Exclusives, APR 06

FASHION WEEK - The Culture of Beauty
In the world of high fashion, has ethnicity become an accessory?
by JENNIFER CHANG, creator

A specific culture surrounds the realm of high-end fashion, and it is one that, by necessity, must appear light years ahead of what exists in the present.

Fashion designers seeking to push the envelope must be able to identify beauty that is not readily observable, and not universally understood.

Designers who have created clothes out of things like trash bags, or deflated Mylar balloons will tell you that they can’t afford to be bound or blinded by societal standards of what is beautiful and what must be dismissed as ugly. The fashion world has long-since shucked off the lines of color and gender.


OLYMPICS - TORINO 2006
Looking Back: The Political Side of the Olympics
by ROXY VARZA, assistant editor


Sports have a political system all their own. Athletes live in a world where they become candidates aiming for election. They abide by sport laws and function under sport government officials. An athlete’s life is extremely political. But add a global element, where athletes no longer represent themselves or their teams, but rather their nations and their governments -- a whole new political element comes into play.

In this light, one can see how the twentieth Olympic Games, which took place in Torino, Italy, were anything but fair play.


POETRY - word & violin
Memories, Myths, and Migrations
by KATHERINE PARADERO, editor-in-chief

With the stage at the level of the floor, and with painted-over windows behind them, the performance that evening had its focus on themes of migration and on the myths that surround it.

The story of Lot’s wife, who becomes a pillar of salt when she turns back to witness the burning of Sodom and Gomorra in the Old Testament, is the inspiration for the parallel that Sundaralingam draws to the refugees who are the witnesses of their own burning cities.

For refugee women like herself, who have had to leave their countries and their homes to burn, there is a part of them that remains, like Lot's wife, forever frozen there. It is to these women that the poem, “Lot’s Wives” is dedicated.