LOWELL, Mass. (AP) — During Buddhist monk Ly Van Aggadipo’s final days, he wrote often in a notebook. Temple followers knew the nonagenarian spiritual mentor to many local Cambodian refugees was recording some sort of personal history, but they weren’t sure what. “He told me, ‘When I’m gone, make sure others read this so people don’t forget what happened,’” follower Sokhar Sao said. “I didn’t really understand until he was gone.” Next month, friends and followers will release a book of poetry by Ly Van, who survived the brutal communist Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia and later led the Glory Buddhist Temple in Lowell from 1988 until his death in January 2008. The book, entitled “O! Maha Mount Dangrek,” is a collection of two lengthy poems: one an autobiographical piece on the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, the other about a friend’s story of love in the time of genocide. The title in English means “Oh Mighty Mount Dangrek” and refers to the mountainous plateau between the Cambodia-Thailand border that refugees were forced to climb in order to escape the Khmer Rouge regime. Organizers plan a 14-city tour to promote the book with readings and accompanying musical performances by two young Cambodian artists. The tour will begin April 1 at a Middlesex Community College reading in Lowell and continue with stops in Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Paul, Minn., and Long Beach, Calif. The publication of Ly Van’s work, printed in its original Khmer and in English, completes a two-year project by followers. The day he died, a follower found the poetry tucked under stacks of old Buddhist texts inside the temple. On worn pages were handwritten, carefully crafted poems describing Ly Van’s memories of labor camps, starvation and infant executions and his dreams of escaping to America. “We all said, ‘Wow … we have to publish this,’” said Samkhann Khoeun, who studied under Ly Van and served as the book’s editor. “Here was something so beautiful describing something so horrible. It brought tears to our eyes.” Khoeun then went on a campaign to get the book published. The Glory Buddhist Temple and local nonprofit groups Light of Cambodian Children and Cambodian Expressions agreed to help with the publication cost, while Khoeun worked on translation with other refugees. Ly Van was born in 1917 in a small Cambodian village where he and his family lived through the 1970s rule of the Khmer Rouge regime, which perpetrated one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. An estimated 1.7 million people died from starvation, disease and executions due to the group’s radical policies. According to the temple’s biography of Ly Van, he was forced to work on farms and public projects 14 hours a day. It was during this time that he witnessed mass executions and large-scale starvation. In early 1979, when Vietnamese soldiers invaded Cambodia, Ly Van and thousands of others fled to Thailand through dangerous terrain where he and others ended up at refugee camps while hoping for asylum to the U.S. with the help of the U.N. He and his family were granted asylum and resettled in Lowell, an old mill city less than an hour’s drive northwest of Boston. Today about 20,000 Cambodians live in or around the city, making it second only to Long Beach for the largest number of Cambodians living in the United States. As a refugee in Lowell, Ly Van helped establish the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, which promotes educational, cultural, economic and social programs for Cambodian-Americans and other minorities, before leading the Glory Buddhist Temple until his death of old age at 90. But while counseling his fellow refugees and performing volunteer efforts, Ly Van quietly worked and reworked his long poems about horrific moments in his life that he rarely shared. Besides the epic poems, the new book also features photos of Khmer Rouge-era Cambodia and of refugee camps in Thailand. Some of the photos are from the collection of photojournalist Jay Mather, whose images helped earn him a 1980 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting with reporter Joel Brinkley while at The Courier-Journal newspaper of Louisville, Ky. Others come from refugees’ personal collections and the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has documented Khmer Rouge atrocities. Khoeun said he wanted readers to see images related to Ly Van’s poetry. “We have to face it,” said Khoeun, 47. “This is what we went through.” Sao, who has a bullet wound on one of his calves from being shot at a refugee camp, agreed. “It’s painful to see and remember,” said Sao, also 47. “Every time I hear the words Khmer Rouge I get a little emotional. So you can imagine what’s going on when I read this poetry and see these images.” Around 3,000 copies of the book are planned for the first printing, with proceeds going to costs for a planned second printing, Khoeun said. The goal is not to make money, Ly Van’s followers said, but to share the story of Cambodian refugees with others. “I think my own children don’t believe what we went through to get here,” said Sao, a father of four children who were born in the U.S. “I don’t talk about it much and can’t put it into words like this.”
March 20, 2010 | Posted in
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — The children’s animated TV series “Handy Manny Big Race” is going prime time Saturday night with Dale Earnhardt Jr. NASCAR star Earnhardt voices the character of Chase Davis, who steps in to help Manny compete in the Wood Valley 500 auto race. The special, debuting at 7 p.m. EDT Saturday on the Disney Channel, stars Wilmer Valderrama as the voice of Manny. Earnhardt says he decided to participate in “Handy Manny” because his 4-year-old niece is a fan of the show. The Disney Channel series is designed to teach preschoolers about working together and problem-solving. The “Handy Manny” special also features a new song performed by Lance Bass, who voices the character of Elliot.
March 20, 2010 | Posted in
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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A lesbian high school student embroiled in a legal flap over her school’s prom policy has received a $30,000 scholarship on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” Constance McMillen was speechless Friday when the talk show host pulled out an oversized check from the Web site Tonic.Com, a digital media company. DeGeneres says she admires McMillen for challenging Itawamba County School District rules that would prevent her from escorting her girlfriend to the prom. The school district canceled the April 2 prom after McMillen’s request. A hearing is scheduled Monday in federal court in Aberdeen on American Civil Liberties Union efforts to force the district to hold the prom.
March 19, 2010 | Posted in
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GENEVA (AP) — Geneva’s new “Parsifal” production escaped the boos heard after several recent Richard Wagner opera premieres at the Grand Theatre, with a richly colored staging accompanying music that was at times so sensuous the allegory of Christian salvation seemed destined to end in embrace. Perhaps it was a nod to Wagner the young revolutionary, and not the moralizing elder, that Swiss director Roland Aeschlimann chose to finish the German composer’s final opera with spiritual and earthly redemption. Instead of falling lifelessly to the ground, the bewitched temptress Kundry walked halfway across the stage during Thursday night’s opener to seek out the Holy Grail’s shamed keeper Amfortas. In place of a scripted solemn bow to the hero Parsifal, Amfortas takes Kundry in his arms as both are relieved of suffering. After more than four hours of often sublime music under American maestro John Fiore, and a stage that alternated in ethereal blues, greens and violets, the ploy worked. And after loud boos at a 2008 “Lohengrin” production that situated medieval Belgium in Communist Party headquarters, and mixed reaction to a 2005 “Tannhaeuser” staging featuring a pornographic actor, the modern but subdued rendering of Parsifal won over Geneva’s conservative collection of Wagner aficionados. “It was very beautiful to watch, and it was important that it was faithful to Wagner’s idea,” said Georges Schuerch, president of the local Wagner society. He said he would attend Sunday’s second performance as well. There were scattered “Bravi” from the crowds. The largest were for experienced bass-baritone Albert Dohmen and for the conductor Fiore, who kept the orchestra tidy through the score’s infinite melody and leitmotifs. Where soft winds were called for, the lulling sound was entrancing; at moments of triumph, the big brass cracked the air. The story of Parsifal is a complicated mixture of pagan mysticism, Christianity and Buddhism, and the Geneva production seeks to break it down to the basics. The opera starts with the forces of good in trouble, as the knight-priests guarding the Holy Grail have lost the magical spear that pierced Christ’s body and formed the complement to the chalice Jesus drank from. The impure Klingsor, a former outcast of the fellowship, now has one-half of the hoard of the world and has the grail in his sights. Only an innocent fool can save the knights and their leader, Amfortas, who is refusing his grail duties out of shame for losing the spear while succumbing to Kundry’s seduction. Parsifal enters an idiot child, but after withstanding the charms of Kundry and the other beauties of Klingsor’s realm, retrieves the spear and heals Amfortas of his flesh and spiritual wounds. Kundry is redeemed as well. Aeschlimann paints the Kingdom of the Grail in a mist of heavenly azure, with the knights’ names inscribed on the stage. As the knights in trench coats congregate for their sacred ceremony, a floating vault appears with jumbled letters and symbols like the riddles of the universe. The grail is uncovered and the mess clears away, shooting an effigy of Jesus into the air and then a bright light as if shining through a black hole. But then things turn swampy, as the opera enters Klingsor’s green haze of a valley below. Light has been replaced by a giant hypnotist spiral as Klingsor’s spell forces Kundry to do her dirty work. Then it’s a menacing spear hanging vertically on the stage, highlighting the omnipresent threat Parsifal faces and his holy task even as Klingsor’s sexy flower maidens lavish the hero with caresses. In this version, Parsifal nearly loses his shirt. It would have been less appealing if not for the strikingly handsome German tenor Klaus Florian Vogt, whose looks were as important as his clean, untiring voice in making Aeschlimann’s staging a success. Finally, the opera returns to the knights on a billowy white bed. The grail is revealed again, and Parsifal climbs the mantle toward truth’s shining light as the music returns to Wagner’s hymn of love and praise. The largely German cast provided delightful diction, with Vogt looking and sounding the part of a Wagnerian heldentenor. Dohmen gave a dignified, elegant performance as the moderating knight Gurnemanz, and Lioba Braun was equally sultry in Kundry’s red dress and convincing in her remorse, even if some higher notes were forced. Andrew Greenan was a menacing Klingsor, but Detlef Roth seemed a bit too epileptic as Amfortas and wasn’t helped by some rather buffoonish white paint on his face. Six more performances are planned through April 2.
March 19, 2010 | Posted in
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PITTSBURGH (AP) — Mister Rogers cared deeply about his neighbors and his neighborhood, both in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe and in real life. Now, friends and colleagues of late television icon Fred Rogers want to honor his legacy with a national day of volunteering on his birthday. Rogers, who died in 2003 after battling stomach cancer, would have been 82 on Saturday. David Newell, who played Mr. McFeely on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” said volunteering meant a lot to Rogers. As a boy, Rogers volunteered at his hometown hospital in Latrobe, Pa., rolling bandages for soldiers during WWII. And, Newell said, public television, where Rogers’ series began, relies on volunteers. The idea for the Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Day grew out of Sweater Day, which Family Communications Inc. of Pittsburgh has promoted over the past several years to honor Rogers. Rogers created the company to produce his show and other family friendly educational fare. Of course, people still are encouraged to wear sweaters in Rogers’ honor. “The sweater is the touchstone to Fred,” Newell said. The volunteer day is beginning this year in partnership with the United Way of Allegheny County, the county in which Pittsburgh is located and where the show was made. “We’re trying to establish this as a national event, but you’ve got to start small,” Newell said. “It’s really what Fred would want to happen. He wanted to help others.” Suggested volunteer ideas are simple acts, such as lending an ear to someone, offering to return a shopping cart or volunteering at a senior center. Around Pittsburgh, various museums and other institutions are offering free or reduced admissions to mark the day. While there always are opportunities to volunteer, a dedicated day helps reinvigorate volunteerism, said Tracey Reed Armant, manager of community outcomes for United Way of Allegheny County. The United Way also sees Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Day as a way of recognizing people who volunteer. Rogers’ legacy also extends beyond cardigans and kindness: He’s recognized as a pioneer in children’s’ educational television, and that work is still being carried on. “I think that the really important thing about Fred Rogers is he took the cutting edge technology of his day, television, and he applied to it this wonderful philosophy and this strong set of wonderful educational values and created something that reached million of families all over the world and uplifted their lives,” said Maxwell King, executive director of the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at St. Vincent College in Latrobe. On Monday and Tuesday, the center is hosting the inaugural Fred Forward Conference, which will look at how emerging technologies and new media can be used in developmentally appropriate and educational ways for children. “Now, there is so much technology and people are struggling to figure how to use it to uplift children,” King said. “And Fred is a wonderful, powerful example that this can be done.” While the day will come when children don’t know who Mister Rogers was, King said the important thing is “that they understand and benefit from Fred’s values and Fred’s approach.” — On The Net: Fred Rogers Center: http://www.fredrogerscenter.org Family Communications Inc.: http://www.fci.org
March 19, 2010 | Posted in
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CASSELBERRY, Fla. (AP) — Actresses Demi Moore and Nia Vardalos were linked to an online chain of Twitter posts that ultimately led to Florida authorities intervening Friday when an 18-year-old man threatened to commit suicide. Moore’s Twitter account, mrskutcher, was among those responding to a message from a young man threatening to hang himself in his front yard in Casselberry, north of Orlando. Moore – with more than 2.5 million followers – and husband Ashton Kutcher are both active on the social network. Vardalos’ eponymous account included a message that she had called a suicide hotline and been connected to Florida police. “I gave his name+city. They went to home, helped him,” one message read. The Seminole County Sheriff’s Office said authorities received two calls around 2:30 a.m., one from California and one from Vancouver, British Columbia. Both callers reported the suicide threat on Twitter. There was no record of the callers’ names, Lt. Sonia Pisano said. Deputies went to a home and took the man to a hospital, Pisano said. The teen’s mother told the deputy responding that her son “was very emotional and diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder,” according to a report released Friday by the sheriff’s office. Her son was sitting at his computer desk crying when he told the officer he “did not know what to do with himself without help” and admitted to posting the tweet. The man was then placed in protective custody. A phone message left by The Associated Press at the home was not immediately returned. Calls to representatives for Moore and for Vardalos, who starred in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” went unanswered early Friday. Moore’s Twitter account was involved in a similar case last April, when a California woman messaged that she was going to kill herself. San Jose police said they took a woman to a hospital for “psychiatric evaluation” after someone called about a tweet sent to Moore threatening suicide.
March 19, 2010 | Posted in
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ROME (AP) — A collection of ancient Greek silverware dating to the third century B.C. is going on display in Rome after being returned by the Metropolitan Museum in New York, officials said Friday. The 16 pieces of silverware with gold detail were returned as part of Italy’s aggressive campaign against illegal trafficking in antiquities. They include two large bowls, a cup with two handles, plates and drinking utensils. Italian art officials said the pieces form one of the most important Hellenistic silverware collections to have survived from Sicily. The pieces are known as “The Morgantina Treasure” after the name of the ancient Greek settlement where they were excavated, near what is now the Italian city of Aidone. Angelo Bottini, the archaeology superintendent in Rome, said the objects were likely crafted by different artists and served different functions. Some, like the large bowls with mask-shaped feet, were likely used to mix wine with water during meals; others, like the plates, were likely used during ceremonies, officials said. The pieces came back as part of a deal with the Met that also led to the return of the Euphronios Krater, a 6th-century B.C. painted vase that is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of its kind. They will go on display at the Museo Nazionale Romano in the Italian capital from Saturday through May 23. The show then moves to Sicily. Italy has been aggressively campaigned to recover antiquities it says were looted from the country and sold to museums worldwide. It has secured the return of dozens of Roman, Greek and Etruscan artifacts in deals with museums including the Met and California’s J. Paul Getty Museum. In exchange, Italian art officials have agreed to give long-term loans of equally significant treasures.
March 19, 2010 | Posted in
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Like most people who receive lifetime-achievement awards, Jerry Bruckheimer wants everyone to know he’s not finished yet. “Hopefully, there’s more to come,” said Bruckheimer, the producer of such franchises as “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “National Treasure” and “Beverly Hills Cop,” who received a career prize Thursday night at closing ceremonies of the ShoWest convention for theater owners. Before the awards, ShoWest crowds got their first look at Bruckheimer’s next potential franchise – “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” an action adventure starring Jake Gyllenhaal that opens May 28. Bruckheimer follows with another summer offering July 16, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” an action comedy with “National Treasure” star Nicolas Cage. Bruckheimer is developing a third installment in the “National Treasure” series, which stars Cage as an unorthodox history scholar racing to unlock hidden secrets that lead to vanished riches. Filming begins in June on “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” the fourth installment in the franchise starring Johnny Depp as woozy buccaneer Capt. Jack Sparrow. Due in theaters in May 2011, the film picks up where the last one left off, as Sparrow embarks on a new quest with a map to the fountain of youth in hand. Penelope Cruz co-stars, with Geoffrey Rush reprising his role as pirate Barbossa and Ian McShane signing on as Blackbeard. “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” earned Depp a best-actor nomination at the Academy Awards and launched a trilogy as the story continued with two sequels. With Depp’s Sparrow sailing off on a fresh voyage, Bruckheimer said he did not yet know if “On Stranger Tides” might lead to more films in the series. “When we made the first one, it was only going to be one movie,” Bruckheimer said. “So you never know. If Johnny stays in love with the character, hopefully we could continue it.” Bruckheimer, 62, said he knew he wanted to go into show business by the time he was 5 or 6. It was just a matter of figuring out the right job. “I knew that acting wasn’t something I would be good at. I’m not the kind of person who likes to stand in front of the crowd and pound my chest,” Bruckheimer said. “I’m more the person who likes to be behind the scenes and make sure everything goes right.” Bruckheimer started out making commercials and moved into films in the early 1970s, earning his first producer credit on Robert Mitchum’s 1975 crime thriller, “Farewell, My Lovely.” In the 1980s and ’90s, Bruckheimer established himself as a Hollywood powerhouse with such hits as “Flashdance,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Con Air” and Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun” and “Days of Thunder.” Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay teamed on a string of movies that included “Bad Boys” and “Bad Boys II,” “Armageddon,” “The Rock” and “Pearl Harbor.” Bruckheimer’s television credits include the “CSI” franchise, “Without a Trace” and “The Amazing Race.” While he has made more serious movies such as Cate Blanchett’s Irish drama “Veronica Guerin” and Denzel Washington’s racial-integration football story “Remember the Titans,” Bruckheimer aims his movies for mainstream audiences, not critics or awards voters. “I think when you do that, you fail. I’ve got to make pictures that I want to see,” Bruckheimer said. “I don’t know what critics like, I don’t know what reviewers like. Maybe someday, they’ll match up.”
March 19, 2010 | Posted in
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LONDON (AP) — It was a book, then an award-winning film. Now Ian McEwan’s “Atonement” is to become an opera. McEwan says he is working on an adaptation with composer Michael Berkeley and poet Craig Raine. He told Friday’s Times newspaper he wanted it to be on a grand scale, saying “it’s not a chamber piece, that’s for sure.” “Atonement” travels from an English country house to World War II France and centers on a love affair doomed by a child’s misunderstanding. The 2001 novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. A 2007 film adaptation starring Keira Knightley was nominated for seven Oscars and won one, for music. The newspaper says opera houses in England, Germany and the U.S. are in talks about co-producing the piece for a possible 2013 premiere.
March 19, 2010 | Posted in
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former porn actress says she may reveal more potentially embarrassing information about Tiger Woods after releasing sexually graphic text messages that she claims prove her affair with the golfer. Joslyn James told The Associated Press on Thursday that she disclosed the messages because she wants people to realize that she was honest when she came forth earlier this year and said Woods had avidly pursued her. “I just wanted the public to know and the truth to be out there for me to have people see what I was being told and not just judge me for being with a married guy,” she said. James posted more than 100 texts on her Web site Thursday, including some in which arrangements were made for her to meet with Woods at hotels where he was staying. Others stated a desire for rough sex, including messages dated Aug. 29 in which a person James says is Woods tells her he wants to slap her and that she should beg the next time he sees her. James, whose real name is Veronica Siwik-Daniels, said she met Woods when she was working at a Las Vegas nightclub he frequented. She said he led her to believe she was the only woman in his life other than his wife. “If I would have known everything that was going on, and wasn’t being lied to, I would have done things differently,” she said. A request for comment from a Woods spokesman was not immediately returned. She has saved more than 1,000 texts Woods sent her, James said, and plans to release more in the days ahead. She posted the first batch just two days after Woods announced he was ending his four-month, self-imposed exile to play at the Masters at Augusta National in Georgia. They could be a distraction to golf’s greatest player as he prepares for his comeback. The final three texts James released Thursday were dated Oct. 4 and indicate the sender became enraged with her, apparently after their relationship was nearly discovered. “Don’t … talk to me,” the final one said. “You almost just ruined my whole life. If my agent and these guys would have seen you there … ” She said the relationship didn’t end, however, until several weeks later. James is only posting messages she says are from Woods and none from herself to the golfer. She said that’s because her cell phone quickly overwrites outgoing texts and she wasn’t able to save them.
March 19, 2010 | Posted in
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