Lisa Factora-Borchers

Appetite for Reduction: 125 Fast and Filling Low-Fat Vegan Recipes

mandy — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

My library copy of Vegan with a Vengeance shouldn’t have been returned. Not in the state it was in after it lived in my kitchen for five renewed status cycles (the maximum number I was allowed before I had to return it to my local library). The book shouldn’t have been returned because it smelled like food. A cookbook, naturally, absorbs the effort of its teachings: oils and buttered thumb prints, dried arrow root smudges, and one small berry stain on two of the pages when I tried to turn them with fruit juice-stained fingers. Luckily, I don’t have to return Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s newest book, Appetite for Reduction, which is doomed to the same fate as its predecessor: lovingly used with pages that are turned with excitement, torn at its edges and bearing of all kinds of quirky marks, compliments of the daring cook.

Moskowitz discloses her personal health reasons that resulted in her decision to find more recipes that are lighter in caloric intake. She also stresses her reluctance to contribute to the war on bigger bodied women. So what does Moskowitz do? She writes a cookbook for vegan stomachs searching lowfat, delicious recipes. For those in the vegan community who are also health conscious, Moskowitz has delivered the goods on a plate too irresistible to deny.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz is the best friend we’re all looking for: she writes in a way we understand, a language that is easily understood and humorous. She is also the cook we want for our healthy lives and families. She gets it. She gets that we don’t want to give up taste and satisfaction for healthy living. With this book, she dismantles the notion that vegan eating and cooking is not either extreme of the rumor spectrum. Veganhood is not bland rabbit food, nor is it substituting large amount of full fat in place of flavor.

From funky hummus creative ideas to “OMG Oven-Baked Onion Rings,” from sides to satisfying full entrée ideas, Moskowitz turns your vegan kitchen upside down, shakes out the fat, and replaces it with novel and tasty ideas to keep your mind interested and your tongue happy you tried something new. For this, I raise my spatula to Moskowitz with a need and heartfelt thank you. Vegan or omnivore, you will find something to rave about and savor in Appetite for Reduction.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 15th 2011

The Skin Quilt Project

mandy — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Lauren Cross

Mae’s House Productions

Without the preservation of historical text, artifact, and art, history can slowly fade from memory. Stories of survival can easily become short-lived memories as they are passed from one generation to the next before they are forgotten. For Black African American women, their history has been and continues to be woven together in quilting. The Skin Quilt Project is a documentary featuring various quilters, artists, academics, and historians discussing the necessity, purpose, benefits, and impact of Black African American women quilters and what their artistry does for their families and communities.

The film begins with the issue of skin color among African Americans and the discriminatory “trick down racism” that began with slavery and eventually bled into African American communities to set up its own caste system. Artists and quilters talk about the process and representation of creating images of Black women in their art and the significance or insignificance of the skin color of their subjects. As the documentary deepens, the topics become more complex and emotional.

There are two themes explored in the film: the process of quilting and the quilts themselves. The Skin Quilt Project goes beyond skin deep as it gains testimony about the relationship between the artist and community, artist and their work, artist and history, story and survivor. It’s more than just preserving cultural legacy; the quilts themselves are works of art, tangible testaments to the diverse life experience of Black women in the United States.

The process of making the quilts is binding experience, not just between the quilter and the quilt, but also between the artist and the community in which it is made. Many quilters find acceptance, camaraderie, confidence, and affirmation of their skill level by quilting together. It also provides challenge to take a project to the next level. This in-depth sharing of knowledge and craft is essential to many of the artists. The experience is not only for the artist’s physical artwork, but as many women attest, quilting feeds the soul and is part of the “visual, Negro spiritual” identity.

While the stories and commentary of The Skin Quilt Project are clearly important and interesting, the format of the documentary did not share the rich diversity of the quilts or the artists. No narrative voiceover to direct the film or text dividers to signal a new focus. The documentary relies heavily on the spoken word to engage the audience, but with a few audio kinks in the beginning, it’s difficult to phonetically understand what is being said. The ongoing and unbroken stride doesn’t offer much creative opportunity to appreciate the different insights of each interviewee.

For those interested in the role of African American women, quilters, and the critical role artists play in our social history, The Skin Quilt Project is a fine demonstration of the radical work that can be accomplished by needle and thread.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 14th 2011

Sin by Silence

mandy — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Olivia Klaus

Women Make Movies

There are not many US citizens who do not recognize a pink ribbon as the rallying fight against breast cancer. Even more so for the red ribbon, as it raises the voices of the AIDS epidemic. However, most faces would not correctly identify the cause of the purple ribbon: domestic violence. A purple ribbon is probably a little too uncomfortably similar to the purple bruises a women suffers every nine seconds, according to the film Sin by Silence, which documents the heart-twisting story of incarcerated, battered women serving maximum sentences for killing their abusive partners.

Sin by Silence chronicles the movement of the Convicted Women Against Abuse (CWAA), who unexpectedly find a healing sisterhood in the isolating walls of prison and used their collective strength to bring personal, familial, and judicial change in their lives. Uncontrived and starkly original, the moving narratives are enough to leave the viewer in near distress. The preliminary question of how each woman survived quickly turns into arrows targeting the legal system that punishes already beaten, raped, and tortured women with hefty prison sentences. Their crime? Battered person syndrome and refusing to be killed by their spouses.

Throughout the film, these women prove much more than mishandled, husband-killers. They are emotional, insightful human beings caught in a frighteningly narrow judicial system that fails to comprehend the effects of repeated and brutal intimate partner violence. It will be impossible to view the prison industry and its supposed rehabilitation efforts the same way again.

What will most move viewers is the unwavering support and courage these women lend each other in their collective cry for freedom. Their commitment to education and truth telling transcends their own pain and the bars that ostracize them from society. Sin by Silence is a deeply important film that will leave a probing mark of disturbance on the conscience of anyone who watches it.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, January 4th 2011

First

admin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Directed by Eve Waltermaurer, Hazel Gurland

Walgurl Production

If Salt ‘N Peppa had written lyrics with the phrase, “Let’s talk about sexuality, baby,” instead of, “Let’s talk about sex, baby,” I wonder if it would still have its legendary pop status. After all, it is easier to talk about sex than it is to talk, or rap, about sexuality. It’s much easier to talk about sex acts than the decision to express one’s sexual development or process of maturity. If talking about sex is socially taboo, save a handful of pop culture, then talking, or rapping, about sexuality is unthinkable. The documentary, First, does a little bit of both.

Ten women provide candid commentary describing the first time they had sexual relationships. First gathers a handful of women who range in age, experience, occupation, and race and draws from them the dark and juicy secrets that most sexually active people keep to themselves: details about the first time they had intercourse. However, not only does it recount the tales of virginity lost, it also touches briefly upon the ethos, attitudes, and expectation of each woman.

Without a narrative voice, or any guiding measure, the documentary blends the voices, creating a collage of informal conversation with an underlying current of feminist discourse. Each contributor could easily represent any woman’s sexual experience, and they evoke the common, but often silent, connection between women when recalling their own journey of sexual discovery. There are parallel stories of confusion, awkwardness, and peer pressure.

First is a thirty-eight minute film exploring not just first encounters with sex, but with sexuality and the upbringing, culture, community, and influences surrounding each woman in her development. While the film respectfully and warmly captures these stories, it does not provide any constructive or critical analysis. It is a finely woven fabric of stories, but does not question or probe. The bold title and nature of the documentary loses momentum as the film reaches midpoint, and then the themes begin to feel a bit redundant.

With no nuanced questions or prompts, audiences can be entertained by the stories, but would need a series of directed questions if this documentary would be used as a learning tool for a group discussion or to begin a conversation with a teen confronting issues of curiosity, puberty, and intimacy. With its brave participants, however, this film carries a rich and unique potential to create a safe place to share our own hidden stories of sacred firsts.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, March 7th 2010

Lumo: One Young Woman's Struggle to Heal in a Nation Beset By War

admin — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:14:00 +0000

Directed by Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt, Nelson Walker III

Goma Film Project

Lumo is a documentary, named after its central character, of an African woman healing from a rape endured by military men that left her with a medical condition called fistula, a tear in the wall between the vagina and bladder caused by violent rape. It left her incontinent and uncertain of her chances to birth children. Like so many women who bear the heaviest and agonizing brutality in war-torn countries, rape is the most barbaric and common war crime committed against African women. While others think of terror in the form of bombs, missiles, and heavy artillery, Lumo recognizes rape as the most treacherous act of war, which claims the lives of so many women and leaves them in unspeakable suffering.

The film follows Lumo as she travels from her village, where she has been rejected by her fiancé, neglected by her family, and ostracized by her community, to Goma, a region in the Democratic Republic of Congo where she will receive treatment from HEAL Africa, an internationally sponsored hospital that provides services for rape survivors. Lumo will stay at the hospital for an unknown period of time until she physically and psychologically recovers from her trauma.

Although the tempo is slow, the documentary absorbs every painful detail of Lumo’s healing process. As if reflecting the pace of healing itself, the arduous and tedious speed of the film unnerves the viewer as the agony of the fistula is unmasked. Leaking urine, one of the symptoms of the fistula, cast Lumo and these other survivors into a world where they are further violated and isolated because of their condition. The cinematography is gripping. The facial portraits of the women are burned into the viewer's memory.

Lumo also moves between disparity and the power of faith. It largely focuses on Christianity as a source of strength and hangs the hope of medical miracles on Jesus and images of God as the savior. The survivors are repeatedly told to pray for their healing and ask God for complete recovery.

Central to Lumo’s message is the unflinching commentary on the lives of the women who will return to their homes after months, or sometimes years, of treatment. They will return to the world of rejection and rebel-occupied villages where they will live in danger of being raped again.

The film interacts with other components of gender domination and oppression–state violence and government officials who use victim-blaming language–to expose all facets of the cycle which perpetuate the cycle of violence against and degradation of women. In every society, in every part of the world, sexual violence is a crime against humanity. It will transform its face based on language, environment, and culture, but Lumo points out that violence against women remains the greatest commonality among all social sins, and no nation has taken steps toward absolution.

After witnessing the journey of one woman, viewers will be compelled to search for Lumo in their own community, city, town, or village. Lumo can and is everywhere. She is anywhere and everywhere violence against women persists.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, July 28th 2009

The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality, and Relationships

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:02:00 +0000

Directed by Chyng Sun, Miguel Picker

Open Lens Media

The advancement of gender equality and feminisms are arguably difficult to measure. One of the greatest successes, however, is the growing level of complexity with which we view previously black and white issues. In other words, we as a society are more capable to recognize the grey in controversial issues. As the face of feminism becomes more of a collage than one iconic portrait, as the proverbial intersection of race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, religion, and other forms of identity receives more thoughtful traffic, documentary films such as The Price of Pleasure emerge. This film boasts a unique approach to exploring the contentious world of pornography.

Abandoning the tired and often cyclical rhetoric on whether pornography is “right or wrong,” The Price of Pleasure investigates the collision of pornography, sexuality, and relationships. Instead of wagging a finger at the billion dollar industry from an academic pulpit, this film features a diverse group of college students, professionals, media makers, distributors, consumers, and adult performers to expose a panoramic and dizzying look at how pornography affects our lives and relationships. Instead of making statements that legitimize or demonize the porn industry, the film asks questions, and then allows people talk for themselves.

Equally compelling as it is disturbing, The Price of Pleasure spans the pornography business with several different lenses: race/gender roles and power, economic and capitalistic trends, political and corporate involvement, and sexualized violence against women and children. The weight of these issues is undoubtedly distressing. The film takes a bold approach to examining the stunning financial profits of the industry and the connection to our human needs and insecurities. The Price of Pleasure presents an unapologetic inquiry into the blurring line between the pornographic world and real world. That line is the primary battleground of the film.

The Price of Pleasure is loaded with explicit and violent imagery, vulgar language, and disturbing commentary, which may upset an unsuspecting viewer or trigger a survivor of sexual assault. Educators should exercise acute judgment when using this film for discussion and note that the DVD contains an option to view an edited or unedited version. Even with the most seasoned of facilitators, audience members should be appropriately prepped and forewarned.

The Price of Pleasure holds immense possibility for transformative dialogue. The questions raised are almost too difficult to hear, but once they are voiced they are too impossible to ignore.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, July 24th 2009

No Country for Young Girls

admin — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:26:00 +0000

Directed by Nupur Basu

Life on the Edge

No Country for Young Girls is a twenty-five minute question posed to India: "How can this country move forward while there is still profound gender discrimination against females?"

Director Nupur Basu introduces twenty-seven-year-old Vyjanthi, a mother of a three-year-old daughter. When she becomes pregnant with another girl, her husband and in-laws pressure her to an abortion. She flees to her parents’ house to weigh her options. Should she leave her husband and raise her daughters on her own? Or should she go back to her husband and accept that India is not a country fit for a mother to raise daughters?

Vyjanthi begins a journey to explore her country, its cultural and religious history, and what other Indian women who live in different regions of India have to say about her dilemma.

No Country for Young Girls is a startling contemporary view of the oldest prejudice in existence: boys more valued and valuable than girls. While sex-selective abortion is illegal in India, the numbers do not lie. In some regions of the country, there are a far greater number of boys than girls being born. The prevalent practice of selective abortion is leading to an imbalance of boys and girls living in India and, many predict, is heading for an unknown but monumental crisis. Girls’ worth is measured in the form of dowries, and infanticide reinforces that gender discrimination is still very much alive in all parts of India.

Vyjanthi takes her story of in-law harassment and unfairness to strangers in faraway corners of her country and finds she is not alone. She meets women in high executive positions, other mothers, regular citizens in discos and informal meetings. All of them raise different points, but all of them agree that India is still outdated in their thinking about gender. No Country for Young Girls asks many important questions, almost too many for such a brief film, that have no resolution or finality.

While the short film is not as engaging as one would hope and the journey for Vyjanthi seems a bit contrived for the sake of making a short film, the issues raised are still very much worth exploring and the reality of gender oppression in present-day India, and this film lays the issues bare for the world to see and debate.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 11th 2009

Labor Pains and Birth Stories: Essays on Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Becoming a Parent

admin — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:36:00 +0000

Edited by Jessica Powers

Catalyst Book Press

There is no older and greater story than childbirth. Pregnancy. Fertility. Life.

For women, who carry the impossible miracle of bringing life into the world, birth and labor reflect the diverse experiences of our lives and livelihood. Our process through medical care, partners, health, choice, and mystery are as different as the children we birth.

Labor Pains and Birth Stories is a small mirror of that richness. With twenty-nine compelling essays of pain and strength, each glimpse these writers provide validates the awesomeness and depth of the process of pregnancy. Written from mostly women authors, Powers weaves together a tapestry of debate, conflict, joy, and uncertainty all through the common practice of story-telling our lives.

One of the most compelling essays is "La Promesa de Esperanza," written by Noemi Martinez, which stands considerably unique in its own corner with its sorrowful honesty and bravery. Martinez is a single mother of two, who embraces her tangled web of religion, abuse, and isolation: "This birth of myself into who I am now was a process of layers being built and torn down, reconstructed. Pieced together now, I’m an installation, a collage."

Another distinct essay came with an emotional avalanche. The book had to be temporarily put aside as I wept into Elisabeth Aron’s words, "The Birth Story of Miles," who tenderly remembers the joy and grief of her journey with her son Miles. Her writing is simple and knowing; every detail delivers a clear stroke of her memory, and even readers unfamiliar with pregnancy and birth will connect with this exceptional piece.

The backgrounds of these parents show the diversity of their stories. The undercurrent of their stories hints at class differences and whether they could afford international adoption or uninsured fertility treatment. Their individual voices speak a multitude of languages: different cultural practices and observations, how their pregnancy was viewed by their communities, how much support and education they were given throughout their process.

Not only are the individual literary essays gifts for those seeking comfort and company in their own birthing experience; the collection as a whole can be used for critical analysis as to how the world not only accepts children, but how we treat and care for mothers as well.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 9th 2009

Private Practices: The Story of a Sex Surrogate

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:06:00 +0000

Directed by Kirby Dick

Zeitgeist Films

Private Practices is the story of a sex surrogate, Maureen Sullivan Ward, who teaches men with sexual dysfunctions how to improve their sexual communication, physical expression, and experience pleasure.

Maureen "Mo" Sullivan Ward approaches sex in a clinical fashion, seeking ways to make clients more comfortable and assisting them in exploring their personal fears and phobias. The documentary features two men, Kipper, a twenty-five-year-old novice in graduate school who cannot advance beyond verbal communication with a female and John, a forty-five-year-old divorcee who is grieving the reality of his wife’s twenty year displeasure with their sex life.

The beginning of the movie acknowledges the moral and ethical conflicts that may arise with the field of sexual surrogacy, but redirects the viewers to focus on the lives, not the tension, in the film as they confront an underground topic of supreme sensitivity that is sexual awkwardness and hardship.

Private Practices gives peripheral insights from the families, friends, and neighbors who observe Ward in her profession. Naturally, as the film unfolds, questions begin to surface about Ward how her work affects her personal relationships and lovemaking. Briefly, we see the complications of Ward’s own life as it delves into her family dynamics and history.

Initially, I thought the film would primarily focus on the two men and their perceived inadequacies. However, as the story deepened, new revelations came slowly and with compassion. The film is not just about John and Kipper as clients, but rather, they are symbolic of insecurities and problems that most adults face at one time in their sexual development. It is a careful dissection of sexuality and the relationships we build in our families and in childhood that lead us to falsehoods, myths, and assumptions about how we will be as partners and lovers. Ward’s role as a surrogate and her background is every bit explored as Kipper and John, which tantalizes and blurs the lines of right and wrong in these controversial therapeutic relationships.

A psychological and clinical lens frames the three lives and helps keep the story contained and moving. The slight doctor’s office feel helps navigate the explicit scenes that practice caressing in full nudity. With boundaries and directness, the clients are carefully guided, never being pushed or hurried in their process. Each story is unique, but reveals a common truth that Ward sums up with as she reflects on her journey: "We're all in the same boat." They are all searching for a place of understanding, comfort, and healing.

This film, in the field of sexual surrogacy, explores the safety, richness, futility, and dangers of sex therapy. If our societal mental disorder of sexual schizophrenia is as prevalent in 1985 as it is today, Private Practices remains a useful tool and talking point when considering the lines of human relationship and sexual frailty.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 8th 2009

Pray The Devil Back To Hell

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:15:00 +0000

Directed by Gini Reticker

Fork Films

Imagine all the worst atrocities that can be committed against women. Think of all of the greatest evils that stain a country with corruption and greed. Then, in the direst of situations, imagine how a group of women could change the face of blood and hopelessness. This is the story of Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

Not the devil with a pitchfork, the devil referenced in this film is the evil that we all fear—women and men alike. The darkest of all oppression are the sins committed against innocent children: turning sons into drug addicted child soldiers, the rape of young daughters, and the burning injustice of war. This is the story of Liberia, a country founded by freed slaves in 1847 that erupted into civil war in 1989.

This film focuses primarily on the story told by Leymah Gbowee, a social worker and organizer of the Christian Women’s Initiative, which joined with Muslim women to fight for peace in Liberia after years of hunger, death, and silence. Gbowee explains the misery of an oppressive government led by president Charles Taylor and the unrestrained rebels, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), who only knew violent tactics to overthrow Taylor.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell is like an elevator ride that first descends into the depths of hell itself with footage from the mangled streets and haunting images of young, smiling boys with guns. The accounts of rape and the killing sprees are graphic, sharply and painfully illustrating an almost surreal world of unimaginable terror.

Then the elevator ascends, jaggedly and slowly into the unfolding vision by women—both Christian and Muslim—who first plead, then appeal, and then demand peace. The strength and vibrant spirit of community unify the Liberian women in their praying, organizing, protesting, fasting, marching, and sit-ins. The film points the viewer to all the stages where women’s presence is necessary, from the spreading violence of warlords to the United Nations peacekeeping "experts" who organized the near disastrous disarmament, to the electing of the first women president in Africa.

This film is a succinct seventy-four minute lesson and testament to the fear and power of grassroots organizing and the legacy of a women’s movement birthed in a harrowing era of Liberian history. It is stripped of lofty academic jargon and nothing short of mesmerizing, horrific, and jolting. Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the living conflict of prayer, action, and justice-seeking love of country and brethren.

The importance of this film cannot be overstated. It is a model of what is possible and what should be strived for in times of naked tyranny and oppression. It is the inspiring and empowering story of what can be overcome when women are gathered for common purpose and love.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 7th 2009

Natalie Tran - CommunityChannel

admin — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:33:00 +0000

By Natalie Tran

Natalie Tran, a 22-year-old Australia vlogger, has created a small sensation on YouTube. The reigning queen of Australian YouTubers, she is a young, fresh-faced woman with self-deprecating humor who picks on the mundane snags of life that often get under our skin. It's a Seinfeld approach to humor, except this channel features a smart-mouth Vietnamese woman who begins each video with a quirky wave and smile.

The videos are often short, less than five minutes, with mild irreverence and profanity scattered throughout. Her satirical style is engaging, highlighting comments she receives from viewers and labels that portion of her videos "Comments/Porn Music Time," which is befitting of her overall "your mum" jokes and "ugly word of the video" persona.

A community channel with nearly 200,000 subscribers, Natalie's place is dubbed the site where "bandwidth commits suicide and cool goes to die," and has been embraced all over the globe, deeming her the number one most subscribed Australian channel on YouTube.

In some comments there are references and comparisons to HappySlip, another popular Asian comic female vlogger based out of New York, who stamped her Internet fame with the Filipino flag and primarily focuses on the Philippines and Filipino American culture.

Both have strong followings, but the difference between the two is target audience. Tran, who came on the interwebs in 2006, utilizes YouTube without an independent website, and appeals to a wide variety of viewers, but has a younger flavor to her videos. She speaks on the fly and grounds her 130 videos (and growing by the week) in casual humor relating pop culture, sexuality, Australian temperatures, and everyday grumbles.

Christine Gambito from HappySlip, who also launched her comedic career in 2006, has fewer sketches (eighty-one videos), and her skits play on the safer but still hilarious side of web entertainment. Topics range from her personal connection to the Philippines, to a friend passing away, to Facebook etiquette. Unlike Tran, she steers clear of any sexual innuendo and often showcases her musical talents. With her own domain and easy to navigate website, HappySlip has a more mature feel than Natalie’s community channel, which works in Natalie’s favor.

Natalie’s appeal to a young generation has spread far and wide and her success story proves that YouTube remains the hotbed for raw talent and creativity. Her popularity has skyrocketed so quickly it will not be surprising when a global linguistic trend begins to take hold; when "yeh" replaces "yeah," while "man" and "mate" are tagged at the end of sentences.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 4th 2009

Dérive

admin — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:47:00 +0000

By Bruna Mori, Matthew Kinney

Meritage Press

The city that never sleeps. 9/11. Diversity. Pizza and delis. Flash. Cash. Big Dreams.

New York City.

Like a poem itself, this is the island that has been the backdrop for countless films; the harbor of the world’s biggest dreams and temptations; the haven for the lost as well as the found; aligned with the sidewalks that skinned the knees of the fallen hopefuls; where the buildings are as high as the blues are sung deep: New York City.

Poets Bruna Mori and painter Matthew Kinney deliver Dérive, an artistic duo that sticks a beaker under each borough and catches the sensuous juices of every coil, as read in “207th/Fort Tryon Park (Manhattan):

Bodhisattvas sit weaving urban peace as comfortably as Cubana at McDonalds, graffiti on rock, whispering “in this valley” and “never seen.”

Taking on Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan, Mori has an unusually piercing eye, tracing the crane, architecture, subway window and citizens with a graceful zest that leaves commoners nodding and the virginal traveler piqued with curiosity. From “Marking:”

To walk in a straight path here is impossibility. How to sidestep the canonic Krishna dancer and Puerto Rican boys calling, “Cheena,” “Mamacita,” and “God bless you.”

An insightful and confident blend of art yields a smattering taste of New York experiences that indulge the strange, whimsical, reflective and humorous. The Kinney paintings provide landscape intermissions between Mori’s stylistics, a complimentary visual even with the grayscale shading with its subtle hints of depth.

Dérive is a wonderful collection for any former New Yorker needing reminders of the peculiar trademarks of urban living, or those who wish to be temporarily placed in the hands of two revelatory artists who detail the mesmerizing beauty of the common, everyday encounters of human existence.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, June 17th 2007

Mommy's Angel

admin — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:30:00 +0000

By Miasha

Touchstone Books

Most savvy feminists can argue their way through complex social problems such as sexual violence, poverty and drug use. Most savvy feminists, though, could not articulate those issues though a fast-paced, sharply written story like Mommy’s Angel. Dubbed as “a writer to watch” by Publishers Weekly,” Miasha tells the heartbreaking story of one fifteen year old girl’s steel gut and courage in her battle for survival with a heroin-addicted mother and a web of deceit and manipulation.

Miasha depicts some of the most pressing issues of feminism by mixing city street vernacular into the cycle of modern day oppression that fuels the most heated debates in western feminism. Can forms of sex work and stripping be considered modes of empowerment for young women? What forms of intervention can adeptly disrupt the cycle of addiction, rape and teen pregnancy? This work of fictional brilliance is a succinct glimpse into the heart of young girls who seek family redemption, reliable and safe options, and relief from domestic hell.

This jarring novel is loaded with emotion as it takes the reader through the struggle of one woman who is, chronologically, a teen, but takes on adult responsibilities and choices as she hopes, torments and fights through the vicious hands of urban poverty and rape. With a smart-mouthed younger sister, a loving boyfriend, an abusive employer, and a handful of irresistible page-turning characters, Miasha has constructed a feminist rollercoaster that serves as an important catalyst to explore the painful intersection of social issues facing young women today.

This novel, like everyday life, reminds us that our discourse and intentions must be inclusive, updated and knowledgeable of the realities plaguing our inner-city communities. It serves as a wake-up call that concerned readers must be able to adequately recognize the strategic anti-poverty agendas from the blithe political plans that are often addressed in binary jargon that do little to alleviate the suffering of the oppressed.

After completing the novel in one sitting combined with a stunning ending that left me staring, non-blinking at the ceiling, Mommy’s Angel will haunt your conversations and linger in your personal thoughts for days after the last page is turned.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, June 7th 2007