Month: July 2017

In the rubble of Nepal’s 2015 earthquake, a team of dedicated woodworkers is finding inspiration to re-create what was lost.

The centuries-old Char Narayan and Hari Shankara temples were destroyed by the massive April 2015 earthquake that shook the Himalayan nation, killing nearly 9,000 people. The temples were the jewel of Patan Durbar Square, which is thronged by thousands of tourists and local visitors every day. The structures were crumpled by the force of the tremor, and the carved doors, roof and brick structure lie in ruins.

A team of dedicated woodworkers is now trying to restore Nepal’s heritage. They have been working six days a week, for nearly two years, repairing the beautifully hand-carved wooden doors and windows.

The broken wooden beams are being replaced by new ones, but the workers are trying to use the salvaged portions as much as possible.

The “Silpakars” — as woodworkers from the Newar ethnic community are known — have passed down their craft and skills for generations.

“I am proud to continue my ancestral trade and help restore a big part of Nepal’s history that was destroyed by the earthquake,” said Shyam Krishna, chiseling away the wood pieces.

He and his fellow workers are paid only about $15 a day each, which is much less than they would earn as building furnishers.

“It is not about the money. We might make less money, but this is a moment of pride for us to be able to restore the heritage of our country,” he said.

Already two years at work, they will likely need another year to just get the windows, doors and beams ready.

Nepal faces criticism from the international community for slow progress in reconstruction work despite a $4.1 billion international pledge.
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In June of 2016, Mikah Meyer set out on an ambitious journey — to visit all 417 national park sites in America. He estimates it will take him three years to complete his non-stop journey. One-third of the way through his adventure, he shared highlights – and lowlights – with VOA’s Julie Taboh.
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Married country stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood are sharing the love by handing out wedding gifts to fans.

Jude and Jamie Blanchard attended Brooks’ show in Lafayette, Louisiana, last month with a sign that read: “Best Week Ever. Garth this Friday, our wedding next Friday.” Brooks took notice and serenaded them with “To Make You Feel My Love.” He also asked if they wanted anything off their wedding registry, and Jamie passed along a wedding invitation to the stage.

The Lafayette Daily Advertiser reports a pair of lounge chairs, a KitchenAid mixer and other items from the stars showed up at the Blanchards’ door.

This month, Brooks and Yearwood offered to pay for a Hawaiian honeymoon for a couple who got engaged at an Oklahoma City show.
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Cheery Hi-5, a snobbish Poop and a conflicted Meh have starring roles in the animated The Emoji Movie, which imagines a world inside cellphones where emojis rebel against portraying just one emotion all their lives.

Yet the dozen or so people who select and release the tiny, ubiquitous characters globally are far removed from the glitz of Hollywood, where the Sony Pictures movie, which begins its global rollout Friday, was developed.

The humans who toil in obscurity to shape and approve new emojis are part of the Unicode Consortium, a Silicon Valley-based group of computer and software corporations and individual volunteers with backgrounds in technology, encoding and linguistics.

2,600-plus emojis

From smiley faces to thumbs up, there are now more than 2,600 emojis worldwide and, according to a July Facebook report, more than 60 million a day are sent on the No. 1 social media network alone.

The consortium approves about 50-100 new emojis every year, not counting the different skin tones for people emoji, after a rigorous application and review process, said Mark Davis, president and co-founder of the group.

The latest batch, released in June and reaching phones and other devices in coming months, include a star-struck emoji, an exploding head, a group of wizards, mermaids and a woman wearing a hijab.

​Submissions from everywhere

“We get submissions from all over the world,” Davis said in an interview. “The hijab emoji came from a Saudi Arabian young woman who is living in Germany who made a very compelling proposal. I’m looking forward to the exploding head — I think that’s going to be very popular.

“People need to make a case as to why they think their emoji is going to be frequently used, how it breaks new ground, how it is different from other emojis that have already been encoded.”

Logos, brands and emojis tied to specific companies are not accepted. “We also don’t accept specific people. We did encode a cowboy but we wouldn’t encode John Wayne,” Davis said.

Some concepts just do not translate as emoji.

LOL emoji most popular

“Anything that needs a lot of detail to explain or understand is trouble. It’s also hard to make an emoji for something abstract — like good governance, or a responsible president,” Davis said.

Davis said there are 2,666 emojis worldwide. The LOL emoji with tears of laughter is the most popular, according to a July Facebook survey of its 2 billion monthly users, followed by the heart eyes emoji. Italians and Spaniards favor the kissing emoji.

The consortium played no part in the making of The Emoji Movie, Davis said, because all of its work is open-source, available to all, and no permission was needed.

Nevertheless, he never imagined that the computer-generated punctuation marks that originated in Japan in the 1980s would become Hollywood stars.

“That’s something that never really crossed our minds,” Davis said.

 
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More than 70 years after Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker in the final days of World War II, an exhibition in the capital examines how he became a Nazi and what turned ordinary Germans into murderers during the Third Reich.

For decades it was taboo in Germany to focus on Hitler, although that has begun to change with films such as 2004’s Downfall, chronicling the dictator’s last days, and an exhibition about him in 2010.

Hitler — How Could It Happen? is set in a bunker in Berlin that was used by civilians during World War II bombing raids — close to the bunker where Hitler lived while Berlin was being bombed, which is not accessible to the public.

The exhibition examines Hitler’s life from his childhood in Austria and time as a painter to his experience as a soldier during World War I and his subsequent rise to power. Other exhibits focus on concentration camps, pogroms and the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews.

It ends with a controversial reconstruction of the bunker room where Hitler killed himself on April 30, 1945, complete with grandfather clock, floral sofa and an oxygen tank. The exhibit is behind glass and is monitored by camera, with visitors forbidden to take photographs.

‘Where the crimes ended’

Exhibition curator Wieland Giebel, 67, said the reconstruction had been likened to “Hitler Disney,” but he defended the exhibition, saying it focused on the crimes carried out by Hitler’s regime.

“This room is where the crimes ended, where everything ended,” he said, “so that’s why we’re showing it.”

He said he had been asking how World War II and the Holocaust came about ever since playing in the rubble of postwar Germany as a child. The exhibition, he said, attempts to answer that question.

“After World War I a lot of Germans felt humiliated due to the Versailles Treaty,” Giebel said, referring to the accord signed in 1919 that forced defeated Germany to make massive reparation payments.

“At the same time there was anti-Semitism in Europe and not just in Germany … and Hitler built on this anti-Semitism and what people called the ‘shameful peace of Versailles’ and used those two issues to mobilize people,” he said.

Giebel, who has a personal interest in the topic because one of his grandfathers was part of a firing squad while the other hid a Jew, said he also wanted the exhibition to show how quickly a democracy could be abolished and make clear that undemocratic movements needed to be nipped in the bud.

He said the exhibition showed some Germans became Nazis as they stood to gain personally when the property of Jews was expropriated, while others were attracted to the Nazis because they were unhappy about the Versailles Treaty and “followed Hitler because he promised to make Germany great again.”

The exhibition, which features photographs, Hitler’s drawings, films portraying his marriage to longtime companion Eva Braun, and a model of Hitler’s bunker, has attracted around 20,000 visitors since opening two months ago.
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Mick Jagger has released two songs which he says are urgent responses to the “confusion and frustration with the times we live in.”

The Rolling Stones leader released the songs and music videos Thursday. He’s calling “Gotta Get a Grip” and “England Lost ” an audio-visual project.

Jagger said the songs were a result of the “anxiety [and] unknowability of the changing political situation.” In a quote via email, the 74-year-old says of the world’s current political climate: “We obviously have a lot of problems. So am I politically optimistic? No.”

Jagger said he started writing the songs in April and that he wanted to release them immediately.

“Doing a whole album often takes a long time even after finishing it with all the record company preparations and global release set up. It’s always refreshing to get creative in a different fashion and I feel a slight throwback to a time when you could be a bit more free and easy by recording on the hoof and putting it out there immediately,” he said. “I didn’t want to wait until next year when these two tracks might lose any impact and mean nothing.”

British rapper Skepta is featured on “England Lost.” Jagger said when he was writing it, he knew he wanted a rap act on the track.

“It’s about a feeling that we are in a difficult moment in our history. It’s about the unknowability about where you are and the feeling of insecurity,” he said of the song. “That’s how I was feeling when I was writing.”

Of “Gotta Get a Grip,” Jagger said: “The message I suppose is — despite all those things that are happening, you gotta get on with your own life, be yourself and attempt to create your own destiny.”

The Rolling Stones’ most recent album was the blues effort, “Blue & Lonesome,” released in December. The band is also working on an album of new material.

Jagger also commented on the most recent artists he’s been listening to, which includes Skepta, Mozart, Howlin’ Wolf, Tame Impala, “obscure Prince tracks and classic soul stuff from The Valentine Brothers.”

“I really like Kendrick Lamar — he’s also talking about discontent and he really nailed it,” Jagger added.
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There have been many quotable quotes over the ages, and most of them were said by men. Quotabelle.com features quotes by women and the stories behind the words.

Pauline Weger, the woman behind the website, has now compiled 110 of the quotes and stories into a book, Beautifully Said: Quotes by Remarkable Women and Girls, Designed to Make You Think. She says making you think is what the most powerful quotes have done for centuries.

“People would collect snippets in order to spark their interest in a concept or innovate an idea,” Weger says. “So quotations actually have a wonderful legacy of being a spark for writing. In today’s modern world, it’s fueled even further by how they’re spread through social media.”

The quotes in Beautifully Said come from women around the world, and across the centuries, commenting on all aspects of life.

It includes a quote from Iraqi-British architect, Zaha Hadid, who passed away last year: “There are 360 degrees, why stick to one?” “She’s saying bring dimension to what you’re doing,” Weger explains. “I think she’s a good example of someone who really had to pave the way in a challenging world for women to succeed.”

Pakistani activist for girls’ education, Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Prize laureate, said, “One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”

Weger includes a quote from chef and cookbook author Grace Young: “Preserve your culinary legacy, some day those recipes could be the one link we have to reach our loved ones.”

“We found that quotation through a blog post that she wrote about two years ago right before the Chinese New Year,” Weger says. “The story was that her mother would always for years prepare this traditional Chinese meal. And yet now her mother was dealing with dementia, so could not remember how to prepare a meal or anything really, frankly, about the Chinese New Year. So what Grace found was that when she prepared this meal, it created connections with her mother.”

Survivor, not a victim

Weger says many of the most powerful quotations in the book reflect women’s thoughts when facing challenges, such as this one from dancer Adrianne Haslet: “I’m not a victim defined by what happened in my life, I’m a survivor defined by how I live my life.”

Haslet lost part of her leg in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, but a year later, was dancing again on a bionic leg. The quote is from a TV interview after the attack.

“One of the producers or someone said, ‘The victim in this’ and I said, ‘I’m not a victim,” she recalls. “A victim means that I belong to someone.’ Then I said, ‘I’m not a victim defined by what happened in my life, I’m a survivor defined by how I live my life.’ So, I refused to be called a victim. So they said, ‘Wait, say that again.’ And I said, ‘What did I say?’ Because I was so in the moment. When I wrote it down that time, it became a mantra in my life.”

 Going backward to move forward

Climbing mountains is the inspiration behind the quote from Alison Levine, the team captain for the first American women’s Everest expedition: “Sometimes you have to go backwards in order to eventually get to where you want to be.”

“People mistakenly think that we need to climb straight up the mountain, from base camp to Camp 2 to Camp 3 to Camp 4 then to the summit. That’s not how it works,” Levine says. The climber has to repeatedly come down to base camp to let the body slowly get used to the altitude.

“This process is called acclimatization,” she explains. “When you’re high on a mountain, your muscles are starting to deteriorate, and your body is getting weaker. So you need to spend some time up to get used to the altitude, but you have to keep coming back down low so you can eat, sleep, hydrate and regain some strength. So you have to actually climb back down the mountain in order to get to the summit.”

Levine says that’s also a wise approach to life.

“Sometimes when people don’t get a job they wanted or they don’t get a promotion that they want, or get transferred to another division in their company, they feel like it’s not a step forward. They feel like it’s a step back,” she said. “You have to look at these things differently. Look at it as an opportunity to regain some strength so you’re going to be even better in the future.”

Author Weger says she hopes Beautifully Said will inspire women and girls to create their own quotable quotes.
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We’re off and running with the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending July 29, 2017.

The deck gets shuffled this week, but my friends…the cards remain the same.

Number 5: Ed Sheeran “Shape of You”

Ed Sheeran is still your man in fifth place with his former title-holder “Shape Of You.”

Ed created controversy with his cameo role on the season premiere of “Game Of Thrones” – many viewers seemed to hate it. Sophie Turner, who portrays Sansa Stark on the series, accidentally told her friend and co-star Maisie Williams that Ed would be on the show. Maisie is a Sheeran superfan, and the show’s creators arranged his appearance as a surprise for her.

Number 4: Bruno Mars “That’s What I Like”

No real surprises in fourth place: Bruno Mars slips a slot with “That’s What I Like.” This song is now the longest-running champion single in the history of Billboard Magazine’s Hot R & B Songs chart. It’s no longer number one – but it held the title for 20 consecutive weeks. The chart has only been around since 2012, but still…well done, Bruno.

…and well done, Justin Bieber, who turns up in not one but two songs this week.

Number 3: DJ Khaled Featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper and Lil Wayne “I’m The One”

DJ Khaled steps back a slot to third place with “I’m The One,” featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper and Lil Wayne.

This week, Justin cancelled the remaining dates of his Purpose world tour. His management cited “unforeseen circumstances,” while manager Scooter Braun mentioned concerns over Justin’s “soul and well-being.” Justin Bieber has been on the road for most of the past 16 months.

Number 2: DJ Khaled Featuring Rihanna & Bryson Tiller “Wild Thoughts”

DJ Khaled jumps two notches to second place with “Wild Thoughts,” featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller. It just went number one in the United Kingdom, becoming Khaled’s second U.K. chart champ after “I’m The One.” It’s Bryson Tiller’s first trip to number one, but Rihanna has been here before: this is her ninth career U.K. pop singles title.

Number 1: Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee Featuring Justin Bieber “Despacito”

Here in the States, Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber still rule the roost with “Despacito.” 

Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee have criticized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for using “Despacito” at a political rally. Both Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee went on social media to denounce his use of the song.

That’s it for this week…join us in seven days for another star-packed lineup.
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This year’s Venice Film Festival will include a crime comedy by George Clooney, a Guillermo del Toro fantasy and a Darren Aronofsky thriller.

Organizers of the world’s oldest film festival announced a 21-film competition lineup Thursday that features the Clooney-directed “Suburbicon,” the story of a home invasion gone wrong that stars Matt Damon and Julianne Moore, with a script by Joel and Ethan Coen.

Venice’s late-summer time slot — starting a few days ahead of the Toronto festival — has made it a major awards-season springboard. In recent years it has presented the world premieres of major Oscar winners including “Spotlight” and “La La Land.”

This year’s contenders for Venice’s top Golden Lion award include del Toro’s “The Shape of Water,” starring Sally Hawkins as a woman who forges a relationship with a sea creature, and Aronofsky’s secrecy-shrouded “Mother!” starring Jennifer Lawrence.

The 74th Venice festival opens Aug. 30 in the canal-crossed Italian city with Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing,” about a man — Damon again — who decides to shrink himself. It closes Sept. 9 with Takeshi Kitano’s gangster thriller “Outrage Coda.”

The winner of the Golden Lion and other prizes will be decided by a jury led this year by actress Annette Bening.

Films in competition include “Human Flow,” a documentary about migration by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei; “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” by Ireland’s auteur of tragicomedy, Martin McDonagh; “The Third Murder,” by Japan’s Hirokazu Koreeda; and “Mektour, My Love: Canto Uno” by French-Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche, director of the Cannes winner “Blue is the Warmest Color.”

Competing directors are drawn from around the globe, with films from Australia’s Warwick Thornton (“Sweet Country”), Israel’s Samuel Maoz (“Foxtrot”), and Lebanon’s Ziad Doueiri (“The Insult”). But only one director among the 21 is a woman — China’s Vivian Qu, whose “Angels Wear White” centers on two girls assaulted by a man in a small seaside town.

Outside the main competition, high-interest entries include Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s “Loving Pablo,” starring Javier Bardem as Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar, and Stephen Frears’ reality-based historical drama “Victoria & Abdul,” with Judi Dench as Britain’s Queen Victoria and Ai Fazal as her Indian servant Abdul Karim.

The streaming service Netflix, which has shaken up the business of making and distributing movies, will debut the miniseries “Our Souls at Night,” a late-life romance starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.

 
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A jury on Wednesday found that Michael Jackson’s estate owes Quincy Jones $9.4 million in royalties and production fees from “Billie Jean,” “Thriller” and more of the superstar’s biggest hits.

The award from a Los Angeles Superior Court jury fell short of the $30 million the legendary producer sought in the lawsuit filed nearly four years ago, but well above the approximately $392,000 the Jackson estate contended Jones was owed.

The jury of 10 women and two men had been deliberating since Monday.

“This lawsuit was never about Michael, it was about protecting the integrity of the work we all did in the recording studio and the legacy of what we created,” Jones wrote in a statement. “Although this [judgment] is not the full amount that I was seeking, I am very grateful that the jury decided in our favor in this matter. I view it not only as a victory for myself personally, but for artists’ rights overall.”

Estate attorney Howard Weitzman said he and his team were surprised by the verdict and would appeal it.

Weitzman and co-counsel Zia Modabber wrote in a statement that Jones was seeking money that wasn’t owed to him.

“Any amount above and beyond what is called for in his contracts is too much and unfair to Michael’s heirs,” the lawyers said. “Although Mr. Jones is portraying this is a victory for artists’ rights, the real artist is Michael Jackson and it is his money Mr. Jones is seeking.”

Jones claimed in the lawsuit that Jackson’s estate and Sony Music Entertainment owed him for music he had produced that was used in the concert film “This Is It” and two Cirque du Soleil shows that used Jackson’s songs.

The lawsuit said the entities had improperly re-edited the songs to deprive Jones of royalties and production fees, and that he had a contractual right to take first crack at any re-edit or remix.

The Jackson camp held that Jones should only be paid licensing fees for songs used in those three productions. Jones claimed he was entitled to a share of the overall receipts from them.

The trial centered on the definitions of terms in the two contracts Jackson and Jones signed in 1978 and 1985.

Under the deals, for example, Jones is entitled to a share of net receipts from a “videoshow” of the songs. The Jackson attorneys argued that the term was meant to apply to music videos and not feature films.

Jury foreman Duy Nguyen, 28, said the contracts were the strongest pieces of evidence the jury considered, and said hearing Jones’ testimony was also helpful.

He said he and many members of the jury are Jackson fans, but that didn’t factor into the deliberations. He said the verdict amount was a compromise figure based on an expert’s testimony.

Jones took the stand during the trial, and was asked by Jackson estate attorney Howard Weitzman whether he realized he was essentially suing Jackson himself.

Jones angrily disagreed.

“I’m not suing Michael,” he said. “I’m suing you all.”

The defense attorneys pointed out that Jackson’s death in 2009 has already been lucrative for Jones, who made $8 million from his share of their works in the two years after the singer’s death, versus $3 million in the two years previous.

“You don’t deserve a raise,” Weitzman said during closing arguments. “You can’t have any more of Michael Jackson’s money.”

Jones insisted he was seeking his due for the work he has done rather than merely seeking money.

His attorney Scott Cole accused the defense of using “word games and loopholes” to deny Jones, the Hollywood Reporter said.

The producer worked with Jackson on the three-album run widely considered the performer’s prime: “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad.”

Jackson’s hits from those albums including “Billie Jean,” “Thriller” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” are among the songs Jones claims were re-edited.

The lawsuit initially set the amount Jones sought at least $10 million, but his attorneys later arrived at $30 million after an accounting of the estate’s profits from the works.

Jones and Jackson proved to be a perfect partnership starting with 1979’s “Off the Wall.” Jackson gave a youthful pop vitality to Jones, who was known primarily as a producer and arranger of jazz and film soundtracks. And Jones lent experience and gravitas to Jackson, who was still best known to most as the child prodigy who fronted the Jackson 5.
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