Today's just-before Christmas issue offers links to PennSounds' Threads Talk Series, the interactive online story Balloons of Bhutan, Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner, the Smithsonian Institution Archives Education Page for teachers of K-12, and the new poetry journal Aesthetix. The video feature is the trailer for a documentary, Made in India, about the remarkable phenomenon known as "outsourced surrogacy".
May all my readers enjoy the beauty of this holiday season!
✦ A series titled Threads Talk Series, with poets, artists, publishers, and scholars, curated by Steve Clay of Granary Books in New York City, can be found at Penn Sound. Begun in 2009, the series includes talks on book arts with Charles Alexander, Alan Loney, Simon Cutts, Jerome Rothenberg, and Johanna Drucker, and others.
✦ Brooklyn artist Jonathan Harris has put his Balloons of Bhutan: A Portrait of Happiness in the Last Himalayan Kingdom online as an interactive story.
Jonathan Harris, "The Web's Secret Stories", TED Talk (17:14 minutes)
We Feel Fine (Website of Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar)
✦ One of the highlights of Westminster Abbey is Poets' Corner in the South Transept. A stone commemorating the late Ted Hughes was placed there December 6, at the foot of the stone memorializing T.S. Eliot.
✦ Browsing online educational content for K-12 students can be time-consuming. If you're a teacher or a parent who enjoys exploring fascinating content with your children, begin with the Smithsonian Institution Archives Education Page. There you'll find online versions of primary sources, from diaries and letters to historic photographs, as well as lesson plans to make the most of the Smithsonian's resources.
✦ A new poetry journal has come online: Aesthetix, which publishes a single featured title in its quarterly issues. Themes to date have been "Red Car in the Future" and "Arrow". Submissions from new and established writers are welcome. Submission guidelines are here. (My thanks to Newpages for the link to the journal.)
✦ Rebecca Haimowitz and Vaishali Sinha have produced an award-winning documentary, Made in India, about the "outsourcing" of surrogacy. The film follows a working-class couple from San Antonio, Texas, in their quest to find a surrogate mother in Mumbai, India. The social, economic, and cultural implications and ramifications of this experience in reproductive surrogacy are profound. Here's the trailer for this extraordinary, thought-provoking film:
The film was screened in Washington, D.C., on December 4 and will premiere in Bangladesh in January. For information on educational or other copies for screening, go here. Interviews and other news features about the film and its topic can be found here.
Made in India on FaceBook
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5 comments:
I have been fascinated by Jonathan harris' work since first introduced me his Ted Talk a couple of years ago.
the trailer to Made in Indiz is compelling.
thanks for such a rich Saturday sharing.
I remember when Jonathan Harris made the news with his happiness work, so this is a treat to peruse this interactive book. I need to watch that TED talk too. I'll be thinking about this for a while.
Just to say, Merry Christmas, Maureen. You bring so many blessings--make this tired world a more beautiful place.
beauty sparkles in the eye
beauty speaks from the heart
in the sleeping beauty rests
beauty is where thou art
Happy Holidays!
Christmas blessings, Maureen, and many thanks for all that you bring to the blogging community.
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