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Telling Stories, Saving Lives, Building Community: Are The Arts The Answer?

Kianna Hampton, 10, waits outside for Pedro Reyes to show up. Not necessarily an unusual scene on city streets across the country. But Kianna isn’t waiting for a ride, or a tutor, or something more pernicious in the projects she calls home. Kianna is waiting for art. She’s waiting for her chance to be a film producer, it’s what she does after school.
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There is Really No Such Thing as Independent Film

There is really no such thing as independent film. Just a thought, but what a thought.
This thought is a bit puzzling, coming from a man who is touring the country personally promoting two films that he spent his own money to make, telling stories that no big studio would risk telling, in a way that few audience members can handle being told.
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Conquest of the Word Masters: 826 Valencia Expands its Empire from Coast to Coast

by Ann Simms

Mac Barnett is turning a shampoo bottle over in his hands. The liquid inside is viscous, the color of blood. “We haven’t gotten all the kinks out yet. But we’re close,” he says, grinning mischievously.

“Rasputin Baby Shampoo” is one ofthe 300 products that Barnett and his colleagues are developing for the Echo Park Time Travel Mart. (“El Dorado Solid Gold Scrubber Pads” and “Mammoth Chunks” soup are two more of the works-in-progress.) This store, once opened, will be the retail counterpoint to 826 LA, an educational wonderland for kids that’s been up and buzzing since March of 2005.
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The Edible Schoolyard: Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Foundation

by Ann Simms

In the summer of 1969, Alice Waters and a friend were traveling across the plains of central Anatolia in a tiny, beat-up Morris Minor. Waters had just completed her coursework at the Montessori Institute in London, where she was preparing to become a high school teacher. This trip to Turkey, along with the next year she would spend restaurant hopping in France, was to be her last hurrah before launching a lifelong career in education.
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