Tuesday, March 31, 2009

PRSUN Radio: A PRdream with Judith Escalona



Tomorrow night's guest at PRSUN Radio is Judith Escalona, executive director of PRdream and MediaNoche in NYC's El Barrio.

PRdream (Puerto Rico and the American Dream) is the award-winning website on the history, culture and politics of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican diaspora. The mission of PRdream is to empower community through technology.

As part of that mission, PRdream launched MediaNoche, a new media project and digital gallery. MediaNoche offers residencies and exhibition space for artists working in new media. The Digital Film Studio at MediaNoche is a space for independent filmmakers to converge. Works-in-progress screenings, screenplay readings and a variety of workshops are offered.

Escalona is also a filmmaker.

To read Escalona's bio, go to my blog at www.blogtalkradio.com/prsunradio.

The show will be at 9 p.m. at www.blogtalkradio.com/prsunradio.

UPDATE

To listen to PRSUN Radio's chat with Judith Escalona:



RELATED OPPORTUNITY

FINAL CUT PRO AND PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOPS - Beginning in April
Wednesday, April 8
FINAL CUT PRO BASICS: $300.
Learn the basics for effective non-linear editing.
Mondays and Wednesdays, 6 - 10 p.m.,
Section 1: April 13, 15, 20, 22

*Must have basic computer skills and a familiarity with the Mac interface or have taken the Mac Basics workshop.

Mac BASICS
Learn the basics of using a MAC computer. $50.
April 8, 6 - 9 p.m.

PHOTOSHOP BASICS: 1 day intensive: $175
Saturdays in April, 1 – 6 p.m.
First class: April 4
Learn the fundamentals from a pro. Basic computer skills in pc or Mac platforms.

Call (212) 828-0401 for more information or to register.

Small class size, one computer per student. All workshops are held in the gallery of

MediaNoche
1355 Park Avenue, Corner Store
the entrance is on East 102nd Street, East Harlem

Monday, March 30, 2009

STS 119 Post Landing Crew News Conference



Excerpts from a news conference held March 28 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center with members of the STS-119 crew, which included boricua astronaut Joseph Acaba, following their successful landing of space shuttle Discovery.

courtesy of NASA TV

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Tribute to the late salsero Manny Oquendo on Barrio Block

In the Mailbox

Please listen tbo Barrio Block 99.5 FM (in New York City) today 2 to 4 p.m. Special guest Andy Gonzalez and others talking about the late Manny Oquendo the six decades of music is created and help create.

Vaya! -- Americo Casiano Jr.

Editor's Note: Manny Oquendo's music is available at the PRSUN aStore. Here's a link.

El Maestro is more than a gym

I board the #6 train to the Bronx and get off at the Whitlock Avenue stop. As I walk to my destination, I listen to the busy car traffic and the sounds of people working in garages and businesses in the area. Within minutes, I’m in another world. I’m inside a community treasure: El Maestro.
Some refer to this place as “Juan Laporte’s Boxing Gym,” named after Laporte who was a boxing champion in the early 1980’s. But the gym located at 1029 East 167th Street doesn’t serve only as a gym. It’s also a cultural and educational oasis for those with an interest in Puerto Rican and Latino themes.
The center is an endeavor aimed at transforming a social void into a valuable community space. It serves as a social and cultural center for the entire community. It’s a place for community members to socialize and participate in ongoing programs and activities for children, teenagers and adults.
Among the cultural programs that take place at El Maestro are: “Puerto Rican Roots Music performances (monthly), Afro-Puerto Rican Roots Dance & Percussion Classes (weekly), Resident Musical Ensembles (weekly rehearsals), Educational Video Presentations (monthly), Art Exhibitions (monthly), and Spoken Word/Poetry Open Mic and Showcase (monthly). It’s a busy place for sure.
There is also a little league baseball team and softball league El Maestro sponsors.
At the gym, participants learn to box and work on getting in shape. The gym membership fee: $50.


Coto Talavera, head trainer at the gym, says, “The success is not when an individual wins a title.”
The gym has served as a perfect place for members of several boxing members of the NYPD Boxing Team and the FDNY Boxing Team to work out.
“I come here often to train,” said a police officer at the gym who did not want to be identified. “Everything is clean and in complete order; there are no fights. I recommend every Police Athletic League in the city to come here.”
Naralie Pacheco, a female boxing champion and trainer at the gym, said, “When I train fighters here, I demand respect not just to me but for all, and that’s why this place is so special for the community because there is respect.”
For more information about El Maestro, e-mail elmaestroinc@verizon.net or call (646) 337-6775. –- Ismael Nunez

(photos by Ismael Nunez)

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Turn off your lights tonight for Earth Hour


Puerto Rico Sun supports Earth Hour.

TONIGHT at 8:30 p.m. you can send your statement about conserving energy by switching off your lights for one hour, Earth Hour.

For more information, http://www.earthhour.org/home/.

'Powerful Womyn Powerful Words' Tonight in El Barrio

Community calendar

Friday, March 27, 2009

Navy Assures Serrano: We Have No Intention of Returning to Vieques

Last Thursday during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Inhofe (R-Okla.) asked the Navy whether it had plans to return to Vieques, since it seemed well placed to respond to a variety of needs in Latin America. Although the Navy was non-committal in its response, Congressman Serrano immediately asked the Navy to clarify its position on Vieques and sought assurances that it had no intention of returning to Vieques.
On Friday, Serrano received confirmation from the Navy’s Congressional Relations office that the Navy has no intention of reopening Vieques as a training range. “I am pleased to hear that the Navy has no plans to return to Vieques,” said Serrano. “The people of Vieques have suffered enough. I am glad that the Navy now realizes the harm that has been caused, and agrees that this painful chapter in the history of Puerto Rico must remain closed.”

Source: Congressman Jose Serrano's statement on Vieques in The Serrano Report

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Empire of Desire at MediaNoche


Featured exhibition

Empire of Desire
A multi-screen installation by Ted Ciesielski
March 28 – May 2
Gallery hours: 1 to 7 p.m. and by appointment, Wednesday through Saturday
Opening Reception: 6-8 p.m., Saturday March 28
Artist's talk: 6 p.m., Tuesday, April 16

MediaNoche, Manhattan’s Uptown gallery devoted to new media, presents Empire of Desire, a multiscreen installation by Ted Ciesielski.

The phallic cliché of the Empire State Building returns as a modern-day totem privileging women through its projections. A woman's body becomes a pliable and supple surface for viewing not so much the classic nude but images of the Empire State Building that conceal her.

Ciesielski creates an elusive metaphor of power that weds steel and brick to flesh, resolving the public and private spheres in a manner closer to pornography than art and rendering such distinctions senseless by the brute force of the imaging. Think Abu Ghraib.

For Ciesielski the "installation is a visual bridge between sexuality and architecture in New York City: Multi-screen, multi-color, multi-woman, and one desire. It is the result of many years of seduction from both sides."


ARTIST'S BIO:

Tadeusz "Ted" Ciesielski is a filmmaker from Poland, where he studied at the famed Lodz Film Academy. During the eighties, he directed music videos for KULT, SIEKIERA, and Cityzen GC. In the nineties, he travelled with a film camera throughout Europe and China, eventually settling in New York City. His obsession with urban landscapes results in highly personal and interpretive projects about the Twin Towers, the Empire State Building, billboards, oil tanks and garbage. Some titles are: Requiem 2001, My Empire, Last Letter, and My Gates.

ABOUT MEDIANOCHE:
Judith Escalona, director’s statement
Our media practice is rooted in community, utilizing technology as a tool for transgressing the dynamic, cultural space of Spanish Harlem in order to engage, incite, and transform the dialectics of alternity and marginalization.

MediaNoche, a project of PRdream.com
MediaNoche is the place where art, technology and community converge. We offer artists working in new media exhibition space and residencies in order to provoke a dialogue that blurs all lines of marginality and alternity.

Unique among arts and technology groups in New York, MediaNoche is directly linked to the oldest Latino community of the city, Spanish Harlem, and has showcased a roster of local and international new media artists.

MediaNoche
1355 Park Avenue, Corner store at 102nd Street, Manhattan
For more information, (212) 828-0401 or visit www.medianoche.us.

source: MediaNoche

Note: Judith Escalona will talk to PRSUN Radio next Wednesday night at www.blogtalkradio.com/prsunradio. See related entry below.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The NYC Collective of the Puerto Rican Photographic Society to meet in El Barrio

We are still organizing a local photo collective of the Puerto Rican Photographic Society, a global group especially aimed at highlighting the work of boricua photographers.

Our next meeting in NYC is at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 2, Cemi Underground, 1799 Lexington Ave. @ E. 112th Street, East Harlem.

You are invited to join us if you are interested in being part of the photo collective.

We are a grassroots group.

Monday, March 23, 2009

PRSUN Radio talks with financial pro Xavier Serbia on building wealth



Xavier Serbia, a former Menudo, is now a financial expert and he is the author of a new Spanish guide titled "La riqueza en cu4tro pisos." It's a guide providing readers steps on how to strategize and build financial independence.

Serbia has become a leading financial voice, especially within the U.S. Hispanic media.

Listen to my interview with Serbia in English about his guide and what he has to say about building wealth. Xavier breaks down the steps he thinks people should take to work on achieving financial independence.

Xavier Serbia will be in the Bronx for a book presentation at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 26, at the Barnes & Noble at Bay Plaza in Coop City. Serbia says he hopes to interact with people and discuss his book, which he describes as a "roadmap" to wealth.

For more information about the writer, go to his website at www.xavierserbia.com. -- Clarisel Gonzalez

Xavier Serbia's book is also available at the PRSUN aStore.