1. NEW CDP GRANT DEADLINES ANNOUNCED,
GUIDELINES NOW AVAILABLE

The Council’s California Documentary Project (CDP) supports film, radio, and new media projects that document the California experience and explore issues of significance to Californians. The new guidelines for our next round of CDP Research & Development and Production grants are now available online at www.calhum.org. The online application will be available starting October 1st; eligible applicants must submit materials for Research & Development and Production grants by November 1st.

In addition, were launching a new Public Engagement grant to assist previous CDP grantees in ongoing work around outreach and audience development. The online application for our Public Engagement grants will be available starting August 2nd; the application deadline is September 1st. Click here for more information.

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2.“MAKING A DIFFERENCE” PILOT PROGRAM A SUCCESS

CCH Senior Program Officer Felicia Kelley (far left) with Making a Difference pilot program participants.

Since October 2009, California Council for the Humanities (CCH) has been working with the Riverside County Library System to train librarians to facilitate thoughtful, informed, and civil dialogue in their communities. Through Making a Difference, librarians are taking a new approach to library programming by animating and becoming actively engaged in civic discourse, thus transforming libraries into “community living rooms” where patrons can exchange ideas and viewpoints.

The final meeting of participating librarians in late June marked the end of the first year of the pilot program. Responses to the program were extremely positive. As one participant said, “There is no greater venue for understanding each other’s cultures than being part of a planned dialogue. [In my family], dialogue was not taught. Reading the news, or listening to other people in my day-to-day travels, I can see many people share that same weakness, now a strength for me.”

The Council is working to expand the program to other library systems in California. You can help us connect communities with the power of ideas by donating here.

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3. CCH GRANTEE WINS PACIFIC SOUTHWEST EMMY® AWARD

The CCH-supported film “Thinking Grande!” has won the Pacific Southwest Emmy® Award for Best Cultural Documentary. The film, which tells the story of a Mexican immigrant who worked for two decades to achieve his vision of a “Mexican Disneyland” in the heart of California, streams online at www.thinkinggrande.com.

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4. SUMMER READING

As temperatures rise and we head to the beach (or the hammock, or the library), here’s what some of the CCH staff are reading:

“Inherent Vice” by Thomas Pynchon
(Recommended by Ralph Lewin, President & CEO)
Pynchon’s detective novel is set in the mythical, sun-drenched, drugged-out world of 1960s Southern California. The hallmarks of the era—peace, love, music, and revolutionary thinking—collide with crime in the imaginary town of Gordita Beach. The aptly-named setting is, as Publishers Weekly put it, “ripe for the plundering of rapacious real estate combines and ideal for Pynchon's recurring tragicomedy of America as the perfect wave that got away.”

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Marquez
(Recommended by Bekki Lee-Wendt, Program Assistant)
This much-loved 1967 book by Nobel Prize winner Marquez is a rich and intricate example of magical realism. The non-linear narrative follows many generations of the Buendía family and tells the history of a fictional town called Macondo—both of which serve as metaphor in Marquez’s critical interpretation of Colombian history.

"World Without End" by Ken Follett
(Recommended by Jon Carroll, Director of External Affairs)
This sequel to Follett’s epic historical novel “The Pillars of the Earth” takes place two hundred years later, in fourteenth-century England, during the devastating era of the Black Death. The narrative—packed with intrigue, drama, heroism, greed, and historical information—follows four central characters as they and those around them struggle with new ideas about trade, law, medicine, and commerce.

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5. ITEMS OF INTEREST

MOBILE HI FI Jeepney Tours and Video Screening
The Pilipino Workers’ Center (PWC) and Public Matters present works from their CCH-funded project, MOBILE HI FI. Tour Historic Filipinotown in the world’s only mobile media jeepney—PWC’s original 1944 Sarao Motors Jeep Willy. A combination riding/walking tour of the neighborhood will feature stories of residents and immigrants from 1898 to the present. Afterwards, view: a musical collaboration with elders from the Silver Lake Adult Day Health Care Center about the art of the serenade; the instructional comedy “How to Survive a Filipino House Party”; and the cross-cultural mash-up “HI FI Telenovela.” Suggested donation is $10. To RSVP, email smayo@pwcsc.org.

Friday, August 13, 2010
Jeepney tours at 6:00 and 7:00 pm; FREE video screening at 8:00 pm
Pilipino Workers' Center (PWC)
153 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

For more information, visit: www.pwcsc.org.

Photo by Ara Oshagan

Photo/Text Exhibit “Juvies” at Armory Center for the Arts
Check out photographer Ara Oshagan’s solo exhibition, a project that weaves text and images into narratives about the lives of incarcerated youth tried as adults in the California prison system. This is a follow-up project to “Juvies,” one of the Council’s first CDP grant-funded films.

Now through August 29, 2010
Armory Center for the Arts
145 North Raymond Ave., Pasadena, CA

For more information about the exhibition, visit: http://www.armoryarts.org.
To see more work in this series, visit: www.araoshagan.com.

Image courtesy of the Chinese American Museum

“Hollywood Chinese: The Arthur Dong Collection” on Display in Los Angeles
Award-winning filmmaker Arthur Dong collected over 1,000 items of Hollywood ephemera on Chinese actors and filmmakers for years as part of his research on “Hollywood Chinese,” a CDP grant-supported film that examines how Chinese and Chinese Americans have worked and been portrayed in American cinema. Now you can see a selection of photos, scripts, posters, and other memorabilia from “Captured in Chinatown,” “The Good Earth,” “The Rose Tattoo,” “Year of the Dragon,” and more on display in L.A.’s Chinese American Museum.

Now through November 7, 2010
The Chinese American Museum
425 N. Los Angeles Street, Los Angeles, CA

For more information on viewing the exhibit, visit: http://www.camla.org/.

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