Filipino Heritage Night with the San Francisco Giants

In 2006, the San Francisco Giants started an annual Heritage Week to celebrate diversity in baseball and in the San Francisco Bay Area in general.  This year, we will find ourselves immersed in ballpark diversity the week of May 12th, with the first-ever Filipino Heritage night taking place on Wednesday, May 14th.

According to the official SF Giants website, tickets are being sold at a discount of $20 to sit in the special Filipino Heritage section.  The night will consists of Filipino entertainment and a customized item themed after Filipino heritage.  Overall, the night will appreciate Filipino-owned businesses and families.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I think it’s pretty cool that the Filipino culture is being recognized and celebrated at a national baseball game that will hopefully be televised.  (Let’s hope that if it is televised, they actually express that it is Filipino Heritage night.)  I actually haven’t heard about Heritage Week until my parents told me last night that they bought tickets for it. I’m not going because they only bought tickets for themselves (lame), but it would be interesting to see how this pans out, and what they mean by “Filipino entertainment.”  Is there going to be a dance team that goes out to the field during half time to perform the tinikling?  And what exactly is this special item that they speak of?

In all honesty, although it sounds pretty cool, I also question the validity of reducing the celebration of Filipino heritage to one night.  But then again, look at Pilipino Culture Night (PCN).  Even though people have their criticisms about whether or not it is entirely feasible to truly celebrate culture in one night, it still happens and participants work really hard to put it on.  I have been fairly satisfied with all the PCNs I have seen in my past (minus one that is a different story entirely) and it takes a lot to make me happy with stage productions and like events.

Let’s hope that the Giants have a consultant of Filipino heritage helping them out with this so that it is less commodified and wrapped in a pretty $20 discount package than it currently sounds like on the website.

- C. Fiel (the pessimist)

Image Source: http://www.springtrainingtours.com/images/giantslogo.jpg

 

“I Love You… Not!” open mic

That’s right friends. It’s that time of the year again. Lovers may know it as Valentine’s Day, while the more cynical folk refer to it as Singles’ Awareness Day a.k.a. SAD. Whichever your preference, our annual open mic to celebrate the Hallmark holiday is next Wednesday, February 13th at 7pm in 126 Barrows Hall (UC Berkeley campus). Join {m}aganda and other lovers and haters as we partake in a mind orgy of words, music, and maybe even dancing (if that one dance breaker comes from last year, that would be awesome).

Also, remember to dress in your Sunday best (or clubby best) because we may have a schmancy PHOTO BOOTH this year prior to the open mic. If you’re a hopeless romantic, odds are you may meet your soulmate at the open mic so you should be looking good anyway (as we’re sure you always do).

 

1st Annual Activism Right There Festival

Thanks to over thirty different UC Berkeley student and Bay Area organizations and their amazing capacity to organize a week-long series of events within a month (and over the winter break… wow, right?), UC Berkeley is host to the first ever annual Activism Right There Festival. The festival kicks off at 7pm in Naia Gelateria Lounge (Lower Sproul, UC Berkeley campus) tonight with an Open Mic on Gender and Sexuality, hosted by CalSlam and The Vagina Monologues. And if you can’t make it tonight, fear not! You have the opportunity on Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday to check it out.

And Friday night in Zellerbach should be especially awesome, as it will feature a panel of well-known activists speaking on student activism at UC Berkeley, including: author of Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, Jeff Chang and Bettina Aptheker of the Free Speech Movement.  Following the panel will be a concert with such performers as world reknown spoken word group iLL-Literacy (that’s right, they came to our theme unveiling) and Bay Area hip-hop legends Zion I.

And the best part of this festival? Free Fun!!!

If you’re in the area and have some extra time on your hands this week, we command you to go!

 

This Just In: Barbara Jane Reyes to Perform at Fall Reception!

Above: {m} alumni Aims rockin’ the MC spotlight.

It’s not too late to show your stuff at Maganda’s Fall Reception this Saturday the 17th from 2-5pm in Naia Lounge (on the UC Berkeley Campus)!

Last school year’s Spring Reception was a relaxed, intimate, and vibrant celebration thanks to the genuine warmth of everyone present–whether they were up on stage, showing their artwork, running the show, or chilling on Gelateria Naia’s comfy white leather sofas with a caffe affogato. We love you, Naia.

Anyway, our featured performer for Saturday was just confirmed:

poeta Barbara Jane Reyes will be joining us, along with a great lineup of student performers. You may just be one of them. Woo!

Hope to see you there.

 

Lecture by South African Photographer Pieter Hugo

What’s good world!?

So here’s the deal, I got a heads up on a lecture coming to the San Francisco Art Institute, part of the Aperture West Collaborative Lecture Series. South African photographer, Pieter Hugo, will be heading this lecture, sharing his photography of his country and its subcultures as featured on the cover of Aperture Magazine.

So here’s the skinny…

PIETER HUGO

Aperture West Collaborative Lecture Series

South African acclaimed artist Pieter Hugo will discuss his work on his country’s society including judges, entertainers, workers and albinos. His striking portraits question the art of portraiture today. He will share the underlying meaning of his thought-provoking and controversial images of South Africa and its subcultures.

Pieter Hugo has recently gained international recognition. He has been named the Standard Bank Young Artist for 2007 and he won the first prize in the portraits section of the 2006 World Press Photo competition. Featured in the Spring 2007 issue of Aperture magazine and in Colors, this young photographer has established himself as one of the best portraitists at work today.

WHEN AND WHERE :

Friday, November 2
7:30 p.m.

PhotoAlliance

San Francisco Art Institute Lecture Hall

800 Chestnut Street

San Francisco, California

(415) 781-8111
www.photoalliance.org

Fee: 10$; free to students and Aperture subscribers
Media contact: Yseult Chehata, Aperture Foundation 212-946-7108; ychehata@aperture.org

Personally, I’m trying to go to the lecture. I think it would be cool to check out, not only as a photographer, but as someone who just appriciates art. If you are trying to come with, shoot me an email at justgonzaga@gmail.com

Taking pictures with his new 40D,
Justin