000 -- have attracted a new generation of skilled executives and technicians to the region, which also enjoys a far lower cost a living than many other major cities. Areas like River Oaks, Galleria and Energy Corridor are home to well-educated, upwardly mobile workers in their late 20s and 30s. The area is growing at a time when these workers are, according to recent census numbers, leaving places like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Boston.

"People from other areas say that you guys don't make much down there," said Houston executive recruiter Chris Schoettelkotte. "[But] the guys from L.A. make the same amount of money in the same field here. We pull them from Wharton, the Ivy League and Stanford and they get paid through the nose… Houston can get the talent."

Houston's status as energy capital is also propelling it into the ranks of first-tier cities. Today, Houston has the third largest representation of consular offices. It ranks behind only Los Angeles and New York, and has outstripped traditional commercial centers like San Francisco and Chicago.

It's energy, along with the port and growing airport, that makes the Texas city a world capital. "When I go overseas people put Houston with New York and L.A.," said Houston salvage entrepreneur Charlie Wilson. "In many cases, Houston is considered to be at the top of the world class because of oil. If you're in China, you're looking at Houston because of the oil."

But Houston is not alone in benefiting from the rising price of energy and other commodities. According to the new Inc./Newgeography.com job growth rankings other energy cities include Dallas -- home of Exxon Mobil –- as well as smaller Texas burgs like Midland, Odessa and Longview.

This is a dramatic turnaround for places like Midland. Until recently, said Midland oilman Mike Bradford, wildcatters had held back from drilling, because they feared the high oil prices would not last. Now they are convinced that the energy market has broken free of OPEC control and prices will remain high. "We think high [oil and gas] prices are for real — and we're going nuts," said Bradford, who also sits on the Midland County Commission.

But you don't have to be in Texas to be part of an energy boomtown. Bakersfield, Calif., oil capital, is also thriving, despite the hard times throughout the Golden State because of the mortgage crisis. Alaskans, who now receive more than $1,600 per capita from the state's Permanent Fund Dividend, twice what they received in 2005, are likely to see their wealth increase. If there's an expansion of drilling there, look for Anchorage and other Alaskan cities to enjoy even flusher times.

Another hot spot is in the Great Plains. Energy production and high commodity prices are pacing the economies of regional centers like Des Moines; Billings, Mont.; Cheyenne, Wy., and Sioux Falls, S.D. In Bismarck, Grand Forks and Fargo, N.D., where incomes are surging, there's a sense that these are the best of times. One sure sign: The energy boom -- coal, oil, wind as well as biofuels -- has produced a a billion-dollar state surplus for North Dakota.

The energy and commodity boom is changing the face of these small cities in key ways. Fargo, the butt of sophisticated jokes with the Coen Brothers' movie, now boasts a first-class arena, fine restaurants, a luxurious boutique hotel and a thriving arts scene.

Grand Forks has a growing condo market. Scores of smaller cities -- like Bismarck and Dickinson – are also showing signs of a new quasi-urban sophistication. After decades of demographic stagnation, some of these towns are seeing healthy population gains.

Rising unemployment is not a problem here; a looming labor shortage is. In some markets, there are signing bonuses and $12-an-hour wages at fast-food business.

If energy prices hold firm, and particularly if the nation begins to ramp up energy production, we can see the boomtimes extend to energy-rich Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Louisiana. These can mean more growth in already healthy economies like Albuquerque, Salt Lake City and Denver; but also for long hard-pressed New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities.
Finally there's another group of potential winners: areas that have been selected to produce the energy-efficient vehicles of the future. Even as Detroit, Flint and Ft. Wayne, Ind.,-- producers of SUVs and trucks -- suffer, many cities in the mid-South, like Nashville, Huntsville and Chattanooga, Tenn., seem certain to gain as Nissan, Toyota, Volkswagen and other foreign producers ramp up production.

Perhaps the ultimate example of "world turned upside down" by energy prices may end up being Mississippi, long a perennial loser in the economic sweepstakes. But this week, Toyota announced it would start building its popular hybrid Prius in Blue Springs, Miss., in late 2010. That's just outside Tupelo, Elvis' birthplace.

We may not see a reappearance of the King --- but for many people this resurgence is just as stunning.

None of this, however, suggests that San Francisco, Los Angeles or New York are about to be eclipsed by Houston -- much less Fargo or Tupelo. But if the history of cities tells us anything, places well-positioned for growth industries tend to emerge as ever more serious players.

It worked for industrial cities like Chicago, which emerged from obscurity in the late 19th Century; or later for high-tech centers like San Jose, Austin and Boston. If energy and commodity prices stay high for another decade, we may have to get used to a shift in the power of places across the American landscape.

Joel Kotkin is a presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University and the author of "The City: A Global History." He is executive editor of the website www.newgeography.com
Published at 15:30 ( 0 comments / 826 visits )
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June 12, 2008

Montrose: Bohemian Bayou

From B.S. Houston Art Blog.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Montrose: Bohemian Bayou

 

 

The Montrose District is a grid of neighborhoods lined with Live Oaks and teeming with youth culture. Directly west of downtown Houston, Montrose holds many treasures if one is willing to look hard and slow down. In their current state you should drive slowly because of the condition of the streets anyway. The neighborhood is very green, and it seems as if the bayou is threatening to take over at any moment. The residents are a mix of young professionals, students, young families and immigrants. The most tolerant Houston neighborhood, people from all walks of life travel to Montrose to experience the carefree attitude and alternative culture.

 

At the corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy Street sits Brazil Café, a brick coffee house shaded by ivy and trees that is a favorite among locals. Nearby Agora Café offers an escapist cocoon and Empire Café is a fashionable eatery two blocks down past rows of antique shops. Several vintage clothing stores and fashionable boutiques line the street between Dunlavy and Mandell Street. Also located here is the hip bar Poison Girl, and one block further east are several popular local bars.

 

The Menil Museum is located at the corner of Mandell and Sul Ross, with parking available on Alabama Street. Admission is always free. The museum owns many of the neighboring houses, and they have preserved the look of the 1930s homes along with the nearby University of St. Thomas. A trip to the Menil is one of the most rewarding activities in Houston, and the architecture by Renzo Piano complements the tranquil shady neighborhood with simplicity and a ceiling open to natural light, which bathes the art inside with an illuminating tenderness.

 

Besides the main building there are several other interesting sites nearby. A beautiful gallery dedicated to the paintings of Cy Twombly employs a transparent ceiling, and the conceptual and emotional paintings take on different tones at different points in the day.

 

The Rothko Chapel is a world renowned non-denominational cultural site; it has held interfaith dialogues, musical and spiritual events from most world religions and is a modern meditative environment. The Chapel houses a series of paintings by Mark Rothko, one of the most successful of the abstract expressionists.

 

"The Rothko Chapel is alive with religious ceremonies of all faiths and diverse programs to engage audiences intellectually, artistically and spiritually. It is a place where the experience and understanding of all traditions and cultures are encouraged and made available." – The Rothko Chapel Mission statement

 

Also nearby is the Houston Center for Photography, the Watercolor Art Society of Houston, The Dan Flavin Pavilion installed in an old roller rink, the Chapel of St. Basil at St. Thomas designed by Phillip Johnson and exhibits by young artists at the Joanna Gallery.

 

For great Greek food stop by Niko Niko's on Montrose- try the roasted potatoes. For amazing breakfasts check out Baby Barnaby's or Baba Yaga's. Dallas Street near Montrose Avenue was where the film Reality Bites were based. River Oaks Theatre is the oldest theatre in town, now it shows art house films and I used to work there. Next door is the French bakery Epicure Café, where we go for croissants. 59 Diner and Le Peep are two great diner choices, located across the street from each other at the junction of Shepherd Avenue and 59 South. I waited tables at both of them in the past. Another old job of mine was at Bookstop at the corner of Alabama and Shepherd. A beautiful bookstore housed in one of the oldest theatres in town, the environment is surreal.

Published at 19:25 ( 1 comment / 247 visits )
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June 11, 2008

Houston: New South Korean Grocery Store Chain.

Some rather positive reviews for the 53,000-sq.-ft. Super H Mart now open in the former Randall’s on Blalock at Westview, a few blocks north of I-10. Yelp user Therese S. calls the big Korean chain’s Houston store an

Awesome, awesome Asian grocery store. They have pretty much almost everything. . . . I saw wansuy (cilantro), (Philippine–the best) mango juice, calamansi juice, halo-halo ingredients, even fish sauce, oyster sauce (albeit in HUGE bottles), sinigang mix, prawn crackers, mochi(!), kimchi (a whole chiller section), chopsticks, Yan Yan, Pocky, Koala, and on and on.

And this from the Food in Houston blog:

If you walk inside and don’t look too closely, you might think that you are in a state-of-the-art Whole Foods. Super H Mart has that same bright, cheery, contemporary feel. But instead of a cheese counter, Super H has a whole wall devoted to kimchi. . . .

The produce section includes fruits and vegetables that are rarely seen in Houston — even at Hong Kong market. The quality of the produce looks as good as Central Market or Whole Foods.

The seafood section may have the broadest, and most interesting, selection of seafood in Houston.

After the jump: A look at that wall of kimchi! Plus: a food-court surprise!

 

Most H Mart reviews have focused on the (mostly) Korean food court (above), the second in Houston. (The first: nearby Komart.) But no report tops this one by Food in Houston’s Anonymouseater:

Toreore is perhaps the most unusual stand. It is part of a Korean fried chicken chain. But this is unlike any chicken I have ever had. Toreore advertises that it is healthy because it uses no trans fats and a batter that is made from “mixed grains powder.” I tried a hot, sweet and spicy chicken nugget that was very sweet and so spicy hot that it caused sores to break out inside my mouth. The smell was something like the inside of a Duncan donut store, but the flavor resembled a sweetened habenero pepper. The vendors at the counter warn non-Korean speakers about how hot this particular dish is. It is a warning well heeded.

 

Photos: H Mart (top); Anonymouseater (wall of kimchee); I’m Never Full (food court & Toreore)

 

Read more about: 77055, Koreatown, Long-Point, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Supermarkets

Published at 16:51 ( 1 comment / 462 visits )
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May 3rd, 2008

CityPass puts city on list with some top U.S. destinations

May 2, 2008, 10:45PM
Houston tourism chalks up a gain
CityPass puts city on list with some top U.S. destinations

By L.M. SIXEL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

The president of CityPass wasn't convinced there was much to do in Houston.

Mike Gallagher had been to Houston 25 years ago on business, and as far as he could tell, about the only attraction was Johnson Space Center.

But local boosters pestered him into coming back. Surprised to see Houston's array of museums, a quality zoo and the Downtown Aquarium, Gallagher added Houston to his CityPass network of cities, which includes the more touristy San Francisco, New York and Seattle.

It was enough to convince him that Houston was a viable market, and the area's own CityPass goes on sale May 13.

"It says to the world, 'There is a tourist destination, and you should visit,' " said Greg Ortale, president and chief executive of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The bureau hopes to sell 30,000 passes a year, aiming them at Latin American tourists who visit to shop and go to appointments at the Texas Medical Center as well as to regional visitors and even locals looking to save money.

They also hope the passes, which will be marketed through travel agents and tour operators, might encourage visitors to stay a day or two longer. That, in turn, would boost hotel occupancy and spending at restaurants and stores.

"Being a CityPass destination helps us with our identity as a tourist destination," Ortale said. "A lot of our customers assume that if you are a CityPass city, there must be a lot to see or do here."

The Houston pass, which provides admission to six attractions, will cost $34 for adults and $24 for children.

The price is nearly half what visitors otherwise might pay if they bought tickets at individual ticket counters.

Four of the attractions are fixed: Space Center Houston, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Houston Zoo and the Downtown Aquarium.

Options available
Pass holders also can choose two options from among four other offerings: George Ranch Historical Park or the Health Museum; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston or the Children's Museum of Houston.

The passes, which can be purchased from any of the attraction sites, are good for nine days from the date the first ticket is used.

Houston Mayor Bill White is scheduled to buy the first pass when they go on sale. It's unclear if he'll pick the George Ranch or the Health Museum.

The Napa, Calif.-based Gallagher said he chose the attractions in Houston by looking at their attendance figures, year-round accessibility and uniqueness.

Each time a pass coupon is used, the location receives a portion of the proceeds, he said. They receive a larger premium if they sold the pass initially.

The passes are appealing economically because it's a way to bring in new visitors without adding a lot of extra cost, said Gallagher, who had a long career in recreational marketing before launching the CityPass program with a partner in 1997.

Once you've opened your doors, the cost of entertaining 1,200 visitors is virtually the same as 1,000, he said.

After spending a little more for extra supplies and other essentials, the admission fee from the extra 200 people goes right to the bottom line.

The Children's Museum of Houston hopes its participation in CityPass will boost museum attendance by 10 percent, executive director Tammie Kahn said. The museum hosts about 630,000 visitors a year, and about one-third are from outside Houston.

"The pass will give us a wider reach," said Kahn, adding that it will help its promotional efforts in Latin America, which is a core target market.

Over spring break, groups of children from the Caribbean came for a visit, she said. Newspapers in Colombia and Argentina have published stories about what to see and do at the museum.

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May 3rd, 2008

Houston: 8th Annual Dragon Boat Festival

8th Annual Dragon Boat Festival
Saturday, May 3, 2008
9:00am - 4:30pm
Allen's Landing - Downtown Houston

Welcome to the thrilling sport of dragon boat racing! We are entering our 6th year paddling at the birthplace of Houston – Allen's Landing in downtown.

You can expect over 30 teams racing throughout the day with colorful entertainment, educational cultural booths, delicious cuisine, and fun games for kids and adults alike.

If you are not paddling as part of a team, then you are missing out on a truly wonderful experience. Check our sponsorship opportunities for how you can get involved.

Maps and parking will be updated closer to the event. We are working with METRO and other parking garages for your convenience.

Space is limited for sponsorship. We look forward to seeing you there!

Note: The park at Allen's Landing does not allow pets (except working dogs), alcohol or glass. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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May 2nd, 2008

Houston, Texas: Latin Wave Film Festival immersed in cultural life, regional flavor

May 1, 2008, 4:51PM
FILM FESTIVAL
Latin Wave immersed in cultural life, regional flavor

By DAVID DORANTES
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Nine selections from the Latin American film industry that reflect the color and the daily and cultural life of that part of the world will be screened through Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, for the third annual Latin Wave: New Films from Latin America.

Among the festival's filmsare a documentary about an Argentinean scholar, a chronicle of soldiers turned millionaires, a love story, films that feature a group of children trying to explain politics in their country, teenagers who plan a robbery and a man eagerly awaiting the pope's visit.

Two films are from Argentina, two from Mexico and one each from Colombia, Uruguay, Brazil and Venezuela.

Festival director Mónika Wagenberg, who spoke about Latin Wave from her home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, underscored that her search focused on "the best movies made in each country."

"The general criteria I used to select these films were that they offer something new, break old schemes and take risks, whether in the story itself or the way the story is told."

She said even blockbusters can defy formulas and old schemes. For example, Soñar no Cuesta Nada (A Ton of Luck) is a movie that broke records at the box office in Colombia the year of its release, and it is the country's top moneymaker in the past 12 years.

Soñar no Cuesta Nada's director, Rodrigo Triana, said the film is based on a true story.

The story begins in May 2003 when two Colombian army companies find more than $16 million buried in the middle of the jungle. They decide to spend the money, and what unfolds is a story the filmmaker describes as "delirious."

"Things happening in Colombia surpass fiction. When the story appeared in the newspapers, it seemed mind-blowing, so we decided to make it into a film," Triana said. He is one of the four directors coming to Houston to speak to the audience about his film.

Triana maintains the strength of Latin American film is in the stories: "On each corner of our countries there is a film to be made; our stories are our great strength."

The strength of the stories, he said, is important to the revival of Latin American filmmaking.

Venezuelan filmmaker Maria Escandón's Postales de Leningrado (Postcards from Leningrad) is about how several children see the leftist guerrilla movements of their country during the 1960s.

She echoed Triana's assessment of the revival in Latin American movies.

"Filmmaking in Latin American has taken an impressive step. In recent years, there has been a release of a great number of movies that stand on their own," Escandón said.

Wagenberg is convinced that "there is an impressive resurgence of Latin American filmmaking, and its strength has to do with its diversity."

An example of that diversity is "the number of women now making films in Latin America. The selection of films to be screened in Houston includes the works of three female directors (Encarnación, Anahí Berneri; XXY, Lucía Puenzo; and Postales de Leningrado). "To have three female directors is an important achievement."

LATIN WAVE FILM SCHEDULE

All films shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's Brown Auditorium Theater, Caroline Wiess Law Building, 1001 Bissonnet, 713-639-7515

• Santiago (Brazil, Portuguese with English subtitles): On the surface, João Moreira Salles' documentary is a portrait of Roteiro Santiago, the Argentinean butler who served Salles' family for 30 years. But it is also a journey of personal and professional discovery for the director. 5 p.m. Saturday

• Encarnación (Argentina, Spanish with English subtitles): A former pin-up model and showgirl now in her 50s returns to her hometown to face the disdain of her family. 3 p.m. Saturday

• A Ton of Luck (Colombia, Spanish with English subtitles): When the 147 members of an anti-guerrilla unit on a rescue mission in the jungles of Colombia stumble upon a staggering cache of drug money, the men face a tough moral dilemma: What to do with $46 million of untraceable loot? 9:30 p.m. Sunday

• Postcards from Leningrad (Venezuela, Spanish with English subtitles): Postcards from Leningrad captures a child's-eye view of life in the 1960s with Venezuela's armed revolutionaries. 5 p.m. Friday and 5:45 p.m. Sunday

• The Pope's Toilet (Uruguay, Spanish with English subtitles): When Pope John Paul II announces that he will be visiting the Uruguayan border town of Melo, and 50,000 Brazilians are projected to arrive on a pilgrimage to see the Pope, Beto decides to seize the opportunity to build a high-class outhouse and make his fortune. 7 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday

• XXY (Argentina, Spanish with English subtitles): Inés Efron portrays a pubescent hermaphrodite (born with a condition known as "genital ambiguity") whose body is changing and who is forced to decide whether she/he will become a woman, a man or something else. 9 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Sunday

• The Zone (Mexico, Spanish with English subtitles): Three teenage boys from the slums take advantage of an electrical-storm accident that allows them to sneak into "The Zone," a fortresslike private community for the wealthy. The boys' plan for robbery and a quick getaway soon goes awry. 9 p.m. Saturday and 7:45 p.m. Sunday

• Silent Night (Mexico, Spanish with English subtitles): A parable of infidelity and selfless love set among a contemporary Mennonite community in northern Mexico. 3 p.m. Sunday

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March 19, 2008

DANCE SALAD FESTIVAL

March 18, 2008, 6:19PM
DANCE
An international blend of Salad
Fest features performances like no other

By MOLLY GLENTZER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Sitting in the upstairs office of her River Oaks home, surrounded by piles of immigration paperwork, production notes, DVDs, videos and brochures, Nancy Henderek leaned forward one recent morning with an evangelist's zeal and fixed her eyes like rocket launchers on a guest.

"I never have to give my 'What is Dance Salad' speech anymore," she said, her voice measured but intense.

At least in Europe.

Henderek's not convinced that, even after 13 years, Houston understands what it has in her three-day feast of world-class performances.

"This is really a festival. The performances are the culmination of a week's activities that include master classes around town and a forum and film screening at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. People all over the world tell me this is unique," she says.

Henderek imports companies that aren't on the touring circuit, and it's a point of pride that many of them are making their American debuts. Spread over three nights, the shows are "curated" — juxtaposed in a way she hopes will help audiences see something fresh, often with the original choreography altered or excerpted to Henderek's specifications.

Asking her to pick highlights is like asking a mother of 10 to choose a favorite child.

"I go after groups that aren't known in the U.S.," she says.

New this year is Národní divadlo, the National Theater Ballet, Prague, which is making its North American debut. Contemporary ballet and modern dance companies from the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, China and Japan are represented, as are the National Ballet of Canada and the independent duo Drew Jacoby and Rubi Pronk.

But Henderek really lights up when she talks about the thread of works she's presenting by the master choreographer Jirí Kylián. She's brought in his original Netherlands Dance Theater III dancers — whose company is now called Paradox On — to perform a pair of works she calls his "life-death" cycle: BIRTH-DAY, a signature dance from 2001, and his award-winning 2006 film CAR-MEN. Additionally, Národní divadlo will perform one of Kylián's very early works, Stamping Ground.

Kylián is one of the most influential choreographers working today.

"When he first came to the U.S. 25 years ago, critics panned him because his work didn't look like (George) Balanchine's," Henderek says.

But it's hard to watch a contemporary ballet company now — including, locally, Houston Ballet and Dominic Walsh Dance Theater — without seeing traces of his style.

"There've been enormous spinoffs," Henderek says.

Put an actual Kylián work on the program, and dance fans — and dancers — salivate. (Earlier this season, Houston Ballet had a hit with his popular Petit Mort.)

Henderek is excited that Dance Salad's offerings show both Kylián's prowess with both live and filmed dance.

A few years ago, she showed a five-minute film clip from BIRTH-DAY that Dance Salad regulars will remember. Set to Mozart, it's a hoot — as dancers in full baroque finery leap to the speedy beats of the music on a giant bed. But this is only a fraction of the actual 35-minute live dance.

The original BIRTH-DAY cast will perform. The live dance and film play off each other, Henderek explains, "so the characters react in front of you with things that are 'happening' in other rooms."

CAR-MEN, shot in black and white, is pure film. Set in a Czech coal mine and directed by Dutch filmmaker Boris Paval Conen, it features four dancers in a surreal, tragicomic telling of the Georges Bizet opera about a wayward seductress. In her press materials, Henderek describes the film as "a metaphor for time, speed, stillness, movement, youth and age."

"The two films really do fit together," Henderek says. And yet, while she wants you to see the them as a whole, to see them both you'll have to attend more than one event.

CAR-MEN screens tonight during a free sneak preview at the MFAH and will also be shown Friday at the Wortham Theater Center; BIRTH-DAY will be performed at the Wortham Thursday and Saturday.

DANCE SALAD FESTIVAL

• When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday

• Where: Wortham Theater Center, 501 Texas

• Tickets: $17-$45, www.dancesalad.org

or 877-772-5425

• Sneak preview: 6:30 tonight; Brown Auditorium at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet; free

Published at 14:13 ( 0 comments / 298 visits )
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March 19, 2008

An excerpt from Obama's historical speech yesterday

You can watch or read the whole speech here:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3511

If you're busy, here's a highlight from the speech:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3510

"We have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle—as we did in the OJ trial—or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina—or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words.

"We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

"We can do that.

"But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

"That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

"This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

"This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

"This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

"I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation—the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

"There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today—a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

"There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

"And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

"She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

"She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

"Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

"Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

""I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

"But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins."

You can watch or read the whole speech here:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3511

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March 4, 2008

U.S. media shy away from Texas cowboy stereotype

March 3, 2008, 11:28PM
U.S. media shy away from Texas cowboy stereotype

By JEANNIE KEVER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Maybe you've noticed something missing from the national news coverage of Texas' presidential primary.

We haven't seen Katie Couric in a cowboy hat.

"I think a lot of people are starting to realize that what Texas is today, the rest of the United States will be tomorrow," said Rice University political scientist Bob Stein.

That means a state with urban problems. Suburban problems. Public education problems. And a growing Hispanic population.

In short, a state that looks like the rest of the country, except more heavily Hispanic. And a state that, for the first time in a generation, will help decide who runs for president.

You might have heard an occasional "y'all" or a reference to "Houston, we have a problem."

Several newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle and Dallas Morning News, have been unable to resist calling Texas' complicated primary-caucus system the "Texas two-step." CNN referred to it as a "Tex-Mex" process, comparing it to the "combination plate" available at Tex-Mex restaurants.

But as coverage of today's primary intensified, Texas appeared largely to have shed its image of urban cowboys and oil derricks.

"I think we've gotten away from cowboy hats and cowboy boots and Lone Star belt buckles," said Garth Jowett, a communications professor at the University of Houston.

Instead, Jowett and other media watchers say they have seen more serious stories about the role Texas will play in selecting the Democratic nominee — everyone assumes John McCain will prevail in the Republican contest — and the complicated process by which delegates will be awarded.

The most obvious reality check has been coverage of the Hispanic vote here.

That's what Homero Gil de Zuniga, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Texas, calls the new stereotype of Texas, and he said it has been used by not just the media but by the politicians as well.

"That we have a large Hispanic population, a lot of business ties to Latin America," he said. "It is not only a stereotype, it is a fact."

Today's Texas showdown between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is considered pivotal for Clinton's campaign. (Voters in Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island go to the polls today, too.)

Both candidates are courting Hispanics here. And in a sign of how things have changed, Stein notes that Clinton was the only candidate to appear at the Greater Houston Partnership's energy forum last week.

"Oil has always been good for money," Stein said, noting that in years past, candidates saw Texas mainly as a cash cow.

They still do, but there's a twist this year.

"I'm pleasantly noticing that reporters are much more aware of the changing demographics, the changing party makeup of Texas," he said.

"Places change. Texas is, in many respects, undergoing the most rapid change."

He noted that the national media are familiar with Texas partly because two of the past three presidents have been from here. Reporters know about Houston, and they know about Crawford, too.

And if national reporters find Texas' process for choosing delegates a bit odd, he said, "they've seen odder."

Though most states choose delegates either by primary or caucus, Texas Democrats use both, a complicated process usually only of interest to party insiders but one that could be pivotal in today's tight race.

"Winning the majority of votes doesn't necessarily give you the majority of delegates," Jowett noted. "I think that's fascinating to the press."

Mostly, the press and the campaigns have focused on Texas' Hispanic vote, which de Zuniga said is simply a reflection of reality.

"Modern Texas is who is going to be voting," he said. "If we were 80 percent cowboy people, they would (talk about) that. They would deliver their speeches in cowboy hats."

Almost 36 percent of Texans are Hispanic, he said, more than double the national population. So Obama has a mariachi-themed video on YouTube, and politicians of all stripes have taken up the call of Sí, se puede. (Yes, we can).

"They have the data in their hands," de Zuniga said.

And today's data are far different than the demographic data of 40 years ago.

"It's not my mother's Texas," Stein said. "People have grown up with Texas in the American political community."

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March 3rd, 2008

As Americans change, so does their religion

Feb. 26, 2008, 1:27AM
As Americans change, so does their religion
Survey finds nearly half of adults didn't keep the faith they grew up with

 

By JEANNIE KEVER
 Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

American religion is becoming increasingly reflective of society's changing demographics and lifestyles, with nearly half of adults practicing a religion that is different from the one in which they were raised, according to a new survey, which also shows the percentage of those affiliated with Protestant churches is shrinking.

 

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life on Monday offered a picture of the nation's religious life, one shaped by choice, immigration and a growing number of people who don't identify with any faith.

 

"There's just a great deal of flux in religion in America," said John Green, senior fellow in religion and American politics at the Pew Forum. "I don't think it's going to change life in America overnight, but it will bring new voices to the public square, whether in politics or the broader culture."

 

Houston reflects the trend.

 

"This is where the American future is going to be worked out," said Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg, who has found similar results in his annual studies of Houston but was not involved in the Pew survey.

 

The 143-page U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, based on interviews with more than 35,000 adults, shows the reach of various religious groups and reveals how religious life has changed. Among the findings:

 

• 44 percent of American adults have changed religious affiliation since childhood. That includes people who don't belong to any religious group and those raised outside a religious tradition who later joined a particular faith.

 

• 16 percent of Americans don't identify with any religion, including 24 percent of those ages 18-29. The percentage is far lower than in other industrialized countries, experts say, meaning the United States remains a strongly religious country.

 

• 24 percent of the population is Roman Catholic, a percentage that hasn't changed in recent decades. Almost one-third of those raised as Catholics have left the faith, but immigration — especially from Latin America — has kept the denomination's numbers steady.

 

• 37 percent of married people are married outside their faith.

 

The key finding, Green said, was change.

 

"Religions may be about the eternal, but in temporal affairs, it is constantly changing," he said.

 

The survey also looked at demographic details — age, marital status and education levels.

 

 

Houston an example

The Census Bureau doesn't ask religious affiliation, Green said. "Maybe that's a good thing, but it means we don't have a lot of information about the demographic component of religions," he said.

"Those things are worth knowing. They tell us about the strengths and weaknesses of these groups, and also about the resources they can bring into public discussions," Green said.

 

For example, the survey shows Hindus, Jews and Buddhists have far higher levels of post-graduate education than the general population. It also shows Hindus and Mormons are the most likely to be married to someone of the same religion, and Mormons and Muslims have the largest families.

 

The changing religious landscape reflects a changing U.S. population, a trend Klineberg reported locally in his 2004 Houston Area Survey.

 

Houston is "now one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the country. ... You can't have multi-ethnic societies that aren't also multi-religious," he said.

 

As with most shifts, this one is fueled by the young. "The baby boom is Anglo and Protestant," Klineberg said, noting that the oldest boomers turn 62 this year. "(Many of) the young people across America and Houston are the children of immigrants. They're much more likely to represent these new religions."

 

What this all means remains unclear.

 

"I anticipate that American public life will look different," said D. Newell Williams, president of Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. "I think the number of perspectives which are given voice in the public square changes the character of the conversation."

 

 

A market culture

One of the Pew Forum's most striking findings was how many people have shifted from their childhood religious affiliation.

"It's the working out of the religious marketplace," Green said. "People have lots of options, and they can find the religious place that makes the most sense to them. As people's lives change, their religious needs may change."

 

The number of religious options is American in nature. While many countries have a dominant faith — Anglican in Britain; Catholic in Mexico and Italy; Islam in Saudi Arabia — the United States offers a smorgasbord of denominations.

 

"People shop for churches the way they shop for the restaurant they like, the clothing they like," said Randall Smith, a University of St. Thomas theology professor who converted to Catholicism as an adult. "Are people shopping for something which is deep and fundamental, or are they merely shopping to find the kind of people who live like they do, look like they do, listen to the same kind of music?"

 

Churches, in effect, are competing for members.

 

So, as Hispanic immigrants fill Catholic parishes, seminaries push prospective priests to learn Spanish. "Not to speak Spanish is to be unable to communicate with your parishioners," Smith said.

 

 

Fewer Protestants

Other immigrants have contributed to the small but increasing number of people who practice Hinduism and Islam, among other religions. However, the survey found that 73 percent of U.S. Buddhists had converted to that faith.

As other religions grow, the percentage of Protestants — historically, the dominant U.S. religious group — is dropping.

 

There's little danger of Protestants disappearing, but their numbers will drop below 50 percent, Green said. That already has happened in Harris County, according to Klineberg.

 

"That will be a major symbol," Green said. "Some people will see it as positive, some as negative."

 

He said the influence of evangelical Christians may wane as the overall number of Protestants slips.

 

"This means other religious perspectives are going to play a bigger role in shaping our public life. Over time, that represents a very significant shift," Green said.

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March 3rd, 2008

QUIRKY HOUSTON

Feb. 26, 2008, 5:47PM
RENOVATION CELEBRATION
Pop a top, again
Beer Can House - restored to its original condition - is ready for a round of spectators

By JEANNIE KEVER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Call John Milkovisch a man ahead of his time.

No one talked about recycling or reducing their carbon footprint back when Milkovisch started covering his house with beer cans in the 1960s. And folk art was something you might find in Appalachia or Latin America, not a working-class neighborhood near Memorial Park.

Today, Milkovisch's creation is celebrated as one of those quirky, only-in-Houston experiences unknown to many natives but a draw for tourists from all over the world. Its $202,000 renovation will be unveiled Friday at a party billed as the Beer Can Opener, and it reopens to the public next month.

But what, exactly, is the Beer Can House?

It's so many different things to so many people,'' said Stephen Bridges, who works for the Orange Show Foundation for Visionary Art, which owns the Beer Can House and has overseen its renovation. "To some people, they instantly recognize it as a piece of folk art. To others, it's just a house covered in beer cans.''

And that's OK.

The Beer Can House is, after all, an homage to individual vision, although Milkovisch, who died in 1988, might have preferred to call it an homage to Texas Pride and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Or a way to avoid painting the house.

Decide for yourself. People will be able to see it up close when the house reopens March 8, one of the few remaining bungalows in a neighborhood now filled with expensive, three-story townhouses. Docents will be on hand between noon and 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, showcasing what more than 40,000 beer cans and other whimsical additions can do for a house. (The house will be open by appointment, as well, and available for rental to groups of 25 or fewer.)

There are garlands made of pull tabs, the tops and bottoms of beer cans and cutouts from the sides of cans, all hanging from the eaves. That shaded the house from the harsh Houston sun, reducing Milkovisch's electric bills. The small yard is covered in concrete slabs, dotted with glass marbles. Just a way to get out of mowing the lawn, he insisted.

The mailbox and fences are covered with cans, and wooden sculptures are studded with metal letters — AMEN, reads the top of a wooden ladder — and elaborate cutouts.

"John Milkovisch never thought of himself as an artist," said Julie Birsinger, project manager for the Beer Can House. He was, instead, an upholsterer and a beer drinker.

But Birsinger describes his work as "very intricate. Very well thought out. Very well executed."

The inside was the domain of Milkovisch's wife, Mary, and it remains closed to the public. There's nothing much to see in there, anyway.

"She made him keep the beer cans outside," Birsinger said. "The outside of the house is where the action is."

The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art bought the Beer Can House in late 2001 for $200,000, ensuring its future even as time began to take a toll. The cans were fading and some of the wooden support structures were crumbling.

Birsinger had to figure out how to renovate a house covered in beer cans, which isn't the sort of thing taught in art-restoration courses. Her goal was to restore the work to its original condition and to replace any artistic elements that couldn't be repaired.

The sunlight that once twinkled off the glass and metal is now in short supply as towering townhomes loom over the house, so new lighting will be added to recapture some of the ambience. Originally, the Orange Show had hoped to buy an adjacent lot for parking space; that didn't work out, so parking remains at a premium throughout the neighborhood.

As for the house's signature décor, many of the cans were in good enough condition to be rehung after cleaning — a good thing since Birsinger couldn't run to the corner store for a six-pack when she needed new materials.

Beer cans have changed. Some brands are no longer produced. Other labels have been redesigned, detachable pull tabs are history and modern cans aren't even made of the same material as cans from decades past.

No problem, thanks to members of the Brewery Collectibles Clubs of America, who responded to a call for vintage cans from the 1960s and 1970s.

Volunteers from the neighborhood and all over the country offered help, and a small crew of University of Houston students was hired to handle the final work.

Paul Ehrig, 20 and a sophomore architecture student, applied after hearing about the opportunity from a professor.

"I thought it was kinda strange," he admits. "Why would he put beer cans on a house? I've lived in Houston all my life, and I've never heard of the Beer Can House."

But as he worked, Ehrig began to notice the guest book, signed by visitors from Japan, Australia, Iceland and all over the United States. And he began to really look at what Milkovisch had done.

"Since I've been here, I've noticed all the detail on the house," he said. "I think it's a pretty cool place."

So did Barbara and Howard Plimack of New York City, who stopped by recently. They were in town to see their son, David Plimack, and his family, but they wanted to do a little sightseeing, too.

Barbara Plimack had read about the Beer Can House, and she was determined to see it.

"Ooooh," she crooned as they stood in front of the house. "All these things are so neat."

Birsinger apologetically explained that the site wasn't yet open to the public, but Plimack didn't care.

"This is good," she said. "It's closer than we've ever
gotten."

BEER CAN OPENER

Houston's beloved Beer Can House will soon reopen to the public after an extensive renovation.

• When: 7 p.m. Friday

• Where: Kicks Indoor Soccer, 611 Shepherd. Guests will be ferried to the Beer Can House in art cars.

• Tickets: $125, online through www.beercanhouse.org or www.orangeshow.org . Or call 888-695-0888.

• To benefit: Annual operating expenses for the Beer Can House.

• The renovation: Will cost about $202,000, with support from the Brown Foundation, Houston Endowment, the Cullen Foundation and Silver Eagle Distributors. In-kind support provided by SpawMaxwell Co. and Gregory/Henry Landscape Design.

QUIRKY HOUSTON

The Beer Can House, 222 Malone, isn't Houston's only example of funky art. Many are included as part of the Orange Show's periodic Eye Opener tours.

• The Orange Show Monument : 2401 Munger, an outdoor tribute by the late Jeff McKissack to his favorite fruit, the orange.

• The ArtCar Museum: 140 Heights, featuring art cars and other artworks.

• The Flower Man: Sampson and Francis, Cleveland Turner's colorful cacophony of folk art at his Third Ward home-turned-museum.

• Presidential Park & Gardens: Coming soon to Texas 288, south of FM 518. Giant presidential busts by larger-than-life sculptor David Adickes have already begun arriving on flatbed trucks.

• Mount Rush Hour: Four of Adickes' sculptures are on display at the corner of Bingham and Elder, visible to morning commuters into downtown from Interstate 10.

• Quan Am sculpture: 10002 Synott, a 72-foot-tall tribute to Quan Am, the female Buddhist deity exemplifying compassion and mercy for the distressed.

• Forbidden Gardens: 23500 Franz. Forty-acre, open-air museum replicates scenes from China's history, including an intricate model of Beijing's Forbidden City. www.forbidden-gardens.com .

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February 17, 2008

Obama will make Houston appearance Tuesday

Feb. 16, 2008, 8:00PM
 Obama will make Houston appearance Tuesday

 

Senator Barack Obama will be in Houston for a rally at the Toyota Center early next week, his campaign announced today.

 

The candidate's "Stand For Change Rally" at 6 p.m. on Tuesday is scheduled for the first day of early voting for Texas' March 4 primaries. Tickets to the rally are free on a first-come, first-served basis at texas.barackobama.com/houston

 

With Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama still battling for the Democratic nomination, Texas has become the latest battleground in the race.

 

Both candidates are making extra efforts to woo voters, especially Texas' large Hispanic population.

 

Clinton, who has already been campaigning across Texas, is expected to arrive in Houston by Feb. 28, a campaign spokeswoman said.

 



--
Dreams
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

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December 29, 2007

Hate crime statistics show tolerance in Texas, Houston

Dec. 29, 2007, 2:24AM
Hate crime statistics show tolerance in Texas, Houston
Incidents were down here in '06, but rose nationally

 

By CINDY HORSWELL
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Recently released FBI "hate crime" statistics suggest Texas and its largest city, Houston, could be growing more tolerant than many other parts of the country.

 

While nationally the number of hate crimes climbed in 2006 to the highest number in five years, the FBI reported Texas' hate crimes fell to the lowest level in seven years. At the same time, Houston had the lowest per-capita number of hate crimes of the nation's 10 largest cities, the report showed.

 

That does not mean that acts of prejudice are nonexistent in the Lone Star State, as evidenced by intimidating nooses being displayed at a refinery in Baytown, an oil field equipment manufacturer in Houston and a high school campus in Pearland this year.

 

And the League of United Latin American Citizens points to the hate crime last year that ended with the suicide of a Hispanic teen from Spring, who had a swastika carved on his chest and was beaten and sexually assaulted by two attackers screaming "white power!"

 

The FBI report identified 7,722 crimes in the United States last year, including 245 in Texas, that were motivated by prejudice against race, religion, sexual orientation or a disability.

 

The numbers represent nearly a 7 percent increase from the year before in the United States, but a 6 percent drop in Texas.

 

At the same time, the report indicates Latinos in particular are becoming the target of hate crimes nationwide.

 

The report shows a 35 percent increase in such crimes nationwide in the past four years, as debate over illegal immigration has intensified.

 

However, in Texas, the number of ethnic hate crimes was actually lower in 2006 than in 2004, the data show.

 

 

Many crimes unreported

But Rick Dovalina, LULAC's Houston spokesman, believes many more Latinos are the victims of hate crimes than the numbers suggest, as illegal immigrants are often too afraid to report it.

Yet despite concerns about hate crimes being underreported, a pattern does emerge from the data that suggests a more tolerant attitude in Texas and Houston, said Stephen Klineberg, a Rice University sociology professor who studies Houston trends.

 

Jack Levin, a sociology professor in Boston who grew up in Houston and wrote one of the first books on hate crimes, agrees.

 

"Houston has become much more diverse over the decades and seems to be more accustomed and respectful of differences," said Levin.

 

"Friendships are crossing racial and ethnic lines like never before. The statistics reflect it."

 

FBI's hate crime authority in Houston, Al Tribble, and the Houston Police Department's hate crime coordinator, Lt. John Silva, say that Houston's and Texas' numbers are low when compared nationally.

 

"Whether we have more harmony here, I don't know," said Silva.

 

"But people seem to be used to one another and playing together here."

 

Houston has been dramatically transformed over the past two decades from a Southern city dominated by white men to one of the most diverse cities in the state, experts say.

 

 

Growth laid to immigrants

Anglos living in Harris County have declined to 37 percent today from 63 percent in 1982, while the Hispanic population has exploded to 38 percent from 20 percent.

The percent of Asian residents has grown to 7 percent from 2 percent, while the black population has dipped slightly to 18 percent from 20 percent.

 

Before the oil bust in 1982, Klineberg said, Houston grew mostly because Anglos moved here from other parts of the United States.

 

Now, he said, the population is being expanded mainly by immigrants.

 

Dena Marks, the Anti-Defamation League's associate director in Houston, said it is difficult to quantify why hate crime numbers are the lowest they have been in Texas for the past six years.

 

"But my own personal observation is that people are not as isolated here," she said. "I think maybe they interact with each other more. They are also more spread out and don't get in each other's way. We're not as concentrated as some other parts of the country."

 

Carol Galloway, Houston's NAACP president, notes that Houston has been historically more tolerant than other large metropolitan areas.

 

"During the civil rights movement, we did not have the big race riots that others did,"she said.

 

The 2006 FBI hate crime data shows Houston — Texas' largest city with 2.07 million people — reported 20 hate crimes. This is much less than other Texas cities that are 40 percent smaller than Houston, such as Dallas, which recorded 39 hate crimes, or San Antonio, with 28.

 

The report also showed Northern states were often recording the most hate crimes.

 

The Southern Poverty Law Center blames the "raging" national debate over immigration for the rise in Latino hate crimes nationally.

 

"We're seeing a rising hatred for immigrants and expect that trend to continue," said Heidi Beirich, the center's spokeswoman, "because of Congress' failure to pass any comprehensive immigration reform."

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December 24, 2007

The Medium-Artists Only

Published: December 23, 2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About a year ago, a college senior and Facebook veteran taught me how to share intimate information on social networks. His first rule was ironclad: “You gotta be transparent about your love life.”

On his campus, it’s axiomatic. When you get serious or even unserious with someone, or go through a breakup, you revise your Facebook stats. That update — “Joe is dating Jade,” “Jade broke up with Josh” — is relayed to the site’s news feed, a mini-Reuters for gossip, where it apprises a network of maybe 15 or 500 people, with links to thousands and even millions of others, of your joy or sorrow.

But not every detail of your life, he went on, should be broadcast: “If I have a new idea about a movie or book, I keep that completely off the feed. I don’t need people thinking I’m having a quarter-life crisis.”

Aha. I smiled weakly. Matters of the heart should be bellowed all over the Web, while pontification about “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Superbad” belongs in the vault. This seemed completely backward, but also recognizably backward, just more evidence of the loopy exhibitionism of fully wired people.

But that was a year ago, before I joined Facebook myself, and before I started hanging out on quarterlife.com, a new social-networking Web site for emo 20-somethings that also features a decent TV drama called “quarterlife” about emo 20-somethings. Now the guy’s policy makes perfect sense.

“Quarterlife” is the Plymouth Rock of Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the virtuosos of character-creation behind the relationship dramas “My So-Called Life” and “thirtysomething.” In the spring of 2006, the pair cobbled together a Mayflower and fled network tyranny — and a canceled pilot at ABC — to begin life afresh on the New Web. “Quarterlife” is the Internet’s best-wrought original series to date.

At the center of the show is a character named Dylan Krieger (played by Bitsie Tulloch), a tell-all blogger and kinetic, unkempt Winona Ryder type — lovely in repose, which she almost never manages. Something in her jumpiness and easy blushes suggests a hair-trigger immune system, eczema and blood-drawing personal habits like hair-pulling and nail-biting.

No wonder, then, that Dylan’s sexuality is construed as a solo affair, confessed into the mirror: her laptop’s internal camera, with which she makes lonelygirl-style video for her blog. She confides in the mirror-camera that she loves a neighbor named Jed (Scott Michael Foster), but we learn that Jed loves her best friend, Debra (Michelle Lombardo), who in turn loves Jed’s filmmaking partner, Danny (David Walton). Sidelined in this lovey fray is a nerdy video editor named Andy (Kevin Christy), who, like Dylan, seems to have an erotic relationship with his computer, and Lisa (Maite Schwartz), an anorgasmic actress.

Sexuality and romance, though, are secondary themes here; the burden of work, especially creative work, takes priority. Each character tries to make money and art at the same time. This same longing also pervades the quarterlife social network. Like a small, expensive New England college, the site clearly aims to attract disaffected dreamers, with forums devoted to acting, art, dance, design, film and video, music and writing. Users can upload their own work to the site.

Which raises a question: Does Web exposure count as artistic achievement, or is the Web just a way station on the road to mainstream recognition? It’s hard to tell what conclusion to draw from Herskovitz and Zwick’s own story. Having attracted more than two million views since its Nov. 11 debut, “quarterlife” is now slated to appear on NBC starting in February. The show, over which Herskovitz and Zwick will maintain ownership and creative control, is at last ready for prime time.

This is rich: ABC originally commissioned Herskovitz and Zwick to make a pilot called “ 1/4life,” only to drop it from the fall 2005 schedule. Angry at network executives empowered by media consolidation, the pair overhauled the show and put it online, leaving behind in TV-land other writer-producers, many of whom are now striking against the same corporate entities that bedeviled Herskovitz and Zwick.

Before its online premiere, Herskovitz hastened to reassure fans that “quarterlife” on the Web shouldn’t scare anyone, and he courted traditionalists, emphasizing that the show was “a regular television series.” Now that NBC is clamoring for it, he stresses the show’s experimental aspect, recently telling The Hollywood Reporter, “This is really a new form that doesn’t pertain to any other series or program out there.”

The characters in “quarterlife” vacillate between those same extremes: they want to create work that is not so original as to be incomprehensible, and not so ordinary as to be obsolete. In recasting this perennial challenge for a new generation, Herskovitz and Zwick have cannily positioned the Internet as a supercharacter. It is life’s all-seeing arbiter and rainmaker — a god, really. At the same time, the producers have kept their focus on the vulnerable mortals who sacrifice their personal lives for that god’s greater glory. Dylan waxes poetic on her blog; Lisa circulates her acting reel on the Web; Danny and Jed make film online. The Internet is the place where the young are revealed, judged, apotheosized.

And blessed with fame. Dylan’s blog — initially a source of horror to her friends, who can’t believe she’s discussing their secrets online — soon becomes an obsession and infallible archive, a source of renown.

Loss of privacy, as mid- and late-lifers have been amazed to discover in the past decade, is apparently a small price to pay for fame. For young people, joining a virtual community — one far vaster than can be cultivated in the finite social world — is the first step in fashioning an identity and later an artistic persona. The trade-off for steadfastly supplying your network with your whereabouts and loveabouts is supposed to be that when you’re done free-associating about movies and you’re ready to make one, once your work is no longer a product of a quarter-life crisis but a confident and original form of self-invention, your carefully maintained “friends” (would-be consumers and fans) will be willing to tune in.

Points of Entry

Kids Today: It’s more of the same, and like nothing you’ve ever seen. Like the youth of today. “Quarterlife” is a Web serial — scripted, well shot, addictive. What else are you going to watch with the writers’ strike on? It’s easy too: quarterlife.com

Kids Yesterday: Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick’s magnum opus, “My So-Called Life,” which ran for six golden months in 1994 and 1995, is at last available on DVD. Get your extras, your Claire Danes interviews and your mid-’90s memories on Amazon.com. Also, the sparkling mscl.com — a full-dress tribute site — is there to hold your hand when you’re mourning the show’s cancellation one more time.

Kids Tomorrow: I’ve always loved “The Burg,” an online comedy set in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. It’s about artsy quarter-lifers, but also by artsy quarter-lifers. Much more D.I.Y. than “quarterlife,” it’s always almost out of business, like any flailing artist. “The Burg” deploys music, editing tricks and graphics in a way that reflects profound intimacy with the Web. Theburg.tv.

 

Published at 19:49 ( 1 comment / 322 visits )
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