Search results for

We’re dependent on our cars because of freeways and the decisions made around building them. Now imagine a future where we don’t need to drive our cars every day. What would it take to decommission a freeway in San Diego? That is the premise explored in a new podcast by KPBS called “Freeway Exit.” The first two episodes of the six-part series are available May 9, followed by a new episode dropping each week through June 6.

On April 30, 1993, the World Wide Web was released into the public domain. It revolutionized the internet and allowed users to create websites filled with graphics, audio and hyperlinks.

Wikipedia defines the Lunar New Year as the beginning of a calendar year whose months are moon cycles, based on the lunar calendar or lunisolar calendar. The Lunar New Year as a celebration is observed by numerous cultures. It is featured in the Chinese calendar of the East Asian cultural sphere the Hindu-Buddhist calendars of South and Southeast Asia, the Islamic calendar and the Jewish calendar in the Middle East, and is also celebrated by the indigenous Nisga’a people of Canada. History.com further comments that the Lunar New Year is one of the most important celebrations of the year among East and Southeast Asian cultures, including Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean communities, among others. The New Year celebration is usually celebrated for multiple days—not just one day as in the Gregorian calendar’s New Year. In 2023, Lunar New Year begins on January 22. China’s Lunar New Year is known as the Spring Festival or Chūnjié in Mandarin, while Koreans call it Seollal and Vietnamese refer to it as Tết. Tied to the lunar calendar, the holiday began as a time for feasting and to honor household and heavenly deities, as well as ancestors. The New Year typically begins with the first new moon that occurs between the end of January and spans the first 15 days of the first month of the lunar calendar—until the full moon arrives. This class will be taught by poet Jim Moreno on January 22, the start of the Lunar New Year of 2023. Beginning and seasoned poets will experience a multicultural poetic dance that resonates to the tune of both Wikipedia and History.com definitions. The goal, of course, is to create abundant room for Lunar New Year poets to expand cultural horizons and consciousness. Participants in the class are welcomed to the Container of respect and safety that are the foundation of Moreno’s classes. Chinese poet Lou You, Southern Song Dynasty (1127 – 1279) wrote, In early morning, a north wind brings snow; It’s a blessing from Heaven arriving in time. I haven’t yet raised my half cup of Tusu wine to toast the New Year; Busy writing peach wood charms by lamplight. Contemporary Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Bá Trạc wrote, New Year’s Eve / Seven thousand people beating tin walls in lieu of firecrackers / Sounds of joy mixed with sorrow / Has the nightmare passed yet / When will spring come? What comes after Tết / where will we go… Twelve-year-old Korean poet Amy Shin writes, Before breakfast, every member of the family must respectively worship the ancestors. We set a ritual table that has the ancestral tablet and ritual food on top, Offerings of fresh and colourful herbs, fish, and fruit. To worship the ancestors, we bow, give offerings, and say prayers. We ask the Gods that we may live long and be healthy throughout the year. Moreno has stated that our nation is not a melting pot; it’s a mosaic of multiple cultures. In other words, that makes the opposite of racism, the polarity of truth, that one culture can heal the sickness in another culture, e.g. the Ukranians as models for our country being in unity and moving away from polarity. Perhaps Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and poet’s poem, "Call Me By My True Name," expresses the essence of the Lunar New Year when he writes, Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow—even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. These and other poets will serve as a harbinger for how the Lunar New Year may introduce you to a happy and creative 2023. Sign up and pay the fee. Jim will then e-mail the class syllabus to you after Writers Ink forwards your e-mail address to him the day before the class on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023. You will receive your class syllabus with a bibliography. You will also receive the Zoom ID link to this class when you receive your syllabus. Join Mr. Moreno for this class which resonates with belonging, dignity and respect for all cultures and colors of skin. You will be emailed the Zoom link 24 hours before the start of class. Be sure to check your Spam/Junk folders just in case! If you sign up less than 24 hours before the start of the class, please email Kristen at programs@sandiegowriters.org for your link.

The U.S. Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists.

Russians face a confusing patchwork of online restrictions as the Kremlin cracks down on the free flow of information on social media.

Art can make the brain's wiring stronger, more flexible and ready to learn, say the authors of a new book, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us.

As Canada and parts of the U.S. confront declines in air quality due to smoke from Canadian wildfires, NPR reporters in Asia, Latin America and Africa share their experiences.

From the gallery: BEST PRACTICE is pleased to announce the opening of We miss, the first U.S. solo presentation of the work of Hyeyeon Kim. The exhibition will consist of two videos and a reinterpretation of a past performance work. About the works: "Room for Breathing Only" is a video piece that depicts what appears to be a ritual performed by three women in a dimly lit room. For this work, the artist gathered her mother and grandmother in a room where they were given simple instructions to - without talking - communicate only through the tearing and crumpling of a single piece of blank paper. "Take Care (2019)" is a performance piece in which willing participants following instructions to board a train in Seoul, South Korea at a particular time and to look in a specific direction as the train leaves the station are greeted in the distance by the artist waving to them. For her show at Best Practice, Hyeyeon has reworked Take Care to happen periodically over the course of the exhibition and to be viewed online through an extensive municipal CCTV system installed throughout the metropolitan region of Seoul. She will appear briefly during the opening reception. For "Backwards to the Future (2021)," the artist stitched together a 14-minute long video narrative using only leftover and extraneous footage from several years of previous video projects. "Without shooting anything new, I decided to create a work with only the footage I already had. Looking at the huge amount of trash that is waiting because there is no more space to dump it, it seems that mankind can now be sustained with what has already been made. Need to invent new ones? The same goes for artworks. Potential trash sleeping in the corners of computers, cell phones, and external hard drives? This time, I will call them potential works." — Hyeyeon Kim About the artist: Hyeyeon Kim is a video and performance artist. She is interested in the interaction of people and social norms that shape personal relationships. She received her MFA from the University of California, San Diego in 2012. She currently lives and works in Seoul. Related links: Best Practice on Instagram

Two childhood sweethearts reconnect decades later in this thoughtful film. You've seen the more conventional romantic-triangle version of this story — but there are no heroes and no villains here.