Hi All--Just in time for Christmas, I found this interesting article on how a Bronx priest is having locals in Guatemala spin cotton, which is then turned into trendy threads by folks in the Bronx, and which now is hitting the fashion world because the clothes are organic and sustainable. I particularly like this story because the non-profit helps folks in Guatemala earn a living, while also providing jobs in the Bronx and helping those in need including underfunded schools in the community. This is one example of people out there trying to make a difference in this crazy world, and I salute them. Check 'em out a bit more below from the NY Daily News article, from December 7th.
Best,
Renee
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Bronx Priest in the Fashion World
Ahalo is not an accessory one envisions on Anna Wintour.
Yet the Vogue editor's discovery of a fashion designer who happens to be a priest is causing miracles in his Bronx parish and beyond.
"It was an act of God, it really was," says the Rev. Andrew More O'Connor - the fashionista priest of Holy Family Church in Castle Hill.
"I was helping a young woman and her fiancé prepare for their marriage and she said I'm an editor at Vogue; I'd really like to see your clothing line."
That would be Goods of Conscience, made from organic soft cotton cloth hand woven by the Mayan Indians in Guatemala - O'Connor calls it "social fabric."
Seamstresses tailor it right there on Castle Hill Ave. into unexpectedly chic wraparound blouses, black sheaths and even men's suits.
So the bride-to-be, Devon Schuster, Vogue's market editor, went down to the workshop to take a look. "The next day, this is where the act of God comes in," O'Connor says, "Anna Wintour told her staff, 'We can't do the dresses we were planning on for our Cameron Diaz cover story.'"
Cameron is the Queen of Green and only wants clothing made from sustainable grown fabrics - something that's hard to find in the high-fashion market. So Schuster piped up and told Wintour about O'Connor's line of clothes.
"So they called me up and Vogue picked up some of the collection and flew it out to Los Angeles," O'Connor says. "It was all dependent upon whether Cameron Diaz wanted to wear it.
"She did. She loved it. You can see it in the photo. She looks so happy and comfortable, which I liked. And Ms. Wintour wrote a very generous editorial on us."
In her editor's note in that issue, Wintour declared that of all the clothing Diaz modeled, "the neat pair of checked shorts from the charitably minded fashion company Goods of Conscience [is] my personal favorite."
Talk about divine intervention.
"It gave us fashion 'cred,'" O'Connor laughs.
Sales - which ran around 350 pieces a year - spiked. In two years, the company has earned tens of thousands of dollars. Another major star has chosen to wear the comfortable yet elegant clothes in her next movie, the priest hints.
Designer Tory Burch is another O'Connor fan. "I will support anything Father O'Connor does," Burch says. On Dec. 10, Burch's staff will hold a Christmas party and give gifts to all the kindergartners in Holy Family School, which, despite having non-donating multimillionaire Jennifer Lopez as an alumnus, struggle to pay the tuition.
If you're picturing multicolored serapes, re-envision.
At a show at the Greg Lord Studio on W. 26 St., the other night where Swift Technique played, fashionistas sporting $300 shades raved about a cowlneck blouse that reverses to a bateau; khaki trousers draped like gabardine with a peekaboo of tattersal; a man's deep blue shirt with indigo and the very cool "Bronx Blazer," with lapels that snap over the throat.
O'Connor isn't doing all this to compete with Marc Jacobs. The nonprofit Goods of Conscience is creating jobs in the Bronx, funding domestic violence projects in the parish, and helping cure desperate poverty in Guatemala, where the 48-year-old priest was stationed on a religious retreat. "There is 80% malnutrition among the Indian communities of Guatemala, the worst in the northern hemisphere, even worse than Haiti," O'Connor says. "A lot of people wonder, how can I help the poor? People wearing these clothes, they're helping, but not in a condescending way. They're glorying in the workmanship. And the craftsmen and women are earning a living."
Look good, do good, feel good. Fabulous! And Amen.
The battle over health care focuses on access to insurance, or tempests like the one that erupted over new mammogram guidelines.
Nicholas D. Kristof
In his blog, Nicholas Kristof addresses reader feedback and posts short takes from his travels.
Go to Blog » Go to Columnist Page »But what about broader public health challenges? What if breast cancer in the United States has less to do with insurance or mammograms and more to do with contaminants in our water or air -- or in certain plastic containers in our kitchens? What if the surge in asthma and childhood leukemia reflect, in part, the poisons we impose upon ourselves?
This last week I attended a fascinating symposium at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, exploring whether certain common chemicals are linked to breast cancer and other ailments.
Dr. Philip Landrigan, the chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai, said that the risk that a 50-year-old white woman will develop breast cancer has soared to 12 percent today, from 1 percent in 1975. (Some of that is probably a result of better detection.) Younger people also seem to be developing breast cancer: This year a 10-year-old in California, Hannah, is fighting breast cancer and recording her struggle on a blog.
Likewise, asthma rates have tripled over the last 25 years, Dr. Landrigan said. Childhood leukemia is increasing by 1 percent per year. Obesity has surged. One factor may be lifestyle changes — like less physical exercise and more stress and fast food — but some chemicals may also play a role.
Take breast cancer. One puzzle has been that most women living in Asia have low rates of breast cancer, but ethnic Asian women born and raised in the United States don’t enjoy that benefit. At the symposium, Dr. Alisan Goldfarb, a surgeon specializing in breast cancer, pointed to a chart showing breast cancer rates by ethnicity.
“If an Asian woman moves to New York, her daughters will be in this column,” she said, pointing to “whites.” “It is something to do with the environment.”
What’s happening? One theory starts with the well-known fact that women with more lifetime menstrual cycles are at greater risk for breast cancer, because they’re exposed to more estrogen. For example, a woman who began menstruating before 12 has a 30 percent greater risk of breast cancer than one who began at 15 or later.
It’s also well established that Western women are beginning puberty earlier, and going through menopause later. Dr. Maida Galvez, a pediatrician who runs Mount Sinai’s pediatric environmental health specialty unit, told the symposium that American girls in the year 1800 had their first period, on average, at about age 17. By 1900 that had dropped to 14. Now it is 12.
A number of studies, mostly in animals, have linked early puberty to exposure to pesticides, P.C.B.’s and other chemicals. One class of chemicals that creates concern — although the evidence is not definitive — is endocrine disruptors, which are often similar to estrogen and may fool the body into setting off hormonal changes. This used to be a fringe theory, but it is now being treated with great seriousness by the Endocrine Society, the professional association of hormone specialists in the United States.
These endocrine disruptors are found in everything from certain plastics to various cosmetics. “There’s a ton of stuff around that has estrogenic material in it,” Dr. Goldfarb said. “There’s makeup that you rub into your skin for a youthful appearance that is really estrogen.”
More than 80,000 new chemicals have been developed since World War II, according to the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai. Even of the major chemicals, fewer than 20 percent have been tested for toxicity to children, the center says.
Representative Louise Slaughter, the only microbiologist in the House of Representatives, introduced legislation this month that would establish a comprehensive program to monitor endocrine disruptors. That’s an excellent idea, because as long as we’re examining our medical system, there’s a remarkable precedent for a public health effort against a toxic substance. The removal of lead from gasoline resulted in an 80 percent decline in lead levels in our blood since 1976 — along with a six-point gain in children’s I.Q.’s, Dr. Landrigan said.
I asked these doctors what they do in their own homes to reduce risks. They said that they avoid microwaving food in plastic or putting plastics in the dishwasher, because heat may cause chemicals to leach out. And the symposium handed out a reminder card listing “safer plastics” as those marked (usually at the bottom of a container) 1, 2, 4 or 5.
It suggests that the “plastics to avoid” are those numbered 3, 6 and 7 (unless they are also marked “BPA-free”). Yes, the evidence is uncertain, but my weekend project is to go through containers in our house and toss out 3’s, 6’s and 7’s.
RENEE WITTERSTAETTER EDITORA DE LA MARVEL Gijón, Víctor GUILLOT
Renee Witterstaetter nació en el estado de Texas. Fue cronista de boxeo para el «Dallas Morning News», pero su carrera profesional ha destacado como gran editora para la Marvel con «Silver Surfer» o «Conan el Bárbaro». Ha sido la gran maestra de convertir al papel exitosas series de televisión como «Xena», «Hércules» o «Expediente X». Ayer habló para LA NUEVA ESPAÑA.
-Es difícil encontrar una mujer cronista de boxeo que asuma con valentía y eficacia este género periodístico. ¿Cómo fue esa etapa juvenil en el periodismo y cómo influyó después en su trabajo como editora de cómics de superhéroes?
-De pequeña yo era lo que vulgarmente se llama «un marimacho». Me crié junto a mis dos hermanos mayores, que vivían para el boxeo, la doma de caballos y el rodeo. Llegué al periodismo de boxeo gracias a mi profesor de Literatura. Él era un especialista de Shakespeare y también periodista de boxeo y fue quien me animó a continuar en ese mundo. Tuve la oportunidad de entrevistar a Tyson, Foreman o Hollifield. Al igual que este profesor era especialista de Shakespeare, boxeador y periodista, me gustaba extraer la historia personal de los boxeadores, a través de reportajes que abundaban en su vida fuera del ring, ofreciendo una visión del boxeo nueva.
-El boxeo y los superhéroes mantienen una vida dual. En el primer caso, la lucha se mueve por reglas, hay sufrimiento, pero es un sufrimiento limpio. Las puñaladas se las encuentra uno fuera del cuadrilátero. Con los superhéroes sucede lo mismo.
-Estoy completamente de acuerdo. Cuando comencé a leer cómics resultaban atractivos porque los personajes eran muy humanos, con problemas de la vida cotidiana, y al mismo tiempo, debían ejercer la responsabilidad de sus poderes. La dualidad se da en el caso de los deportistas que, como los boxeadores, se han convertido en héroes. No son superhéroes, pero sí personas ordinarias puestas en situaciones extraordinarias que han tenido que conseguir una fuerza extra para llegar a la cima. Un boxeador es un elegido que han escogido por su capacidad en el combate. Se sienten obligados a ser los mejores, casi como superhéroes. Cuando Stan Lee creó los cómics Marvel, entendía que los lectores necesitaban identificarse con los personajes apelando a su lado humano. Eso es lo que yo intenté hacer con mis reportajes.
-Del mismo modo que hay una literatura de boxeo, pienso en F. X. Toole, o Conan Doyle, y también un cine de boxeo: Houston o Eastwood, resulta extraño que no haya un cómic de boxeo.
-El boxeo es un destilado de la vida real y la condición humana y su lucha desempeñada día a día. El espectador, en ese sentido, se siente identificado con el boxeador. Con «Spartan X», el personaje no es un boxeador, pero sí un luchador de artes marciales que, a través de su físico, consigue superar la adversidad. Pienso también en «Dare Devil», cuyo padre fue un boxeador al que le fue arrebatado el éxito y pienso en la película «El niño» de Chaplin. La metáfora del boxeo se aplica al cómic de un modo tangencial.
-Menciona el cómic «Spartan X», el primer caso en el que un actor se convierte en un héroe de cómic, en este caso Jackie Chan.
-La primera película de Jackie Chan que vi, «Operación Cóndor» fue de joven en Chinatown, Nueva York. Quedé hipnotizada porque me pareció que era un superhéroe en carne y hueso. Cuando llegué a casa tuve un sueño muy vívido en el cual me veía a mí misma haciendo un cómic sobre Jackie Chan sentada junto a él. En aquel momento, trabajaba como editora en Marvel junto a mi jefe, al que le gustaban las artes marciales. Le propuse hacer un cómic sobre Chan e inmediatamente después estuve en Hong Kong buscando al actor. La idea a Chang le pareció maravillosa. Ahora estamos trabajando en un volumen que reúna todos los números. He escrito su biografía y un estudio de sus películas. Aquel cómic contribuyó a que Jackie Chan fuera conocido en los EE UU.
-Otros personajes como Xena o Hércules llegan al cómic después de triunfar originalmente como una serie de televisión. Supongo que habrá una serie de limitaciones en la edición que hacen difícil que triunfe.
-Los cómics no dejan de ser una película en una sola dimensión. Como editora estoy encargada de contratar al dibujante, al guionista. Soy la productora de esa película y por lo tanto un control de cómo se va a contar esa idea y ese personaje. Para mí, que un personaje proceda de la televisión no es difícil, porque viene de un lenguaje visual, como lo es también el cómic. El problema más burocrático son las licencias y la imagen de un personaje que está asociado a un actor. Muchos actores tienen derecho de aprobación sobre su imagen. Nos ha sucedido con Hércules o El Zorro. Todo lo que se dibuje sobre su imagen requiere la aprobación de Antonio Banderas.
-Relanzar una figura como She-Hulk, la versión femenina de La Masa, no deja de ser algo complicado, puede ser finalmente una réplica femenina sin mayor trascendencia. Sin embargo no ha sido así.
-Lo que primero busqué fue un artista con una visión particular, impactante. Llamé a John Byrne. Teníamos la misma idea del personaje. Lo que decidimos con She-Hulk fue que tuviera una dirección distinta, y en este caso fue el humor, hasta el punto que logró una personalidad propia. Con personajes tan definidos como Lobezno o Superman, aunque tengan una historia concreta, siempre se pueden contar historias buenas. Es una dificultad, pero yo lo veo como un reto:contar una buena historia.
-Está preparando una antología de entrevistas con los grandes autores del cómic. ¿Qué nos puede adelantar?.
-El DVD se llamará «Creator cronicles». Se trata de conversaciones que intentan conservar la historia del cómic desde sus inicios hasta la actualidad. El primer vídeo es con el maestro George Pérez, y le seguirán otros. Relacionándolo con el principio de esta entrevista, no me interesa sólo hablar de un dibujante, sino también de su vida.
LONDON, England (CNN) -- He's the butt-kicking, karate-chopping, kung fu superstar who rose from nowhere to conquer Hollywood in a spectacularly visual style.
Action star Jackie Chan celebrates winning Best Actor at the 25th China Golden Rooster in 2005
With his compact but wiry 5-foot, 9-inch frame, Jackie Chan seems to pale into insignificance when compared with muscle-bound Hollywood tough guys such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude Van Damme.
But combining extraordinary athleticism and an acrobatic style, Chan could probably take them both on in a fight and emerge victorious.
Best known to western audiences as star of the Rush Hour trilogy, Chan is a prolific actor who has made more than 100 films spanning three decades.
But success did not come easy for Chan, who made a string of flops in the early 1970s in Asia.
He struggled for years to break out of the shadow of Bruce Lee, the undisputed kung fu king of the time -- even appearing as a stuntman in two of Lee's films.
But in 1978, Chan landed his first hit in Asia with "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow." This was quickly followed by "Drunken Master," which catapulted him to fame, and he suddenly became one of the highest-paid actors in the industry.
Chan is credited with creating a new film art form, with his comedic take on martial arts, reminiscent of Buster Keaton's slapstick style.
"He totally reinvented Hong Kong cinema," said Renee Witterstaetter, author of "Dying For Action: The Life and Films of Jackie Chan."
"He created a new film art form, mixing humor with martial arts," Witterstaetter said. "It was so different and unique."
Although a household name in his native Hong Kong and most of Asia, Hollywood seemed largely oblivious to his talents.
It was not until 1994 when he made "Rumble in the Bronx," which grossed $10 million in its opening weekend and made it to number one at the U.S. box office, that Chan finally cracked Hollywood.
Soon big-budget hits such as the "Rush Hour" series and "Shanghai Noon," followed.
"Rush Hour" was Chan's first movie to break $100 million at the U.S. box office, earning $141 million, according to the box office tracking Web site, Box Office Mojo. "Rush Hour 2" made $226 million and "Rush Hour 3" has earned $137 million so far.
His current cinematic venture sees him paired with longtime friend Jet Li in "The Forbidden Kingdom" in their first movie collaboration. Set in a mythic, ancient China, it is described as "The Wizard of Oz with lots of martial arts."
The martial arts dream team have already seen "Kingdom" debut at No. 1 with $20.9 million in ticket sales last weekend, but Chan says the reason it took him so long to work with Jet Li is because he didn't like the Hollywood scripts they were initially offered.
Chan, 54, is also quite candid about the fact that he doesn't like most of the Hollywood films he has made. He revealed to CNN: "I didn't really like 'Rush Hour.' In America, everyone likes 'Rush Hour,' but in Asia nobody likes it.
"They like talking too much in America but in Asia they like to fight more in the films."
After the film wrapped in 1998, he wrote on his Web site: "When we finished filming, I was very disappointed because it was a movie I didn't appreciate and I did not like the action scenes involved.
"I felt the style of action was too Americanized and I didn't understand the American humor."
Chan has certainly come a long way from his impoverished childhood in Hong Kong, where the story has it that his parents were so poor, they nearly sold him to a British doctor for less than $100.
However, his parents instead enrolled him at the China Drama Academy, a talent school of hard knocks with a draconian regime that included training in music, acrobatics and martial arts that lasted 18 hours a day. Beatings were commonplace.
Children were made to perform headstands for hours on end and Chan describes being forced to run, arms outstretched, carrying two full cups of water, with strict instructions not to spill a drop. With his parents now living in Australia, Chan stayed at the school for ten years and was adopted by his Master.
Undoubtedly, the academy's grueling regime would later stand Chan in good stead, turning him into an incredibly driven and disciplined stuntman turned actor, who always choreographs and performs his own stunts.
As a consequence, no insurance company will underwrite Chan's productions, which are legendary for his death-defying super stunts. They include water-skiing barefoot behind a speeding hovercraft, jumping off a building and swinging from a hot air balloon.
Chan holds the Guinness World Record for "Most Stunts By A Living Actor."
He also holds the record for the most number of takes for a single shot in a film, having shot over 2900 retakes for a complex scene involving a badminton game in "Dragon Lord."
Unsurprisingly, Chan has suffered a litany of injuries in the course of his film career. Over the years, he has dislocated his pelvis and broken his fingers, toes, nose, both cheekbones, hips, sternum, neck and ribs on numerous occasions.
When filming "Police Story" in 1985, he suffered second-degree burns to his hands and palms after sliding 100 feet down a pole festooned in Christmas lights.
Many of the injuries have appeared, in eye-watering viewing, as outtakes or bloopers during the closing credits of his films.
But in 1986, he came close to death while filming "Armor of God," when he fell 45 feet from a tree and fractured his skull, leaving a permanent hole in his head.
Chan explained to CNN's TalkAsia host, Anjali Rao that he never insists on doing his own stunts. It's just the way things are done in Hong Kong.
"Making a film in Hong Kong in the old days was not like Hollywood," he says.
"We didn't have protection like elbow pads and we didn't have the knowledge about safety. I had to risk my life jumping from building to building."
Chan is a one-man movie-making machine. He has his own production and distribution company -- Jackie Chan Emperor Movies -- and controls all aspects of the movie-making process, from casting to directing, producing, screenwriting, choreographing and stunt coordinating. He even has his own stunt team and casting agency.
His director on the Rush Hour series, Brett Ratner told CNN's The Screening Room that Chan's versatility gives him the edge over other martial arts stars like Bruce Lee and Jet Li.
"Jackie is the most gifted actor of the three because he has the most range. Bruce Lee is a legendary performer and martial artist, but I don't think he is as funny as Jackie Chan.
"Jackie can be funny, he can be dramatic, he can do the action and the stunts, he can direct, edit, shoot. He is also a stunt coordinator so he is everything wrapped into one."
