Stories in Action

Learn best practices for grant applications and how to receive funding during the economic downturn. The Office of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi will host its second Arts and Humanities Grants Panel at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 5, at 2:30 pm. Council Executive Director Ralph Lewin will serve on the panel along with representatives from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the California State Library, Grants for the Arts and the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Please RSVP to SpeakerRSVP@mail.house.gov with the subject “Grants Workshop.” Include your name, organization, contact information and any questions on topics you would like to have covered. Space is limited.

The contributions of African Americans to California’s state parks is the topic of an all-day conference at USC on Monday, May 4. The conference – “100 Years Since Allensworth” — features a keynote address by former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and three panels discussing unknown or infrequently told histories in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento County. 8 am to 5 pm, Doheny Memorial Library, Room 240, University of Southern California. Reception: 6 pm to 7:30 pm (at Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, Culver City).

Presented by the California State Parks Foundation and USC Libraries.
$60 (Includes continental breakfast, lunch and evening reception, plus a free 1-year membership to the California State Parks Foundation)

For more information and to register.

Our own Raeshma Razvi will be part of panel about Muslim youth culture at the San Francisco Film Festival this Sunday, April 26, following the premiere of the documentary feature “New Muslim Cool.” The film will be shown at 3 pm at the Sundance Kabuki Theater in San Francisco. followed by the panel at 5:15. Other panelists include Jennifer Maytorena Taylor producer/director, “New Muslim Cool,” and Yahsmin Binti Bobo, cofounder and contributing editor, Illume Magazine. Munir Jiwa, founding director, Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, moderates.
More about “New Muslim Cool.”
More about the San Francisco Film Festival.

“Croatian Stories - Tales of Croatian Heritage in California,” a 45 minute California Story Fund documentary film about 11 Croatians living in the San Francisco Bay Area, will be screened on Thursday, April 30, at 6:30 pm, at UC Berkeley’s International House. The Slavonian Traveling Band, which blends traditional Bosnian, Sephardic, Gypsy, Croatian, Macedonian music with songs in the American folk tradition, will play a short set of Croatian music as part of the evening. I-House residents, members and alumni are free. A $5 donation from the community is appreciated. The screening is part of the I House’s Globalization Lecture Series. University of California-Berkeley, International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave., Berkeley, in the Home Room. More.

Mexican immigrant Jose Luis Bonilla, dishwasher turned businessman, spent over 20 years building his colossal, hand-made Mexican Disneyland in the heart of California, only to abandon it after permit problems. Filmmakers Kevin Bender and Julio Fons capture Bonilla’s story in the documentary “Thinking Grande.” The film will have its television premier on San Diego’s public television station KPBS on Tuesday, May 26th, at 9:30 pm.

Apropos of Bender, 20 years ago, the filmmaker produced and directed “Ball Talk: Baseball’s Voices of Summer,” about six Hall of Fame baseball announcers: Mel Allen, Red Barber, Jack Brickhouse, Jack Buck, Curt Gowdy and Ernie Harwell. (The film, called “a gem” by the L.A. Times is available for the first time on DVD.) Now Bender has turned his attention to Vin Scully, the longtime announcer of the L.A. Dodgers in his new blog Scully’s Scorebook: Hits, Runs & Humanities.

Bender, a former English teacher, started listening to Scully while studying English and education at UC Santa Barbara in the late 1970s. “Vin’s broadcasts were nightly seminars in hits, runs and the humanities,” Bender remembers. “Steve Garvey’s forearms reminded him of Longfellow’s “Village Blacksmith,” a late-game comeback has the Dodgers not going “gentle into that good night,” a bad shortstop conjured up Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner,” because when fielding ground balls, the infielder also “stoppeth one of three.”

Bender has long wanted to honor and celebrate Scully. “Vin didn’t want to be in ‘Ball Talk,’ so this is a way I can show my appreciation for him.”

The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and the National Park Service are seeking applicants for the Save America’s Treasures 2009 grant program. Grants are available for preservation and/or conservation work on nationally significant intellectual and cultural artifacts and historic structures and sites. The application deadline is Friday, May 22. More.

April is Jazz Appreciation Month and many events are planned around the country. As part of the celebration, the National Endowment for the Humanities is featuring resources and lesson plans on its website and you can also find free materials at http://www.free.ed.gov/subjects.cfm?subject_id=156. And the organizer of the celebration, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, has issued a new Jazz poster featuring Benny Goodman. To request a free copy, write jazz@si.edu.

 “Leap of Faith,” a documentary film about a group of teenagers who took steps to protect a Japanese Buddhist temple during World War II. 2-5 pm, Saturday, April 18. Enmanji Buddhist Temple, 1200 Gravenstein Highway, Sebastopol. More.

“Dishing It Out,” an exhibit of Candacy Taylor’s photographs and stories of older waitresses across the United States. This is an outgrowth of a California Story Fund project on longtime waitresses in San Francisco. Through April 26. Jewett Gallery, San Francisco Public Library, Main Library, 100 Larkin Street. More.

“Refugee Nation,” a theater performance based on the stories of Laotian refugees and their descendants. Friday, April 3 through Sunday, April 5. Jacobs Center at Market Creek Plaza, 404 Euclid Avenue, San Diego. More.