Posts by RZ

The Oscar 2013 Winners

Posted by on Feb 26, 2013

The Oscars 2013 Award Ceremony was held on Sunday 24 February

 

The Winners

Best Picture: Argo

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Lincoln

Best Acress: Jennifer Lawrence
Silver Linings Playbook

Best Actor  – in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz
Django Unchained

Best Actress – in a Supporting Role: Anne Hathaway
Les Misérables

Best Animated Feature Film: Brave

Best Cinematography: Life of Pi

Best Costume Design: Anna Karenina
Jacqueline Durran

Best Directing: Life of Pi
Ang Lee

Best Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugar Man
Malik Bendjelloul and Simon Chinn

Best Documentary Short: Inocente
Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine

Best Film Editing: Argo
William Goldenberg

Best Foreign Language Film: Amour
Austria

Best Makeup and HairstylingA: Les Misérables
Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell

Best Music – Original Score: Life of Pi
Mychael Danna

Best Music – Original Song: “Skyfall” from Skyfall
Music and Lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth

Best Production Design: Lincoln
Rick Carter (Production Design); Jim Erickson (Set Decoration)

Best Short Film – Animated: Paperman
John Kahrs

Best Short Film – Live Action:  Curfew
Shawn Christensen

Best Sound Editing: Skyfall
Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers

Best Sound Mixing: Les Misérables
Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes

Best Visual Effects: Life of Pi:
Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott

Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay: Argo
Written by Chris Terrio

Best Writing – Original Screenplay: Django Unchained
Written by Quentin Tarantino

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Make Good Art: Neil Gaiman’s Commencement Address

Posted by on Feb 11, 2013

 When things get tough, this is what you should do:  Make good art.  

I’m serious.       Husband runs off with a politician — make good art.      

Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor — make good art.      

 IRS on your trail — make good art.      Cat exploded — make good art.      

 Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before    — make good art.

— Neil Gaiman —

 

Above: Neil Gaiman giving his commencement address at the University of the Arts Class of 2012

We’re moving into a New Galaxy in which we have the ability to discover the realm of the Legendary Beings – the RainbowZebra.

It is very appropriate that the people that have the privilege of opening the doors to the new realm are all those that keep the spirit of Creation alive within – and express it in their lives. The Artists, the Writers, the Musicians, the Storytellers, the Dancers, the Architects and all those that love the Creative Spirit.

One person who has kept this creative spirit alive more than most, is Neil Gaiman and in this video he shares some good advice for anyone interested in following the creative path.

Neil Gaiman started reading at four and always wanted to be a writer

His commencement address at the University of the Arts Class of 2012 is a classic. The author, who admits he never had a career path planned out, says he just had always made sure he was heading in the right direction to get to the “mountain” in the distance in his mind, that he wanted to “climb”.

Addressing the appreciative audience Gaiman says he just left school and started writing…and continued to write as a journalist, novelist, poet and graphic novelist most famous perhaps for his series of Graphic Novels: Sandman

If you wonder whether this strategy paid off for him, use the link to view a bibliography of his work, and scroll through the list of awards he has received, below.

 

 

http://www.neilgaimanbibliography.com/allmenu.html

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One Billion Rising: Join V-Day on Valentines Day 2013

Posted by on Jan 23, 2013

 
What does ONE BILLION look like? On 14 February 2013, it will look like a REVOLUTION.
One In Three Women On The Planet Will Be Raped Or Beaten In Her Lifetime.
One Billion Women Violated Is An Atrocity.
One Billion Women Dancing Is A Revolution.


Join V-Day on
02.14.13

STRIKE, DANCE, RISE
in your community &
Demand an
end to violence

ABOUT ONE BILLION RISING

On V-Day’s 15th Anniversary, 14 February 2013, we are inviting ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence. ONE BILLION RISING will move the earth, activating women and men across every country. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders.

What does ONE BILLION look like? On 14 February 2013, it will look like a REVOLUTION.

ONE BILLION RISING IS:

A global strike
An invitation to dance
A call to men and women to refuse to participate in the status quo until rape and rape culture ends
An act of solidarity, demonstrating to women the commonality of their struggles and their power in numbers
A refusal to accept violence against women and girls as a given
A new time and a new way of being

START A RISING 
OR FIND ONE NEAR YOU TO JOIN 

Eve Ensler is the founder of One Billion Rising

Eve Ensler, Tony Award winning playwright, performer, and activist, is the author of The Vagina Monologues, which has been translated into over 48 languages, performed in over 140 countries, including sold-out runs at both Off-Broadway’s Westside Theater and on London’s West End (2002 Olivier Award nomination, Best Entertainment), and has run for 10 years in Mexico City and Paris. http://www.eveensler.org/about-eve/

Over It

By Eve Ensler

I am over rape.

I am over rape culture, rape mentality, rape pages on Facebook.

I am over the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame.

I am over people demanding their right to rape pages, and calling it freedom of speech or justifying it as a joke.

I am over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I am over being told I don’t have a sense of humor, and women don’t have a sense of humor, when most women I know (and I know a lot) are really fucking funny. We just don’t think that uninvited penises up our anus, or our vagina is a laugh riot.

I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape.

I am over Facebook taking weeks to take down rape pages.

I am over the hundreds of thousands of women in Congo still waiting for the rapes to end and the rapists to be held accountable.

I am over the thousands of women in Bosnia, Burma, Pakistan, South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, you name a place, still waiting for justice.

I am over rape happening in broad daylight.

I am over the 207 clinics in Ecuador supported by the government that are capturing, raping, and torturing lesbians to make them straight.

I am over one in three women in the U.S military (Happy Veterans Day!) getting raped by their so-called “comrades.”

I am over the forces that deny women who have been raped the right to have an abortion.

I am over the fact that after four women came forward with allegations that Herman Cain groped them and grabbed them and humiliated them, he is still running for the President of the United States.

And I’m over CNBC debate host Maria Bartiromo getting booed when she asked him about it. She was booed, not Herman Cain.

Which reminds me, I am so over the students at Penn State who protested the justice system instead of the rapist pedophile of at least 8 boys, or his boss Joe Paterno, who did nothing to protect those children after knowing what was happening to them.

I am over rape victims becoming re-raped when they go public.

I am over starving Somali women being raped at the Dadaab in Kenya, and I am over women getting raped at Occupy Wall Street and being quiet about it because they were protecting a movement which is fighting to end the pillaging and raping of the economy and the earth, as if the rape of their bodies was something separate.

I am over women still being silent about rape, because they are made to believe it’s their fault or they did something to make it happen.

I am over violence against women not being a #1 international priority when one out of three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime – the destruction and muting and undermining of women is the destruction of life itself.

No women, no future, duh.

I am over this rape culture where the privileged with political and physical and economic might, take what and who they want, when they want it, as much as they want, any time they want it.

I am over the endless resurrection of the careers of rapists and sexual exploiters – film directors, world leaders, corporate executives, movie stars, athletes – while the lives of the women they violated are permanently destroyed, often forcing them to live in social and emotional exile.

I am over the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you?

You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren’t you standing with us? Why aren’t you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?

I am over years and years of being over rape.

And thinking about rape every day of my life since I was 5 years old.

And getting sick from rape, and depressed from rape, and enraged by rape.

And reading my insanely crowded inbox of rape horror stories every hour of every single day.

I am over being polite about rape. It’s been too long now, we have been too understanding.

We need to OCCUPYRAPE in every school, park, radio, TV station, household, office, factory, refugee camp, military base, back room, night club, alleyway, courtroom, UN office. We need people to truly try and imagine – once and for all – what it feels like to have your body invaded, your mind splintered, your soul shattered. We need you to let our rage and our compassion connect us together so we can change the paradigm of global rape.

There are approximately one billion women on the planet who have been violated.

ONE BILLION WOMEN.

The time is now. Prepare for the escalation.

Today it begins, moving toward 14 February 2013, when one billion women will rise to end rape.

Because we are over it.

 

Read Eve Ensler’s open letter to Todd Akin in The Huffington Post 

“Mr. Akin, your words have kept me awake.

As a rape survivor, I am reeling from your recent statement where you said you misspoke when you said that women do not get pregnant from legitimate rape, and that you were speaking “off the cuff.”

Clarification. You didn’t make some glib throw away remark. You made a very specific ignorant statement clearly indicating you have no awareness of what it means to be raped. And not a casual statement, but one made with the intention of legislating the experience of women who have been raped. Perhaps more terrifying: it was a window into the psyche of the GOP.

You used the expression “legitimate” rape as if to imply there were such a thing as “illegitimate” rape. Let me try to explain to you what that does to the minds, hearts and souls of the millions of women on this planet who experience rape. It is a form of re-rape. The underlying assumption of your statement is that women and their experiences are not to be trusted. That their understanding of rape must be qualified by some higher, wiser authority. It delegitimizes and undermines and belittles the horror, invasion, desecration they experienced. It makes them feel as alone and powerless as they did at the moment of rape.”

Read more…

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Msg from Earth: You’re Amazing

Posted by on Dec 27, 2012

Msg from Earth: You’re Amazing

For All Those Who Stood Up for the Health of the Planet and its Inhabitants

Via its Warriors at Greenpeace:

“You are incredible. Thanks for everything you’ve done in 2012. Let’s do it again in 2013.”

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True Colours: The British Paraorchestra

Posted by on Dec 25, 2012

The success of the British Paraorchestra, the world’s first ensemble of professional disabled musicians highlights the fact that millions of very capable and talented people across the world are totally excluded from participating in society simply because of predjudice. 
 Above: The British Paraorchestra perform their new single: True Colours.

Today at Buckingham Palace during the Queen’s Christmas Day Message the National Anthem was performed by the British Paraorchestra. They have become a well respected and familiar part of British music, but before the 2012 Paralympics very few people had even heard of them.

In the 2011 TED Talks video below, Conductor Charles Hazlewood speaks about the inspiration behind the orchestra, and introduces them as they make their first ever public performance.

Hazelwood talks of the universal power of music to communicate across language and cultural barriers, and asks why our musical culture excluded women from its major platforms until the 1960s, and why it still excludes disabled musicians today.

Where, he asks is their voice in society and why have they been rendered invisible.

It was in order to break this culture of exclusivity that Hazelwood formed the British Paraorchestra, the world’s first ensemble of professional disabled musicians. The quality of their music has inspired tens of thousands in Britain and beyond since they stepped into the international limelight with their performance during the closing ceremony of the 2012 Paralympic Games.

Even at their very first public performance, Hazelwood throws down the gauntlet to other countries saying: “Here’s our Paraorchestra, where’s yours?”

True Colours

The British Paraorchestra released the single “True Colours” on Monday 3 December 2012 – the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The single features The Kaos Signing Choir for Deaf & Hearing Children and the voices of ParalympicsGB.

The solo voice heard at the beginning and end of the track belongs to Lyn Levett, from the Paraorchestra. Lyn has cerebral palsy and cannot speak. With state-of-the-art technology she sings through her computer in True Colors, for the very first time.

 Proceeds from sales of the British Paraorchestra ‘True Colors’ will go towards supporting the ParalympicsGB team at the Sochi 2014 Winter Games,

  • to enable The Kaos Signing Choir for Deaf & Hearing Children set up a new Saturday Signing Choir and
  • to fund their next signed song DVD, and
  • for the future growth and development of The British Paraorchestra.
Non-Profit Organisation:

Support the British Paraorchestra 

“The British Paraorchestra is a non-profit organisation. We survive through donation and support from a variety of people and institutions. If you’d like to support us through donation please use the Paypal process on our website it’s secure, guaranteed and easy.

Most of our funding goes into facilitating travel and accommodation for our players, many of whom are dependent on full time personal assistants and travel with wheelchairs and other special equipment. As you can imagine that’s often a major challenge of logistics and accessibility.

We’re working hard to make every penny count and always welcome enquiries from people who want to help. Do contact us if you would like to talk about structural, corporate or institutional donations.

You can donate online, by cheque, bank transfer, credit or debit card and by post. Do get in touch if you need any other way of making a donation. Please make cheques out to British Paraorchestra, contact us for postal address.”

info@paraorchestra.com

http://www.paraorchestra.com/

http://charleshazlewood.com/

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