POLA Container Volumes Increase 17 Percent
SAN PEDRO — The Port of Los Angeles recently released its February 2013 cargo volumes.
Overall, the volumes increased 16.99 percent compared to February 2102. The increase was due in part to a surge in imports prior to the closure of factories for the Chinese New Year.
Imports jumped 25.23 percent from 254,359 20-foot equivalent, TEU, to 318,547 TEUs this February. Exports dropped 4.88 percent, from 164,725 TEUs in February 2012 to 156,690 TEUs in February 2013.
Harbor Currents: NEWS March 15, 2013
Remembering The Graduate
By John Farrell, Contributing Reviewer
If you don’t remember The Graduate as a film, with the memorable line “Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?” as iconic as anything from the 60s, you can see The Graduate at the Long Beach Playhouse’s Mainstage Theater through March 30 and you’ll have a great time.
Clowns Bring Back Laughter LB Playhouse
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By John Farrell, Contributing Theater Reviewer
Slapstick isn’t dead.
Broad, clown-filled comedy is alive and well. Just go to the Long Beach Playhouse’s Studio Theater and see That Beautiful Laugh, a family-friendly laugh-filled story that is much more than just a riotous, reckless physical comedy.
Goad Theatre Presents Tale of Two Kings
By John Farrell
Depending on what scholarship you believe, Williams Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, perhaps a few more with collaborators, perhaps none (if you believe in one of the many pretenders to the throne).
Proposals Proves to be Just OK
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By John Farrell, Contributing Writer
Even Neil Simon, the star of Broadway, can’t always write hits
Remember him for The Odd Couple or Brighton Beach Memoir, not for Proposals, a pleasant but very light weight play that was on Broadway, for a meager 41 performances. The play was revived at the Norris Theatre this February apparently because it was by Simon and that could guarantee an audience.
Pfc. Manning’s First Statement: War and Wikileaks
By Cory Hooker, Editorial Intern
While the U.S. government considers Army intelligence specialist Bradley Manning a villain, the rest of the world considers him a hero.
In 2010, Manning leaked more than 750,000 documents pertaining to the recent wars in the Persian Gulf. In a pretrial hearing, on Feb. 28, Manning said that he released those documents to “expose the American military’s disregard for human life.”
Among the documents Manning released was the video of a helicopter gunship attack on two Reuters journalists in 2007, which injured two children and killed civilians. Manning learned that Reuters was seeking a copy of the video under the Freedom of Information Act before his document release, but were being stonewalled by the federal government. Manning likened the development captured by the video “to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass.”
“I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the [Iraq and Afghan war logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as well as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Manning, in a 35-page statement that he read during the pretrial hearing.
Manning had unsuccessfully offered the files to the New York Times and the Washington Post before anonymously uploading the war logs to whistleblowing website Wikileaks from a Barnes & Noble in Maryland on Feb. 3, 2010.
“I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare,” he read.
On the day Manning delivered his statement, he pled guilty to 10 of the 22 counts he was charged with in February 2013 in military tribunal. One of the capital offenses for which he was charged — aiding the enemy — carried a potential life sentence. He pled not guilty on this count.
Manning’s attorney, Chase Madar, told Al Jazeera that this charge is “the most ridiculous” of all.
“It’s as if we are prosecuting Nike shoes for aiding the enemy if it turned out that some al-Qaeda operative favoured vintage Air Jordans,” Madar continued. “If it [the charge] does stick it will be a dangerous erosion of press freedom in the United States.”
The government’s main evidence was Osama bin Laden’s computer, which was recovered during the 2011 raid on his compound. The computer allegedly contained Manning’s leaked documents. Oddly enough, this charge was issued months before the raid took place.
Manning was arrested on May 26, 2010. He spent more than 10 months in solitary confinement where he was kept naked in a cell that was lit 24 hours a day to deprive him of sleep. The Geneva Convention, which establishes the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of war, categorizes this type of treatment as torture. Legal scholars found his treatment so appalling that 295 of them in the United States sent an open letter to the Justice Department in April 2011 in protest of Manning’s treatment.
Former Pentagon military analyst Daniel Ellsberg had a similar experience to Manning. Ellsberg, who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, was never convicted for his actions. The Pentagon Papers documented the United States’ political-military involvement in Vietnam and exposed that the Lyndon Baines Johnson Administration had not only lied about the national interest to the public but also Congress. Ellsberg says that he released the papers to end what he perceived as “a wrongful war.” He calls Manning “heroic.”
“If Bradley Manning did what he’s accused of, then he’s a hero of mine,” Ellsberg said on the show, The Colbert Report. “I wish I could say that our government has improved its treatment of whistleblowers in the 40 years since the Pentagon Papers. Instead, we’re seeing an unprecedented campaign to crack down on public servants who reveal information that Congress and American citizens have a need to know.”
As a candidate, President Barack Obama expressed his support for whistleblowers because he believed it was courageous and inline with the best traditions of American patriotism. But as president, his actions contradicted his rhetoric.
Obama has revived and prosecuted more people under the Espionage Act than every other president combined since 1917 when the law was enacted. One of those prosecuted was John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent who exposed the prior administration’s use of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques.
Manning’s future is still unknown. Military prosecutors have made it clear they are out for blood. They plan to call 141 witness, including 15 who will say that Manning has harmed national security. For now, Judge Denise Lind closed the court hearing to the press and public until Manning’s next hearing, from April 10 through 12.
Night of Close Races in Low Turnout Election
Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
Councilman Joe Buscaino won his first full term in office March 5 in a 60-plus point landslide against James T. Law, a candidate that also ran in the race to replace Janice Hahn who vacated the council office after winning Cong. Jane Harman’s seat. During his victory speech, the councilman reminded voters of his administration’s accomplishments in the short time he’s been in office, from Watts to San Pedro. Among the accomplishments was the groundbreaking of Watts first movie theater since the 1968 Rebellion, the building of a pocket park to break up the large concentration of sex offenders in Harbor Gateway, the building of sports fields in Wilmington to replace the dust bowls kids on sports teams had to practice in, the fixing of the Paseo del Mar slide area, and the progress being made in the development of the Waterfront.
Music on the Byways and Highways from February to March
By B. Noel Barr, Music Writer Dude
For the last few weeks, we have been out cruising the highways and byways of the Southland for some sweet tunage. Our travels took us into Hollywood and West Los Angeles to the hallowed grounds of rock, blues and some good ole Americana stylings.
A Moving Experience in the Classical Underground
By Melina Paris, Music Columnist
A few hours spent at the Classical Underground concert on a recent Monday evening was an experience in live art for all the senses and the soul. To experience it, I advise getting on their email list.
Many people had already arrived a half hour before the show was to begin. A potluck buffet full of mostly homemade fare greeted attendees at the entrance. Many bottles of wine, at least 30, sat at the end of the table waiting to be emptied. The invitation requested that attendees bring enough good food, the kind that you would want to eat, and booze for everyone. They did just that. The scene was a genuine expression of gratitude by a community that has been cultivated through these monthly concerts. The invites are extended to a certain amount of people via email to these exclusive performances.
Classical Underground performances take place in a warehouse that is also the studio of Alexey Steele, the artist who puts on these events with his partner Olga Vlasova. His many works of art cover the warmly hued steel blue and deep red walls in this great room. Paintings are propped on the floor and perched on furniture.
The cavernous studio space quickly filled with people. The crowd–eagerly awaiting the concert to begin–anticipated a musical treat. Attendees knew they would be gratified. The dynamic internationally recognized composer Juan Jose Colomer was in attendance as violinist Ambroise Aubrun and pianist Anna Sarkisovapro prepared to perform Colomer’s composition, “Downtown Bagatelle,”
Alexey is a social magnet with an easy manner. Barely three steps out, people swarmed Alexey with questions and casual conversation. Olga had to draw his attention to the fact that Colomer had arrived.
Colomer, born in Valencia, Spain, has lived in the states for 20 years. He has been a student of classical music since the age of 8 when he learned the trumpet. He progressed from playing instruments to writing suites and always played in orchestras. A tragedy is what redirected him to music composition. A car accident left him in a wheelchair, robbed of the ability to play the trumpet.
“I’ve been lucky enough to keep busy and am getting busier,” Colomer said.
Colomer met the cultural power couple during a series of concerts he staged at his downtown Los Angeles loft some years ago. Alexey and Olga heard about the concerts on the grapevine and attended. They soon learned they had three friends in common.
Colomer got a Latin Grammy for best classical album in 2008 for the CD Passion Espanola with Placido Domingo. Colomer describes his latest compositional work, “Downtown Bagatelle” as an unpretentious piece of work. He said that bagatelle means “something of little value or importance– a trifle.”
“Downtown Bagatelle” has a tranquil start before quietly expanding with moving nuances. The lower piano chords in the middle of the piece played so softly surprisingly offer a different experience for the senses. I was able to take in the quiet vibration rather than the dramatic sound that these chords can sometimes convey. The intensity slowly builds and then as the music softens again I was left to feel an elevated sense of peace and serenity by the close of the number.
Culturally speaking, Alexey says on his website that today’s Los Angeles is reminiscent of Paris 100 years ago in that there was much artistic churning under the radar of the mainstream gaze.
“I think Los Angeles is ‘the Paris of the 21st Century’, and that the brooding under the radar of mainstream dramatic artistic changes in the creative combustive City of Angels closely repeats what was happening exactly 100 years ago in the City of Lights.”
“The messiness of making music is in LA right now, not in New York anymore, musicians compose in a different way here. We are defining new things, new ways… how do we function in the new times?”
On this night, he made a similar parallels between Spain and Los Angeles when he invited Colomer to the stage, underscoring Los Angeles’ importance as a hotbed of globally significant art.
The next number, Igor Stravinsky’s “Trois mouvements de Petrouchka” a piano arrangement renowned for its technical and musical difficulties, was performed by Anton Smirnov.
With its wild and rapid jumps that span over two octaves, its complex polyrhythms, extremely fast scales, multiple glissandos and tremolos. It’s no wonder that the piece achieved the notoriety that it did. Glissandos , an act of sliding a finger up or down a keyboard from one note to another and tremolos,the rapid repetition of a tone or the rapid alternation between two tones in singing or playing a musical instrument to produce a quavering effect are incorporated with superlative effect here.
Smirnov’s performance of the music was nothing less than amazing. This is the majesty of music. Stravinsky’s “Petrouchka” is musically the equivalent of the meaning of our final human reincarnation – perfection.
After intermission, Steele shared that they were fortunate enough to acquire a Steinway piano for the evening. When the piano was put in place, Steele explained that he just soaked in the sight of this instrument and said to himself, “Damn, this is something humans do right! This is what art gives us.”
Pianist Anna Sarkisova, performed Isaac Albeniz’s “Evocation” accompanied by a cello. It’s an elegant piece that slowly insinuates itself into your mind. It’s a little melancholy and lets your thoughts be taken away. Contentedly I was doing absolutely nothing but listening.
The next two pieces were for cello and they were described as invasive and intrusive by a guest speaker. He went on to say about the pieces that this is not Alexey Steele, this is Dr. Spock; intellectual and complicated. Apparently at the first rehearsal he says he could not even tell if the musicians were playing the right notes. He further described the pieces as objects in space and cosmic time.
Right he was. Both pieces were very cerebral. They expanded in my mind’s eye new patterns of sound. Through the cello, I simultaneously experienced an emotional connection to this earthly plane while my imagination traveled the cosmos.
It was getting late and I had to go home but for Classical Underground the night was still young. The last number that I saw was for the clarinet and guitar. It was Spanish music that sounded like the beautiful melodies of Gypsies; sweet and joyous integrating a Mediterranean sound. The moods this number conveyed went from serene to celebratory. I was transported back in time to a Sultan’s castle dancing with impunity amongst belly dancers, incense and hookah pipes. My spirit wanted nothing more than to move with the music.
I am hooked on Classical Underground. I have always appreciated classical music but I have now encountered the depth, complexities, joy and immensity of it. In Classical Undergrounds words, “In Art We Trust!”
Creativity By the Ton
By Andrea Serna, Contributing Arts Writer
Have you ever counted the rings on a giant redwood to estimate its age? Woodworker Harold Greene is intimately familiar with the slow pace of time that it takes to create his show stopping hardwood creations.
On a recent visit to his studio, Greene was found working on a massive wavy grained top for a coffee table. The table top occupies the middle of his amazingly efficient small San Pedro studio. The process of obtaining material to fill each inch of his workspace is an art of its own. The artist revealed he occasionally obtains wood cut by the Los Angeles City Tree Department. However, the removal must be done on the same day the tree is cut, and to keep it interesting, the only notice for the public is posted on each random tree marked for clearing.