NUVO: Indy's Alternative Voice - February 20, 2013

THIS WEEK FEB. 20 - 27, 2013 VOL. 23 ISSUE 49 ISSUE #1093

in this issue 15 29 10 20 31 05 06 18 21 09 29

A&E CLASSIFIEDS COVER STORY FOOD FREE WILL ASTROLOGY HAMMER HOPPE MOVIES MUSIC NEWS WEIRD NEWS

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cover story

FROM BURMA TO INDIANAPOLIS

Last year Katie Basbagill and Kristin Wright collaborated on a book titled From Burma to Indianapolis: Perspectives of Burmese Refugees. They were captivated by the story of a local Burmese family, as well as the larger story of thousands of refugees from Burma resettling in Indianapolis. It’s one of families driven from their homes by a military regime seeking their extinction.

B Y K R IST IN W R IG HT AN D K AT IE B ASB AG ILL C O V ER PHO T O O F T HUAN G ER B Y K AT IE B ASB AG ILL

Stories about Burma and Indy can be found throughout this week’s issue of NUVO. In news, we explore Indiana’s connections to constitutional reform in Indiana (pg. 8). For Burmarelated events in the city, see pg. 14. On pg. 21, music columnist Kyle Long explains the connection between traditional Chin music and American hair metal. And check out our coverage of Chin food on pg. 20.

EDITORIAL POLICY: N UVO N ewsweekly covers news, public issues, arts and entertainment. We publish views from across the political and social spectra. They do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher.

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HAMMER Morphing to mainstream A curse to critics

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BY STEVE HAMMER SHAMMER@NUVO.NET

iving in San Antonio is awesome. I’m three weeks out of Indy, undergoing intensive training on various network and diagnostic tools for my new job. Some things are kicking in for me. I really am in Texas, a really beautiful part of it. In a few weeks, I really will be trained on this new job and will then actually have to do it all day, five days a week.

I get all of that. The unknowable parts include almost everything else beyond.

The city itself is amazing. It really is as advertised: Friendly people, good food, nice weather, beautiful River Walk, all of that. The job seems very difficult but manageable. I will have lots of help from my 150 peers, team leads and managers.

If you don’t know where you are going in a new city, then you are not lost. Any road will take you there. I haven’t even scratched the surface of this widely spreadout city but already I have found wonderful new places near my office: old-school diners, a handy snack bar on the college cam-

pus next door and lots of shops.

I’m smiling every day, even if I’m more than a little anxious about how it all plays out. Already I feel my beloved hometown fading into the rearview, although I’m not quite through with it yet. After 20 years of writing this weekly column, I have another month to go as I bid an extended farewell to this newspaper and the city of Indianapolis, which I adore so dearly.

My last few weeks in Indy, I walked around on my own personal farewell tour of downtown and the buildings. Some, like the Murat, are old friends; some are newer ones that I grew to love. I see in the skyline of Indy many of my own hopes and aspirations, and some of my own failures and flaws reflected back at me.

I have a special fondness for One Indiana Square, the former Indiana National Bank building at 211 N. Pennsylvania St. When it was finished in 1970, standing a proud 36 stories, it was the tallest in the city. It remained so for another dozen years, the years in which much of what is great about Indianapolis was built or planned. It’s nothing special architecturally, just another rectangular 1960s box of a building, like hundreds around the world.

But its completion was another small step in the rebirth of downtown Indianapolis, which was one of the few cities to do its urban-renewal programs in a smart manner. Downtown Indy is now the engine for a lot of jobs that wouldn’t have existed if we’d gotten it wrong in the ’70s.

Indianapolis achieved a rate of growth and revitalization that was the envy of the United States. There were a few missteps by city leaders along the way but their choices were solid for the most part.

I’m not exactly sure when things started going wrong, but I track it back to the Stephen Goldsmith and Bart Peterson administrations, when city government’s competence turned to arrogance and then to corruption. By the time Greg Ballard became mayor, he’d inherited a system so broken and so desperately lacking leadership that he can rightfully escape blame for whatever happens to the city.

Indianapolis could not now summon the political will and boldness that Dick Lugar and Bill Hudnut and local business leaders exhibited in the 1970s. Our politicians right now are in the business of corporate welfare, shoveling taxpayer dollars to our local sports teams and hoping that the money isn’t going to be missed.

Help is on the way. The economy is stronger, thanks to President Barack Obama and his economic policies. I’m living proof on how someone can be elevated into the middle-class after years of barely keeping my head above water.

What was great about the president’s State of the Union speech last week is that he has finally started pushing a fairly ambitious liberal agenda supported by the majority of Americans. His opponents, formerly known as the majority, are gnashing their teeth because their worst nightmare has come true. He’s an

unapologetically liberal president, our first since LBJ, and he has more than 50 percent of Americans supporting him.

As I wind down these weekly columns after two decades and who knows how much hate-filled email and online posts about me, the liberal agenda I’ve espoused for 30 years is now the majority viewpoint.

America is heading down a track to socialism that won’t easily be stopped as long as there are national elections.

So to the person who wrote online that they couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t died from a heart attack yet, but wished I would very soon: My EKG looks good. My blood sugar and blood pressure are under control as well. I’m not going anywhere except to the bank to cash my check.

And Obama really is going to do everything you’re afraid of. You’re welcome.

HAMMER THROUGH THE YEARS

This week in 1996, Hammer expressed skepticism about the endurance of love: “...

While diamonds are forever, the concept of love doesn’t seem to be, at least not for most people I know.” Contemporary readers, however, know that in the saga of Steve Hammer as NUVO columnist, love does, indeed, win in the end.

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Because Ideas MatterRecommended Readings by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University Joseph Anton. A Memoir Salman Rushdie Random House, 2012 Reviewed by Eloise Sureau-Hale In his latest book, Salman Rushdie is Joseph Anton, a name chosen to protect himself, when a fatwa was pronounced against him and his book, Satanic Verses, in 1989.

Written in the third person narrative rather than the first person perspective, thus allowing some distance, Rushdie candidly recalls his life, his career, and the events that led him to publish his infamous Satanic Verses and the wave of hatred that have ensued in the Muslim World. The text allows the reader to enter Rushdie’s personal life, his inspirations, his relationship with his father Anis, his tumultuous marriages, and his personal shock at the realization that his book, to some extent, had been misread, misinterpreted, and misused.

Joseph Anton is not only a biographical work. It is a powerful study of a man facing a death sentence. Moreover, the text examines the struggles faced every day by foreigners like Rushdie who will never really be at home in their adopted country, while estranged from their birth place. It also examines friendship and family ties. Who can he count on? What will his life be like from now on?

This is by far one of the best books of the year, rich in imagery in a subtle language with a touch of humor. It is however to be noted that Joseph Anton. A Memoir will be easier to follow and to comprehend for a reader already familiar with Rushdie’s most important works, namely Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses to name only the recurring titles (although his whole bibliography is mentioned at some point or another). For those familiar with Rushdie’s novels and for the curious in search of a rich life story, this is a great read!

— Eloise Sureau-Hale is associate professor of French at Butler University.

Go to www.butler.edu/BookReview for more recommendations by the faculty and staff of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University.

HOPPE Shining light on what we eat Farm bills would keep us in the dark

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BY DAVID HOPPE DHOPPE@NUVO.NET

t’s not unusual to hear farmers say they’re frustrated by how little the rest us know about where our food comes from. These farmers have a point. For most of us, food comes from the supermarket.

It’s vacuum-packed and triple-washed.

We know little or nothing about how it’s produced — and, often, what we think we know is only part of the story.

This frustration showed itself in a strange way last week. A committee of the Indiana Senate voted in favor of a proposal to make it illegal to photograph or videotape a farm or business without written permission. Senate Bill 373, which is endorsed by the Indiana Farm Bureau and Indiana Manufacturers Association, is aimed at keeping whistleblowers (or “do-gooders” and “bleeding hearts,” if you prefer) from trespassing on private property and taking pictures of what they find there.

Nobody likes uninvited people setting foot on their private property. Indeed, Indiana already has laws that expressly forbid trespassing, unless you happen to be a police officer, firefighter or other emergency worker trying to do your duty.

What SB 373 really wants to do is keep people, trespassers or otherwise, from putting images they record on and around farms or other businesses up on the Internet. These images could suggest or portray what appears to be cruelty to animals, environmental damage or potentially dangerous working conditions. Things, in other words, that might turn you off a particular product or business or, perhaps, motivate you to want to change the way things are done.

Supporters of this bill are likely to argue that the trouble with these sorts of images is that they present a distorted view of what’s happening. Pictures of pigs, say, in what look like awful conditions may be upsetting at first blush, but they don’t begin to explain everything that’s involved in making it possible for you to buy a boneless pork loin for $1.77 per pound at your local grocery store.

No, we civilians just don’t know enough about where our food comes from…

The strange thing about SB 373 is that it will keep us from knowing more about farming and other practices. While it is undoubtedly true that many of us have a lot to learn about where our food comes from, it is also undeniable that more of us than ever are eager to be taught.

Food is a hot topic. There’s a voracious public appetite for information about where what we eat comes from, how it is grown and raised, its impact on our health, as well as the ways it can enhance the quality of our lives. The evidence of this phenomenon is all around us — from the Food Channel on TV to the viral growth of farmers’ markets in cities and towns.

Some farmers have tried to get out in front of this movement by trying to make what they do as transparent as possible. Fair Oaks Farms in northwest Indiana has turned its industrial-scale dairy into a tourist destination, where visitors can go from a “birthing barn,” where about 80 calves are born every day, to an amphitheater, to watch a seemingly endless stream of cows being channeled on to a massive Lazy Susan, where their milk is hygienically drained with bewildering efficiency. Word has it that, in the coming year, the farmers at Fair Oaks will begin expanding their operation to eventually include pork and poultry.

Closer to home, those who prefer a more handmade approach can visit Traders Point Creamery, which makes their organic, smallis-beautiful style business open to public view.

In both cases, farmers have chosen to see the public’s appetite for information about food as an opportunity to be embraced, rather than a challenge to suppress. You can’t begin to count the number of camera phones being held aloft, eagerly recording the cows being milked at Fair Oaks.

Unfortunately, SB 373 is not the only bill before this legislative session that seeks to create a greater distance between farmers and the rest of us. Senate Joint Resolution 21 and House Joint Resolution 5 would go so far as to actually amend Article 1 of the Indiana Constitution, making “any law” unconstitutional that would abridge the right to “engage in traditional and modern farming and ranching practices.”

As the Hoosier Environmental Council has pointed out, this would constitutionally protect practices that are known to pollute waterways and, in some cases, create unbearable living conditions for neighbors due to penetrating smells and toxins in the air. According to HEC: “The inequity of protecting ranching and farming over all other Indiana industries and professions is manifestly clear…

Allowing this industry to operate without limits, oversight or accountability would have devastating consequences.”

Not the least of which would be to perpetuate our ignorance about what we eat. Some farmers may think journalists, environmental activists and other snoops are out to get them.

But these folks with their cameras are also potential customers whose curiosity about the food they eat is actually part of the best thing to happen to agriculture in more than a generation. They want to know where their food comes from. If this isn’t good news for farmers, the rest of us should want to know why not.

SB 373 will keep us from knowing more about farming and other practices.

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GADFLY

by Wayne Bertsch

HAIKU NEWS

by Jim Poyser

Carnival Triumph cruise ship, beset by troubles, is a big failure passengers endure long food lines, broken toilets, smells that overwhelm worst of all there is water water ev’rywhere — none that they can drink

INDIANAPOLIS Saturday, February 23, 2013 REGISTRATION: EARLY BIRD PLUNGE:

8:00-10:00 a.m. Eagle Creek Beach

8:30 a.m. (first 100 plungers to designate online) COSTUME CONTEST:

9:45 a.m.

OPENING CEREMONIES: PLUNGE: AFTER SPLASH BASH:

10:00 a.m.

10:30 a.m. Eagle Creek Reservoir

Eagle Creek Elementary School (New Location)

To register or find out more information, visit soindiana.org! **If you’d like to join the NUVO Polar Plunge Team, email streetteam@nuvo.net!

disease outbreak is possible; norovirus could ravage the ship it’s like this boat is petri dish for humans to study our foibles I’ve never seen a more apt metaphor for earth’s demise than this cruise we started off with such great plans only to have ev’rything go wrong fire in the engine room, power much diminished, food, water, grow scarce without help they would surely have resorted to cannibalism instead they arrived drawn by able tugboats to waiting arms on shore

THUMBSUP THUMBSDOWN COLD, HARD REALITY VIA GIS

Instead of obfuscating the public safety challenges Indy faces, local government is using public information to enable greater understanding of crime trends and perhaps even more-effective neighborhood watch and victim-outreach programs. The crime analysis unit of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department joined forces with the city’s Geographic Information Services team to launch a web-based tool (http://tinyurl.com/ IndyCrime) enabling the public to explore crime patterns across the city. Searches can be filtered to select crimes against people or property with customized date ranges and neighborhoods. A test run found that in less than five minutes, the application delivered maps of all “offense against person” reports in select neighborhoods, in this case Broad Ripple and Haughville, mapping out the locations and offering the time, plus crime codes — including incidences such as domestic battery, rape, carjacking and homicide — as well as case numbers for further follow up.

LACKING LITERACY

Some the challenges our city faces in terms of cultural competency and civic engagement may be linked to its literacy, or lack thereof, a new study suggests. “America’s Most Literate Cities,” an annual ranking of literacy among cities with at least 250,000 people, placed Indianapolis (the nation’s 11th most-populous city) No. 39 on the list, steady with its ranking last year, but a significant drop from the No. 23 position it held in 2005. Washington, D.C., Seattle and Minneapolis are perennial chart toppers. Factors considered in the ranking include: number of bookstores, educational attainment, Internet resources, library resources, periodical publishing resources, and newspaper circulation. “This set of factors measures people’s use of their literacy and thus presents a large-scale portrait of our nation’s cultural vitality,” wrote study author John W. Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University.

He added that a city’s ranking is not what matters most, “but what communities do to promote the kinds of literacy practices that the data track.”

WITNESSING REVOLUTION

GET ME ALL TWITTERED!

Follow @jimpoyser on Twitter for more Haiku News.

Even as the civil war drags on in Syria, and the outside world’s access to people’s voices within the country is increasingly limited, IUPUI will offer first-hand accounts as expressed through the artwork of residents of the Syrian city Kafranbel, brought back by alumnus Kenan Rahmani. An exhibition of “Drawings of Defiance: Art from the Syrian Revolution” will be open to the public at 2 p.m. Feb. 21 in Campus Center, Room 405.

THOUGHT BITE

By Andy Jacobs Jr. Vatican TV Reporter in front of large cathedral: “This is where the pope will spend his last years.”

So much for life everlasting.

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news The Quest for Democracy in Burma

would be naïve to describe her as having real power …

We see that people have more freedom to do more things, but government is not prepared to surrender power to a popularly elected party.

NUVO: Do you think it’s appropriate to think that it could be dangerous to hand off power too quickly?

Indiana aids political reform effort

BY RE BE CCA T O W N S E N D E DI T O RS @N U V O . N E T

I

n this issue of NUVO, we explore various expressions of Indiana’s burgeoning Burmese community, which has grown from just a handful of refugees a decade ago to a population of nearly 10,000 today.

And as Indy’s Burmese culture evolves, so does Burma itself — partially influenced by connections cultivated here in Indiana.

For decades, the U.S. government called Burma one of the world’s most isolationist and oppressive countries. But last November, President Barack Obama became the first sitting American president to visit.

He referenced the trip in his State of Union address on Feb. 12: “I saw the power of hope last year in Rangoon, in Burma, when Aung San Suu Kyi welcomed an American President into the home where she had been imprisoned for years; when thousands of Burmese lined the streets, waving American flags, including a man who said, ‘There is justice and law in the United States. I want our country to be like that.’”

The Center for Constitutional Reform at Indiana University has been working on democratic reform in Burma for more than a decade. Professor David Williams, IU’s John S. Hastings Professor of Law, is executive director at the CCD. He spoke with NUVO about the current reform efforts underway in Burma and how they might influence Indiana with respect to its Burmese communities.

NUVO: Please provide a synopsis about the work the Center for Constitutional Reform has done with Burma.

PROFESSOR DAVID WILLIAMS: Burmese people asked to become involved. In particular, some revolutionary soldiers thought we might help them find a way forward for constitutional reform. That’s what we’ve been doing for 12 years now.

As we became involved with the people in Burma, especially the ethnic minorities, we also became involved with people in Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne and Bloomington, all of whom were here as refugees.

NUVO: How will recent political reforms influence our refugee communities here in Indiana?

WILLIAMS: The first thing that people need to realize: There has been an opening in Burma, censorship has gone down,

onnuvo.net

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Professor David Williams and Andrew Lian, of Indiana University’s Center for Constitutional Democracy, during a visit to Thailand in support of the Burma Democracy Movement. Lian, a former resident of Indiana, returned to Burma to support government reform efforts.

there are fewer political prisoners, and so forth, but no real democracy as of yet.

Nonetheless, there is more freedom and that really matters.

As a result, two things have happened.

The first: The refugee flows from Burma were mostly from ethnic minority areas in the hills. There is still fighting in some areas, but the fighting has been reduced in other areas. The result is I think that refugee flows will go down from those areas.

I’m thinking particularly about Chin State where fighting is much less than it was — and there are big Chin communities in Indy and Ft. Wayne.

The other thing that has happened, to some extent, is that some people have, indeed, gone home … Very well educated people, who have gotten their education here in the U.S. have been invited to go home by the Burmese government to help reconstruct the regime. And some of them have gone, including the person who used to be our assistant director at the CCD, he is now back in Burma working for the Myanmar Peace Center. His name is Andrew Lian. He was very central to the Chin community in Indianapolis.

He has made the judgment that the government has gone far enough along the path of reform that it might make sense for him to participate in that. I don’t know whether that’s the right judgment or not, but I respect the judgment. And it’s actually helped us because now we are working with the Myanmar Peace Center to try and help make peace. He is fairly central to the government now, and the result is we are able to do things we would not otherwise be able to do to.

NUVO: How is that working?

WILLIAMS: Andrew is not naïve about this.

He understands there are forces in the

GALLERIES

Slideshow: Forward on Climate march by Jim Poyser Lightning Talks: Beacon of Hope Video: Indy’s One Billion Rising Video: Mass Transit Bill Advances by Steph Griggz

government that don’t want real reform.

The reform so far has been mostly window dressing. But the very fact that it is window dressing at all is itself significant because the old regime would do nothing that would look like a concession to democracy and the new regime wants to placate international opinion. That is, they want to buy off international opposition by making as few concessions as possible.

They know that their best people have fled the country to get educated, and they want to bring them back now. Part of that is because they want their help in making a better future, but part of it also is that they hope if the educated people come back the regime will look more legitimate. So, again, some of this is window dressing … but the long-term effect might be very good.

NUVO: Have you been to Burma to visit Andrew?

WILLIAMS: Before he permanently relocated, we used to go inside the war-torn areas because we were trying to help the ethnic minorities.

Andrew used to sleep across my bedroom lintel with an AK47 cradled in his arms because we were in these war-torn areas, and he was a soldier and I was not.

So we were there all the time.

Most recently in November, since he’s relocated to Rangoon for good, we were there with him for about three and half weeks.

NUVO: Does Aung San Suu Kyi have a position of real power now?

WILLIAMS: She is in the parliament and she is the head of the constitutional reform committee in the parliament, but the reality is that the military still controls everything.

So she is there, she’s trying to negotiate and trying make something work, but it

WILLIAMS: I don’t. We do constitutional reform work around the world. There are places where the risk is chaos, and there are places where the risk is autocracy. In Burma, the risk is autocracy. The result is that one should always err on the side of dividing power more quickly and more in multiple directions.

The reality is I think that democracy will come to Burma from the periphery, not from the center. The people in the capital don’t know how to do democracy.

The people in the hills, they’ve been doing democracy for a long time in their own more indigenous way. And I think the more power can be devolved to them, the better Burma’s future will look.

NUVO: During Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to Indiana last September, she referenced (at least, in the translation I read) a bit of tension among different ethnic groups here in the U.S. Do you see any of that?

WILLIAMS: Some, for sure. The reality is that back home in Burma, the Burman majority has, for a long time, persecuted the minorities. And the minorities are unhappy about that. And so they have difficulty here, sometimes, working together. Nonetheless, I think that’s ebbing. That is, I think it was worse 10 years ago than it is now.

The reality is that the great bulk of Burma citizens, both Burman and minority, alike, they want democracy and they want federalism. They don’t see everything eye to eye — and I’m not saying there are no more racial feelings, I think there are — but it’s much, much better than it was.

NUVO: What else should we keep in mind as we watch these changes in Burma and consider the future of Indiana’s Burmese communities?

WILLIAMS: The Burmese in this country have to make a decision, and it’s a decision that all immigrants have to make: Are they here temporarily in preparation for going home? Which is fine: America is the great refuge of political dissidents everywhere — that’s what we should be doing. If that’s what they want to do, that’s great. They have to now calculate their time for when they will go home.

But the other possibility is that they are immigrants to this country, the same as every other immigrants, and will be here forever, and they will make this country much stronger. Right now is a time when our Burmese friends here in Indiana have to make a decision about which course they will take.

NEWS

In memory of Louise Brannon by Julian Wildhack-Poyser GOP-loving dark money “social welfare” nonprofits by ProPublica Rockport gas plant debated by Tim Grimes

100% RECYCLED PAPER // NUVO // 02.20.13-02.27.13 // news

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“A Hoosier is someone who lives in Indiana,” she explains matter-of-factly, “like we do.”

–– Mary Sisters (from left) Mary, Cherry and Elizabeth play in their first apartment in America.

From Burma to Indianapolis A refugee family’s journey

Story by Kristin Wright • editors@nuvo.net

I

’m sitting Indian-style on a rug in Biak and Sui Thaung’s modest Indianapolis apartment on a snowy February afternoon. The couple arrived here on the city’s south side as refugees from Burma just two years ago, and before they came to Indianapolis they had never seen snow. But today a wet snow is falling outside, huge flakes covering the children’s bikes on the porch, blanketing the parking lot.

(top) Parents Sui and Biak relax. (bottom) The Thaung family gathers in front of their southside apartment.

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Mary, 10, is explaining to me about her school schedule in rapid-fire English while her parents, who are still struggling with the language, look on in curiosity. When I shift the conversation and ask Biak about his hopes for the future, he jumps up and leaves the room, returning momentarily with an enormous Burmese-Chin-English dictionary in his hand and a broad grin on his face.

“Yes, one moment,” he says in his limited English, scanning the page. There is a moment of silence as he turns to his daughter to interpret for him.

He’s speaking in Chin, and Mary relays his words. “He doesn’t need anything for himself,” she says. “He only thinks for his children.”

The room seems suddenly quiet.

I turn to Mary. “And what about you?” I ask.

“What do you want?”

Cherry, 8, interrupts, “I plan to be an engineer. And a scientist.”

Mary nods. “Actually that’s what we both want to be. Both of those things.”

“Sounds easy enough,” I smile.

Last year photographer Katie Basbagill and I collaborated on a book titled From Burma to Indianapolis: Perspectives of Burmese Refugees.

cover story // 02.20.13-02.27.13 // NUVO // 100% RECYCLED PAPER

We were captivated by Biak’s and Sui’s story, as well as the larger story of thousands of refugees from Burma resettling in Indianapolis. It’s a story of families driven from their homes by a military regime seeking their extinction, of women, men, and children finding home after losing everything.

To tell Biak’s and Sui’s story, you have to start at the beginning. In Burma.

Chindianapolis Chin State is located in western Burma.

My Chin friends in Indianapolis have described a place of green, rolling hills, extraordinary vistas and remote villages of colorfully-clothed people who live and work together. Most of Burma’s Chin people are farmers. Nearly everyone has a vegetable garden. And land is very important.

The Chin people are an ethnic minority in Burma and for years they’ve been ruthlessly targeted by the Burmese military. Ask any Chin refugee in Indianapolis about what they faced before they fled their country, and you’ll

Photos by Katie Basbagill

likely hear of forced labor, arbitrary arrest, rape, torture, execution. The list goes on and on, an alphabet of atrocities.

For Biak and Sui, as well as thousands of Chin and other ethnic minorities, leaving was the only option. “I didn’t have a job and couldn’t feed my family,” Biak recalls.

“I feared whatever I did. I was afraid of the military and when they arrested me, I knew that I had to escape if I ever wanted to see my family again.”

When Biak and Sui were finally able to flee to Malaysia, they thought things would get better. Instead, Biak was arrested three times, and for three tense and agonizing years, the family lived in tight quarters and constant fear.

When they finally received refugee status and found out that they could come to the United States, Biak and Sui were overjoyed.

Biak says he’ll never forget his first day in Indianapolis — or Chindianapolis, as it’s been nicknamed by the 7,000-8,000 Chin refugees who have made their home here.

(See pg. 8 for more information on Indy’s refugee population and the network of local non-profits that helps refugees to transition to American life.)

“When we arrived to the States, I was so happy and excited to be in a country with freedom, no fear, the ability to work for my family, for my children to go to school,” he explains. “Arriving in America, it was so good.”

Burma Summary Population: 48,336,763 Capital: Naypyidaw Currency: Myanma kyat President: Thein Sein • Burma’s ruling military junta changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, a name that has only been partially recognized in the international community. Today the name remains disputed by those concerned about the situation for human rights in the country.

Home at last Each year Exodus Refugee Immigration welcomes hundreds of refugees from all over the world to Indianapolis. They come from countries such as Burma, Iraq, Bhutan, Eritrea, the Congo, Somalia and Iran – often arriving with only what they can carry, ready to start new lives of freedom in our city. Exodus staff members greet newly arriving refugees at the airport and bring them to their new homes, typically apartments furnished with donated couches, beds and chairs.

Our agency (I serve as Director of Development at Exodus, in addition to my work as a writer) provides support for newly arriving refugees, with a long-term goal of helping new arrivals reach a place of selfsufficiency. We work with community partners throughout the city to help newly arriving refugees obtain necessary documents and services such as health screenings and care.

Through English language classes across the city, employment training and placement, case management, mental health services, volunteer support and assistance with cultural orientation, Exodus helps refugees as they become connected and contributing members of the Indianapolis community.

For Biak and Sui, getting connected in Indianapolis has been a process. They both started full-time jobs shortly after they arrived.

While the couple worked long hours to provide for their family, their young daughters, Mary, Cherry, and Elizabeth started school.

Sui says that seeing her daughters truly safe and finally free to pursue their dreams makes her feel incredibly grateful for their new lives in Indianapolis. “I am so happy that our children have the chance to grow in

a good way here,” she says.

It’s what she always wanted: for them to play and explore and experience life without fear – the kind of life they couldn’t have in Burma.

For Mary, Cherry, and Elizabeth, Indianapolis is fun. For one thing, they have a new little sister, Hning Tha Par, born just two months ago at St. Francis Hospital. The family is involved in a local church and at school the girls are getting to know other kids and finding ways to connect with their classmates.

The girls enjoy sharing their unique cultural heritage with friends. Mary tells me that she is excited to talk to her classmates about Chin National Day, coming up on Feb. 23 at Southport Life Center. It’s a day when the Chin community comes together for a celebration involving cultural traditions, music, dancing, delicious food – even a Chin wrestling competition.

The Indianapolis community is invited and Mary tells me that she hopes a lot of people will join the festivities.

A Hoosier is a Hoosier is a Hoosier Mary and her sisters are finding ways to embrace a new and growing cultural identity as well. Sitting on the couch across from me, Mary launches into a description of her upcoming school presentation on well-known Hoosiers.

“A Hoosier is someone who lives in Indiana,” she explains matter-of-factly, “like we do.”

Another group working with refugees in the

community is the Immigrant Welcome Center.

The organization works with refugees and immigrants to provide long term support – finding ways to help them connect more deeply and become more at home in Indianapolis.

Offering a unique “natural partner” program that pairs refugees and immigrants with people who can speak their language and assist them within their community, the group has been successful in helping new arrivals find home at last.

Opportunities for involvement with Indy’s refugee community are virtually limitless.

Volunteers can help welcome newly arriving refugees at the airport, help set up and furnish apartments for new arrivals, provide cash and in-kind assistance for families, and most of all, cultivate long-lasting friendships with newly arriving refugees.

If you would like to get involved (and I hope you will), email me at kwright@exodusrefugee. I’m happy to connect you to plenty of ways to help welcome refugees to our community. If you have questions about our city’s growing refugee population, or would like to order a copy of A Journey from Burma to Indianapolis: Perspectives from Burmese Refugees, just let me know.

Biak and Sui say that getting to know their neighbors and finding friends in the Indianapolis community has meant more to them than anything else. It’s been a process.

But though they are far from the rolling green hills of Chin State, Biak says he is starting to feel more at home in the snowy Midwestern city that took him in.

Biak is a man of few words, but what he says about Indianapolis symbolizes the connection he feels to the community and city he now calls home.

“People from Indianapolis welcomed me,” he says simply.

• Ethnic minorities such as the Chin have faced horrific persecution in Burma throughout the past several decades, sometimes subjected to work as human minesweepers and forced laborers, facing arbitrary arrest, rape, beatings, and the destruction of their homes and villages.

• Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled Burma into neighboring Thailand, India and Malaysia. In Thailand the refugees reside along the border, where UNHCR estimates some 150,000 refugees live in makeshift camps. In Malaysia and India, Burmese refugees live in limbo, often risking arrest and detention.

• Today, Indianapolis is home to one of the largest communities of Chin refugees outside of South Asia.

• Burma is headed toward reforms, albeit at a slow pace. Last year Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi won a seat in Parliament in a sweeping victory wherein National League for Democracy members took 43 of 44 contested seats in Parliament. A large majority of seats in Burma’s Parliament are still controlled by the military and government party, but Suu Kyi hailed the victory as the “beginning of a new era, when there will be more emphasis on the role of the people in the everyday politics of our country.”

• Last November President Obama became the first U.S. President to visit Burma. Speaking on democratic reform, President Obama said the country is taking “the first steps on what will be a long journey.”

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A Chin apartment complex located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Back to Kuala Closing the book on Indy Refugee

“When I was in primary school I got in trouble for talking and beating up the boys, she grins.”

–– Ciang Kok Dob

Story and photos by Katie Basbagill

(above and also top right) Burmese refugees gather before the Burmese embassy in Kuala Lampur in protest. (bottom) Cam, an illegal Burmese refugee living in Thailand, with her youngest daughter in a Thai refugee camp.

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I’m on a bus on my way into the city center of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a huge smile plastered on my face while I listen to the Smashing Pumpkins and stare out at the palm trees. I just got over a gnarly case of the flu and am happy to be on the uptick. And being in Kuala gives me an incredible sense of peace and contentment; it’s uncanny how much I identify with the city.

I’m in Kuala to close the book, if you will, on my Indy Refugee project. My plan is to personally deliver photo books and express my deep gratitude to each person who contributed his or her stories, provided they hadn’t resettled elsewhere since I first photographed and interviewed them. The book included interviews with a Burmese family that has settled in Indianapolis, as well as with Burmese refugees living in the Kuala area.

I know that several of my good friends who live in Kuala have been resettled out of the country. It’s both thrilling and sad: I may never see them again, I can’t hug them again and we can’t laugh together and swap stories — but they’ve begun to rebuild their lives.

I’m making my way to Kuala’s Chin Refugee Center to meet Sang Hre. I catch up on life and help him with editing some reports in English about the UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency. And then we head out on the road.

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Ciang Kok Dob The first woman we visit is Ciang Kok Dob. She glows as Sang translates her story from the book. It reads: “Ciang arrived in Malaysia via an underground network from Burma’s capital city of Rangoon. She says she was living ‘under fear’ for most of her life. But Burma’s brutal regime couldn’t kill her spirit. She often reflects on lighter days. “When I was in primary school I got in trouble for talking and beating up the boys,’ she grins.”

Ciang tells me that the story and photos are just beautiful and that’s she happy that more people are learning about the plight of Burmese refugees. As I explain to her that I feel like I’m wrapping up a project that was five years in the making, she smiles and grabs my hand and jokes about swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. She’s trying to move to Florida; her daughter had been living there, and she shows me her daughter’s address in a small address book. I tell her I’ll visit her if she makes it over.

Cameron Highlands, a rural village in Malaysia, is home to several Burmese farm workers.

Resources For more information on getting involved with Indy’s growing refugee community, check out the following organizations.

Exodus Refugee Immigration exodusrefugee.org

Immigrant Welcome Center immigrantwelcomecenter.org

Indy Refugee indyrefugee.com

Catholic Charities Indianapolis archindy.org Kristin Wright is a writer covering human rights and refugee issues.

She serves as the director of development at Exodus Refugee Immigration and can be reached at kwright@exodusrefugee.org.

Thuang Er

Eli Mang

Sang and I then show up unannounced to see Thuang Er; his family is quite surprised. “We thought we would never see you again,” Thuang says. “No one ever comes back.” Thuang’s kids had grown so much; we sit on the floor to catch up on life and Sang Hre translates their story. From the book: “Thuang Er grew up on a rice farm in rural Burma. He was only two when his father died and 14 when his mother died. At the age of 15 Thuang was forced to become a porter for the Burmese regime. It was exhausting work, and Thuang received nothing in return for his labor. He realized that he had no future ahead in Burma. Defying the risks, he escaped the Burmese regime and fled to Malaysia. Now, Thuang and his wife and children are hopeful of making it to the United States.

“Twice they have gone through all the paperwork and all the medical screenings for resettlement — even arriving at the airport for their flight to America. But resettlement is a tedious process. It can take years. Both times their dreams were shattered.”

I show Thuang and his family snapshots of the photo installation that I created using the photos I took of them, and explain that there are a lot of Burmese refugees living in my city. I tell them that their story, in particular, has inspired a lot of people.

Thuang’s eldest son flips through the book, then finds himself staring at a photo of his dad. The Thuang family has been waiting 10 years to be resettled.

They may never leave Kuala Lumpur; statistically, so few refugees do.

Heading to another house, I’m so excited to see Eli Mang that I can barely contain myself. Here’s what Kristin and I wrote about her in the book: “Eli is worried constantly for her daughters. When she was forced to work as a porter for the military regime in Burma, she had to leave her daughters alone for lengthy periods of time. Eventually she and her daughters fled Burma, but Eli was unprepared for the difficulty of the journey. She and the refugees with her — men, women and children — fled on foot. She saw children starving. She remembers the pain like it was yesterday: ‘I really cried, out of my heart; I could not help but cry.’

“Eli and her daughters are safer in Malaysia than they were in Burma, but she’s sad that her daughters still cannot attend school due to government restrictions on the refugee population. They are the reason she wants to make it to the United States. ‘It’s all we really want,’ the girls say with tears in their eyes. ‘Education.’ ” We knock a few times on Eli’s door, then open the door to find a mostly empty room, furnished with only a guitar, a mattress, some clothes and toiletries — all the items that wouldn’t fit in a suitcase when, as we learn, they left the country five days earlier for Vancouver.

As I sit in the empty room, I feel like I’ve found some sort of closure. It’s nice to hear Sang Hre say that “the photos of each person are so natural and show the truth of the people.” Knowing that he’s happy, and that I represented my subjects as accurately as possible, is the best feeling in the world.

Katie Basbagill is a human rights photographer living in Indianapolis. Her website is bohemianredimages.com.

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For comprehensive event listings, go to nuvo.net/calendar

go&do: burma edition

OPENS 21 THURSDAY

Measure for Measure @ IndyFringe Theatre

PHOTO BY ROBIN THORN/FLICKR

Photos of Burma’s Chin State

23 SATURDAY

Feb. 21-23 (original version), Feb. 28-March 2 (Middleton version), all shows 7:30 p.m.; tickets $15 adult, $8 student; indyfringe.org

Chin National Day @ Southport Life Center

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The Chin people — there’s no agreement on what that name means, but it came into use during the era of British colonial rule — are one of Burma’s largest ethnic groups. They make up the majority of the population in Chin state, one of seven Burmese states formed shortly after the country became independent in 1948. In contrast with the Bamar people, Burma’s predominant ethnic group, who are largely Buddhist, more than 90 percent of Chins are Christian. And they’ve maintained a distinctive identity through the years of the Myanmar military dictatorship. Chin National Day, which commemorates the February 1948 foundation of the Chin state, is celebrated each year by outposts of the Chin diaspora throughout the world. The Indianapolis celebration will include a number of guest speakers, songs, dances, a cultural custom show and a variety of Burmese foods.

1-6 p.m. @ Southport Life Center, 4002 E. Southport Road, Southport; open to general public; contact Kjack William, 317-650-8130, for further information

onnuvo.net

They’re back: Hoosier Bard Productions, the theatrical arm of the IUPUI-based New Oxford Shakespeare project, which is systemically reevaluating Shakespeare’s corpus down to each jot and tittle. Or rather, they’re back to back: Hoosier Bard will present two version of Shakespeare’s Measure to Measure over the next two weekends at Indy Fringe Basile Theatre. The first, running Feb. 21-23, will make use of what Hoosier Bard is describing as Shakespeare’s “original and uncensored” version, newly restored by the Oxford Shakespeare project. The second, presented Feb. 28-March 1, will revert to the 1621 adaptation by Thomas Middleton.

Middleton’s revisions of Shakespeare’s plays are of particular attention to the New Oxford Shakespeare team, who have been working to tease out the changes Middleton made to the text in the years before the publication of the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays. According to the New Oxford team, Shakespeare’s original is based in Italy during the summer and is more “lighthearted and comic” than Middleton’s version, which is set in a wintry Vienna.

THURSDAY

Chitlin’ Circuit expert Preston Lauterbach @ UIndy SUBMITTED PHOTO

Willie Weir

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WEDNESDAY

Bicycle adventurer Willie Weir @ Central Library

FREE

And we have one more Burma-related event for you this week. Writer, photographer, radio diarist and bicycle advocate Willie Weir has just arrived back in

REVIEWS

ISO’s Romantic violinist and Mahler programs JACK Quartet’s two-day stop in Indy

the States after a trip to Southeast Asia that included stops in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia (take a listen to a series of “sound clips” from his trip at yellowtentadventures.org). It was the latest leg in a series of adventures for Weir, who has logged over 60,000 miles on a bike. Weir is the author of two memoirs, a columnist for Adventure Cyclist magazine and a motivational speaker. He’s the second guest in the Central Indiana Bicycle Association’s annual speakers’ series.

7 p.m. @ Clowes Auditorium, Central Library; free; cibaride.org

Hoosier Bard’s Measure for Measure Butler Theatre’s Pigeons NoExit’s The Yellow Wallpaper

FREE

Music journalist Preston Lauterbach appeared in these pages a couple years back following the publication of his first book, The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll , which prominently featured Indianapolis promoter Denver Ferguson in its story of how a loosely-knit network of African-American-run nightclubs helped to give birth to, first, jump blues, and then all the rock and roll music that the kids are listening to nowadays. Lauterbach will appear Thursday at UIndy to talk about the book and the culture of Indiana Avenue, which was an important stop on the chitlin’ circuit until its post-war downfall. Lauterbach calls Ferguson — gambling kingpin, talent promoter, proprietor of the Indiana Ave club Sunset Terrace and community benefactor — the “granddaddy of rock ‘n’ roll.”

4 p.m. @ UIndy Hall, Schwitzer Student Center, University of Indianapolis; free and open to the public; uindy.edu

PHOTOS

Chin National Day Beastie Boys burlesque

Forward on Climate march

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OPENS 22 FRIDAY

Philip Glass’s Akhnaten @ Musical Arts Center, Bloomington There are a lot of firsts to deal with here.

The first joint production by IU Opera and Indianapolis Opera. The first opera by Philip Glass to be staged by either IU Opera or Indianapolis Opera. The first time Akhnaten will be presented with bookending scenes set in contemporary Egypt (the opera is largely set in ancient Egypt during the time of the pharaohs). First staged in 1983, Akhnaten is the third of Glass’s autobiographical operas (he’s more recently returned to that territory with a piece on Galileo). It’s about a pharaoh who anticipates the rise of monotheism by elevating one god above all others, and then proclaiming himself the direct intermediary between that god and the people. It starts its run with two weekends of shows at IU, before the company moves the entire production north up to Clowes Hall for a twonight run March 8 and 9. The production will be performed largely by students, with the exception of two professional singers in the roles of Akhnaten and his wife Nefertiti, and professionals handing duties like music and stage direction and set design.

Feb. 22-23, March 1-2, all shows 8 p.m. @ Musical Arts Center, Bloomington; March 8-9, 8 p.m. @ Clowes Memorial Hall

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Thomas Hampson

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FRIDAY

ISO plays Mahler and Schumann @ Hilbert Circle Theatre Indy-born baritone Thomas Hampson, performing selections from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn (“The Youth’s Magic Horn”), is the ISO’s guest of honor on a good week for classical music in the state. Hampson is well-known as an interpreter of German Romantic song, and the song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn sees Mahler at his most Romantic, writing of magic, castles, knights and the power of properly sublimated passion. On the other side of the bill is Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C Major, conducted by Joana Carniero. Note that this is a one-night only engagement.

8 p.m., tickets $20-75 (discounts available), indianapolissymphony.org

OPENS 21 THURSDAY

Yellow Wallpaper @ Q Artistry One wonders if there’s a better story about hysteria than Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” It tells of a high-strung young lady whose physician husband has prescribed for her a “rest cure” in order to get over a little spat of female depression and nervousness. She’s forbidden to work, to engage with the outside. And thinking that room’s horrible wallpaper begins to occupy more and more of her time. Ryan Mullins adapted the story

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for NoExit and QArtistry’s production, which he’s also directing.

Feb. 21-23, 28, March 1-2, 7-9; all shows at 8 p.m. @ 5515 E. Washington St.; $20 general admission, $15 students and seniors; noexitperformance.org

MOVIES

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Silver Linings Playbook

2013 Oscar picks

BY ED JOHNSON-OTT EJOHNSONOTT@NUVO.NET Here’s Ed’s annual list of predictions and “if onlys” for the Academy Award extravaganza this Sunday night. The documentary categories have been omitted, as only one or two of the films played in Indianapolis.

BEST PICTURE Amour | Argo | Beasts of the Southern Wild | Django Unchained | Les Miserables | Life of Pi | Lincoln | Silver Linings Playbook | Zero Dark Thirty WILL WIN: Argo SHOULD WIN: Zero Dark Thirty or Lincoln Why? Zero Dark Thirty is a better based-on-fact CIA thriller than Argo, but ever since Ben Affleck got shut out of the Academy’s Best Director nominees list, Argo has been winning everything. Lincoln is a fine film, despite going on for about 20 minutes after the moment we all thought was the closing scene, and it might eke out a win, but I’m betting on the Argo directorial justice/revenge train to keep chugging through the weekend.

BEST DIRECTOR Michael Haneke, Amour | Ang Lee, Life of Pi | David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook | Steven Spielberg, Lincoln | Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild WILL WIN: Steven Spielberg SHOULD WIN: David O. Russell Why? Academy members really like Lincoln, but they’re going to vote for Argo for Best Picture in part to protest Ben Affleck’s exclusion from this category. Accordingly, they will reward Lincoln by giving Spielberg the Best Director statue. Oscar karma.

David O. Russell is just a bit more deserving, but he won’t be making any speeches this year.

BEST ACTOR Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook | Daniel DayLewis, Lincoln | Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables | Joaquin Phoenix, The Master | Denzel Washington, Flight WILL WIN: Daniel Day-Lewis SHOULD WIN: Daniel Day-Lewis Why? He’s a two-time Best Actor winner who delivered again. Simple as that. Plus he has a hyphenated last name and who doesn’t love people with hyphenated last names?

BEST ACTRESS Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty | Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook | Emmanuelle Riva, Amour | Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild | Naomi Watts, The Impossible WILL WIN: Jennifer Lawrence SHOULD WIN: Jessica Chastain Why? Jennifer Lawrence is on a hot streak. She’s been very good in a variety of roles, plus she’s been honest and quirky on the talk show circuit. But Jessica Chastain did a wonderful job embodying the never-quit mindset that finally led the USA to Osama bin Laden. And she kept her obsessed character human and highly relatable. Alas, her character was dismissed as underdeveloped by some, so Jennifer will likely take the prize.

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Alan Arkin, Argo | Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook | Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master | Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln | Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained WILL WIN: Tommy Lee Jones SHOULD WIN: Chistoph Waltz or Tommy Lee Jones Why? Tommy Lee was larger-than-life yet credible in an attention-getting role. Christoph Waltz was too.

I’m betting Academy members will vote for Tommy Lee so he won’t scowl at them. N ow watch Robert De N iro sidle in and take the trophy for his dandy non-self-parodying work in Silver Linings Playbook.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Amy Adams, The Master | Sally Field, Lincoln | Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables | Helen Hunt, The Sessions | Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook WILL WIN: Anne Hathaway SHOULD WIN: Helen Hunt Why? Helen Hunt was brave, graceful, subtle and believable in The Sessions. But Anne Hathaway has been widely praised as the best element of Les Mis, so she will win handily.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom | Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty | John Gatins Flight | Michael Haneke, Amour | Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained WILL WIN: I dunno … Amour?

SHOULD WIN: Zero Dark Thirty Why? Amour is the favorite on a lot of writers’ lists and it may very well take the prize. It doesn’t feel like the film that will win this category, though, hence my hesitancy. I’d love to see Zero Dark Thirty rewarded for its ace story, but the film hasn’t generated the buzz it should have and there’s been some controversy related to the portrayal of torture, so … hey, wouldn’t it be cool if Django Unchained won? Imagine the dropped jaws as Quentin Tarantino bounds to the stage to babble for an hour or so …

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild | Tony Kushner, Lincoln | David Magee, Life of Pi | David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook | Chris Terrio, Argo WILL WIN: Lincoln SHOULD WIN: Silver Linings Playbook Why? Lincoln wins because the film is a favorite of many and the author is well-respected. Nothing to argue with there, but Silver Linings Playbook mixed drama and comedy adroitly and its author is also well-respected.

BEST FOREIGN FILM Amour - Austria | Kon-Tiki - Norway | No - Chile | A Royal Affair - Denmark | War Witch – Canada WILL WIN: Amour SHOULD WIN: A Royal Affair Why? Amour is a Best Picture nominee. While it doesn’t have a prayer in that category, it’s a shooin for Best Foreign Film, a very big consolation prize. Amour is a powerful movie, but the subject has been done to death (ahem). I liked the clear, crisp and interesting costume drama A Royal Affair better, and I’m not generally a fan of costume dramas. It won’t win.

MOVIES

SUBMITTED PHOTOS

Django Unchained (left), and Life of Pi. BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

BEST SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)

Brave | Frankenweenie | ParaNorman | The Pirates!

Band of Misfits | Wreck-It Ralph WILL WIN: Wreck-It Ralph SHOULD WIN: Wreck-It Ralph

Adam and Dog | Fresh Guacamole | Head over Heels | Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare” | Paperman WILL WIN: Adam and Dog SHOULD WIN: Adam and Dog

Why? The nominees are all … fine, but there’s nothing here to stir up voters’ passions, so the trophy goes to affable Wreck-It Ralph and its nods to beloved old school video game characters.

Why? Adam and Dog is unpretentious and charming without ever drifting into cutesiness. It was made by a Disney animator in his spare time and voters eat up factoids like that. Plus one of the stars is a dog.

“Who’s a good dog that voters love? You’re a good dog that voters love! Yes you are!”

BEST ORIGINAL SONG “Before My Time” from Chasing Ice | “Everybody Needs A Best Friend” from Ted | “Pi’s Lullaby” from Life of Pi | “Skyfall” from Skyfall | “Suddenly” from Les Misérables WILL WIN: Skyfall SHOULD WIN: Skyfall Why? There’s an outside chance that Les Mis fans will opt to award the film by giving it the nod in Best Song. But Skyfall is a hell of a good Bond song and honestly, who can look at Adele’s name on a list and not check the box next to it?

JASON BECKER: NOT DEAD YET

INDIANAPOLIS

BEST SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION) Asad | Buzkashi Boys | Curfew | Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw) | Henry WILL WIN: Death of a Shadow SHOULD WIN: Asad Why? Death of a Shadow has a steampunk look and a Twilight Zone feel. It will win, though I thought more of the agreeably ragged Asad, cast with Somali refugees and inventively telling the story of a boy who must decide whether to become a fisherman or follow his friends and become a pirate.

FILM CLIPS THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955)

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The virtues of the only directorial effort by British actor Charles Laughton are countless.

Robert Mitchum’s malevolent preacher, staging a battle between Good and Evil (the words are tattooed on his knuckles) in which Good never has a fighting chance. Lillian Gish, a remnant of the silent film world, as the protective mother shaping the chaotic cosmos. And, oh, that river scene, like nothing else before or since, a cobwebbed, silvery, dreamlike trip into the primordial that leaves us questioning if the kids truly escaped their father’s wrath. Screening with the Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali short Un Chien Andalou to close out this year’s Winter Nights series. — Scott Shoger Feb. 22, 7 p.m. @ The Toby, Indianapolis Museum of Art; $9 public, $5 member Not Dead Yet, which first screened in Indy at the 2012 Heartland Film Festival, focuses on a guitar prodigy whose career as a blazing neo-classical metal guitarist is cut short when he is diagnosed with ALS. Director Jesse Evil’s film may cause you to tear up, but the production is not unrelentingly bleak. Re-read the title. Watching the determined young man and his support team in action says it all. What the disease does to Jason isn’t pretty. What technology, dedicated professionals, and his family and friends do with him is beautiful.

Presented by the ALS Association Indiana Chapter and Heartland. — Ed Johnson-Ott Feb. 26, 7 p.m. @ AMC Castleton Square, $10, jasonbecker.com

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NUVO.NET

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FOOD A rugged individualist Chin Brothers owner Than Hre

BY SCOTT SHOGER SSHOGER@NUVO.NET When Than Hre first relocated in Indianapolis in 2002, he brought with him a sort of unalloyed, uncomplicated version of the American dream. He had visions of democracy and opportunity, religious freedom and color-blindness, he tells me in a small office at the back of his Chin Brothers Grocery, one of two grocery stores that cater to the Chin community at the intersection of Madison Avenue and E. Stop 11 Road.

That message of American exceptionalism came across at the Christian schools at which he studied back in Burma. The Chin people are pre-dominantly Christian (in contrast to the Burma’s majority Burman people, who are Buddhist), and religion is central to Than’s life. He first ran afoul of Myanmar’s military regime when, as a student leader at the Chin Christian College, he began to plan an celebration commemorating the 100th anniversary of the arrival of Christian missionaries in Burma.

The government refused to grant his stu-

dent group a permit for the celebration, but they went ahead as planned. It was then that he became a “personal target of the military dictatorship,” as he puts it. It was 2000, and it was still possible to catch a flight out of the country. So he fled, first landing in Guam, then arriving in Indianapolis as one of the city’s first Burmese political refugees.

But reality crashed into his American dream. He found “no opportunity, no second heaven, no more jobs,” not to mention depression and anxiety as he wondered how he would make it by — and how his wife, son and family were faring back in Burma. And so he renewed his efforts by tapping into another strain in American life: rugged individualism.

He went back to school to learn English.

He took up jobs for a carpet cleaning service, for Best Buy, working as an interpreter, learning the rope of all aspects of the business. And when he walked into an Indian grocery in a Southport strip mall in 2007 and said to the owner that “I’m thinking of opening a grocery store so I can smoke and joke like you,” he found himself with an offer to buy the entire operation for $30k.

Six years later, Than runs four businesses: the Chin Brothers Grocery and Restaurant, which has quadrupled its footprint in the strip mall since 2007; a carpet cleaning service; and a subsidiary of ACN Inc., a multi-level marketing corporation (like Amway or Avon) that specializes in telecommunications.

Than doesn’t cook; that’s the province of his brother (hence the Chin Brothers title, though Than is sole owner of both the grocery

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PHOTO BY MARK LEE

Than Hre, wearing a shirt emblazoned with the logo of his cleaning service, stands in his Chin Brothers Grocery.

and restaurant). But he certainly knows the dishes we sit down to eat after our conversation. A chicken curry consisting of fried chicken cutlets in a dark brown gravy is flavorful, as is an uncomplicated dish of chicken and oyster mushrooms in a light chicken broth.

But the standout, and the most typically Burmese dish, is the gawbi lethoke, a cabbage salad not altogether unlike the Asian slaw that has popped up on fusion menus around town. It has a lightness and spiciness that’s both refreshing and filling.

Than tells me over jasmine tea that, aside from running his four businesses, he also makes time to serve as a volunteer translator for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, answering his phone at all hours. He studied psychology in college,

and that training informs his approach to community activism; he notes that he can learn “50 percent” about a person’s personality just by reading his or her face, and that that insight gives him a good jump on helping to address their problems.

Chin Brothers Restaurant & Grocery 2320 E. Stop 11 Road, 317-859-9155, chinbrothers.com

HOURS

MONDAY-FRIDAY: 8 a.m.- 8 p.m.

SATURDAY: 9 a.m.-8 p.m.

SUNDAY: 9 a.m.-12 p.m., 4-8 p.m.

music The music of dissent

heard from other Chin people, emphasizing the conviction that American genres like country and rock are integral threads in the fabric of traditional Chin-Burmese music.

Your primer to the sounds of Burma

BY K YL E L O N G K L O N G @N U V O . N E T

H

ow do you explain the music of the Chin people, the dominant ethnic population of Indy’s Burmese community? It’s actually quite simple. Chin music sounds a lot like American music –– a lot. In fact, not only is Chin music structured almost entirely around American song forms and instrumentation, it frequently borrows entire melodies from the library of American popular music. So, at a typical Chin performance, you’re just as likely to hear a version of the theme from Titanic or Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” as you are to hear a piece from the traditional Chin music repertoire.

What is traditional Chin music anyway?

It’s a tricky question. Around 1899, a group of American Baptist missionaries arrived in Burma’s Chin State. Active until the mid ‘60s, these missionaries introduced Western musical theory and American genres like country music and gospel. So thorough was their cultural makeover, that the majority of Chin people now identify as Christians and there’s little evidence left of pre-Christian musical traditions.

I recently spoke to local Chin guitarist Van Za Thawng. I asked if he or any other musicians in the Indianapolis community played traditional Chin music.

“We have a few traditional songs; they are like American country music. It’s very similar,” Vah Za Thawng told me.

His response echoed similar statements I

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Sai Htee Saing

onnuvo.net

Music under Burma’s dictatorship The oppressive rule of Burma’s military dictatorship has kept the nation’s culture in a semi-paralytic state. After seizing power during the coup of 1962, General Ne Win’s regime immediately created a censorship board to monitor all music submitted for broadcast to the Burmese media.

I asked Burmese pop superstar May Sweet about the effects of the regime’s strict censorship. Sweet, who shot to stardom in the 1970s, visited Indianapolis for a rare concert appearance last spring.

“When I was part of the Burmese music industry, there were a lot of restrictions,” said Sweet. “All the lyrics had to be reviewed by the censors. If your album was censored, it wasn’t allowed to be released and there was nothing you could do. So everyone was composing love songs to avoid being censored.”

In the early days of the dictatorship there were also restrictions placed on certain forms of Western entertainment, particularly rock and roll. Although the crippling legacy of censorship affects artistic expression in Burma to this day, a few rebellious musicians have skillfully evaded the forbidding grip of the regime’s censors. A pair of these artists have exerted significant influence over musicians and listeners in the local Chin community.

Iron Cross and Sai Htee Saing started their careers two decades apart and hail from vastly different regions of Burma, but they share several important traits. Most importantly, both have melded the rhythms of rock and roll with subtle, often encrypted messages of social justice.

Sai Htee Saing During the ‘70s, Sai Htee Saing and his band The Wild Ones helped to usher in a new period of Burmese popular music. In the same way that Bob Dylan and the Beatles cleared the path for the singer-songwriter movement in Western music, Saing’s original compositions inspired Burmese pop artists to step away from the prevelant tradition of “copy” or cover songs.

Saing and The Wild Ones used their soft, understated psychedelic rock to lyrically extoll the virtues of their Shan heritage and identity (the Shan are one of many suppressed ethnic minorities within Burma). Saing was also known for his ability to slip provocative political lyrical messages past the censors.

Saing’s popularity waned at the end of his career when he succumbed to government pressure and began using his music to promote state ideology. But after his death in 2008, fans chose to remember Saing for his invaluable contributions to Burmese music and his songs are still widely heard today. In fact, I’ve often heard his music playing while dining at Kimu, a Burmese restaurant in Greenwood.

REVIEWS/FEATURES

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Iron Cross

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Guitarist Chit San Maung

Iron Cross Ask anyone in the local Burmese community about Iron Cross and you’re likely to hear the same response: “Iron Cross –– number one band in Burma.

Chit San Maung –– number one guitarist in Asia.”

Iron Cross rose to popularity in Burma during the 1990s, perfecting the same mix of power ballads and metallic riffing that ruled American radio ten years prior –– but Iron Cross have significantly more substance than your average ‘80s hair metal band.

That’s in large part due to the extraordinary skills of guitarist Chit San Maung, whose virtuosic solos and jaw dropping showmanship rival any American or European guitar heroes. While there’s nothing inherently political about Chit’s furious guitar work, it sounds unquestionably defiant in the staid Burmese pop scene.

There’s also the influence of the group’s singer Lay Phyu, one of Burma’s biggest stars.

Phyu once released an album called Power

Dr. Dre Day at the Jazz Kitchen; Electric Six at Radio Radio; Menomena at The Bishop;

PHOTO BY ARTUR SILVA

May Sweet

54, a veiled reference to the home address of repressed Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Phyu also once refused a command performance for the family of an influential military general, replying “Those are not my people.”

As subtle as those gestures may seem here, under Burma’s repressive military junta, it’s enough to land you in prison (or worse) and Phyu was temporarily forbidden from performing in public.

In July of 2012 Iron Cross visited Indianapolis for a concert at Old National Centre’s Egyptian Room. It was a historic moment for Indiana’s Burmese community and the sense of excitement and anticipation rivaled Aung San Suu Kyi’s headline-grabbing appearance in Fort Wayne last September.

You can purchase CDs by Iron Cross and Sai Htee Saing at Chinland, a Burmese grocery store located at the corner of Madison Ave. and Stop 11 Rd. CONTINUED ON PG 22

PHOTOS

Beastie Boys Burlesque at White Rabbit Cabaret; Dylan Wissing’s Grammy; Valentine’s Day Jams

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PRINCESS NICOTINE - FOLK AND POP MUSIC OF MYANMAR A diverse overview of the spectrum of Burmese musical expression, from classical to folk to pop.

Of particular interest here are the recordings of traditional hsaing waing ensembles; their spectacular ramshackle sound wouldn’t be out of a place on a mid-’60s Sun Ra LP. Musically, these groups split the sonic difference between the tuned gongs of Indonesian gamelan and the abrasive percussion of China’s Peking opera.

GUITARS OF THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE A selection of vintage electrified folk music from Burma’s Shan State. Textures here run from soulful psychedelia to heartfelt country. Highlights include a handful of raw garage rock stompers by Shan music legend Saing Saing Maw. MUSIC OF NAT PWE A Nat Pwe is sort of like a musical exorcism.

The Nat Pwe orchestras exist within a ceremony designed to appease the disgruntled ghost spirits known as “nats.” Featuring a swirling barrage of unearthly sounds, this is one of the most intense and unique musical experiences you’ll ever encounter.

RADIO MYANMAR This is an audio-vérité documentary of the mundane and magical sounds of contemporary Burmese radio. Ranging from military propaganda reports to Avril Lavigne cover songs, this hour-long journey sounds randomly assembled, but consistently fascinates.

THE CRYING PRINCESS A beguiling collection of of rare Burmese 78 RPM records released between 1909 and 1960.

UPCOMING

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There’s been incredibly few commercial recordings of Burmese music available in the United States. Even Smithsonian-Folkways –– perhaps the single greatest purveyor of international music –– is guilty of this neglect, with only two albums devoted exclusively to Burmese music in their vast catalog.

One American label is seeking to rectify this deficit: the Seattle-based Sublime Frequencies.

Co-founded by Sun City Girls’ vocalist Alan Bishop, Sublime Frequencies have issued five albums and a DVD of Burmese music since the label’s inception in 2003.

I contacted Bishop to inquire why the label has focused so strongly on Burmese releases.

“How can it be ignored or denied?” said Bishop “How is it possible that one of the most unique, perfectly composed and performed, intense and awe-inspiring musical legacies the world has ever known is looming north of the equator physically tuckedbetween world cultural giants India, China, and Thailand, without more than a whisper from ethnomusicologists or those who define themselves as ‘purveyors of world music?’ ” He continued: “Not only are the roots of this music unique, but so are the results after incorporating outside instrumentation from modern colonial and international influence. What the Burmese have done with a piano is so precise in the adaptation to their existing form and melody that one would think they invented it.

Burmese music has a very distinct sound and whatever instrument is assimilated into its core only seems to magnify the original intent without depending upon outside ideas relating to each component utilized.”

Five selections from Sublime Frequencies’ Burmese releases

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Iron Cross, live

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music // 02.20.13-02.27.13 // NUVO // 100% RECYCLED PAPER

MUSIC

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Pokey LaFarge

Americana, not nostalgia Pokey LaFarge at Radio Radio

BY S CO T T H A LL M U S I C@N U V O . N E T To Pokey LaFarge, “nostalgia” is a misnomer for “quality,” and quality never goes out of style.

The St. Louis-based songwriter and his growing acoustic ensemble return to town Friday in high gear on their extended road trip through

early 20th century American music.

A new album due in May, LaFarge says, will find them stretching beyond the minimalist string-band sound of the past two award-winning releases, 2010’s Riverboat Soul and 2011’s Middle of Everywhere.

“It’s the realization of a lot of dreams that I’ve had since I was young, getting close to having something like a Western swing orchestra,” says the singer, guitarist and banjoist, just shy of his 30th birthday. “The new album’s got a lot of horns on it. It’s got a lot of strings on it. It’s got a female vocalist backing me up on a couple tunes. It’s got a lot more dimensions, so it’s able to showcase a different side of my songwriting.”

The sound LaFarge strives for is not a throwback so much as a blast from a parallel universe where rural blues, swing, old-time jazz and mountain music melted together in a juke joint fire and spawned some kind of high-octane pre-rock that flourished into the next millennium. He began this trip as a teen in Illinois, when a grandfather turned him on to bluegrass.

“A lot of kids were rebelling by listening to punk rock, but I was rebelling by listening to old-time music,” he says. “What I love most about America is the identity and the quality of the things that we put out there into the world. That’s what has made me hold even more steadfastly to that early music, just the richness and the quality in it. So it strengthens my resolve to keep pushing it forward.

It’s an American art form. It’s like classical

music. That’s stuff’s been around for hundreds of years. This is our classical music.”

On the current tour, which also stops Thursday in Bloomington, LaFarge is fingerpicking a treasured 1946 Epiphone Spartan guitar accompanied by his core band of recent years, the South City Three: Joey Glynn on upright bass Ryan Koenig on harmonica and percussion, and blazing flatpicker Adam Hoskins on acoustic lead guitar.

Vocal harmonies and call-and-response are central to the compositions, and the two guitarists often trade licks and share harmonized melody lines.

Brand new to the lineup, however, are T.J. Muller on cornet and Chloe Feoranzo on clarinet, who expand the sound to more accurately reflect the feel of the upcoming album.

“I’m just now getting to play some of the new songs,” LaFarge says.

The new record, his fifth full-length studio project, was produced by multi-instrumentalist Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show, who brought a fresh songwriting ear to the process and helped hone the material.

“He was really able to challenge me to get down to the nitty gritty of the songs,” LaFarge says, “really get down to what it was I was trying to say, and just skim away the stuff that really didn’t need to be there.”

Another friend to the band has been Jack White, who released a LaFarge seven-inch on his Third Man Records label, had them back a track on his Blunderbuss album, and brought them on last year’s Blunderbuss tour for numerous dates.

LaFarge is grateful for the endorsement.

“Yeah, it’s been huge. I can’t say enough about him,” he says of White. “When you have somebody like that who comes in and says, ‘Hey, this guy’s the real deal,’ people believe him.’”

As for LaFarge’s own pet causes, he considers himself a standard bearer not only for classic American music, but also for the Midwest’s contributions to the catalog. He says the nation’s heartland –– Indiana included –– should take a little more credit, not only for undisputed legends like Bloomington’s Hoagy Carmichael but also for underappreciated pioneers like the ‘20s-‘30s Indianapolis blues duo of guitarist Scrapper Blackwell and pianist Leroy Carr.

“People think, ‘Oh, it’s always Southern music,’” he says. “But you know, (jazz pioneer) Bix Beiderbecke came from Iowa.

(Western swing star) Tex Williams was from Illinois. And people say jazz was strictly a New Orleans thing –– and maybe the origins were, in the Teens –– but in the ‘20s, it was a Chicago thing.”

“When people come to the States, they go to New York or California or Florida, but that’s not the real America,” he adds. “I’m proud to come from the Midwest.”

POKEY LAFARGE BRADFORD LEE FOLK & THE BLUEGRASS PLAYBOYS Radio Radio, 1119 E. Prospect St. Friday, Feb. 22 Doors 8 p.m., music 9 p.m., 21+ $12 advance, $15 day of show

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Dilla Day

SATURDAY HIP-HOP DILLA DAY

The Jazz Kitchen, 5377 N. College Ave. 10 p.m., $15, 21+

Seven years have passed since iconic hip-hop producer J Dilla passed away at age 32.

But thanks to countless artist tributes and international celebrations like Old Soul’s annual Dilla Day, the Detroit native’s legacy is stronger than ever.

This year’s Old Soul Dilla Day boasts one of its strongest lineups yet, featuring Dilla’s brother Illa J and frequent Dilla collaborator Frank Nitt on microphone duties alongside a who’s who of Indianapolis hip-hop and R&B, including emcees Ace One, Rusty Redenbacher and Oreo Jones; DJs Rasul and Metrognome, vocalists Bashiri Asad and Renee King, Native Sun and many more.

I spoke with Old Soul co-founder Doug Morris who told me about the origins of Old Soul’s relationship with Dilla.

“Our second event happened around the same time Dilla died. That night we did a two minute moment of silence for Dilla –– this was

Wednesday WEDNESDAY PICKS

Renee King at the Jazz Kitchen, 21+ Ron Jones Quartet at Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center, all-ages Tad Robinson Quartet at the Paramount Theater, all-ages Storytellers in the Square at Radio Radio, 21+ The Black Shades, Deezen, Three Cent Queen at Birdy’s, 21+ Dell Zell, The Kickaways, No Pit Cherries at Melody Inn, 21+

Thursday

HIP-HOP MUSIC IN THE MURPHY

DO317 Lounge, 1043 Virginia Ave., #215 8 p.m., all-ages

Brand new from the music-filled brains at Musical Family Tree: Music in the Murphy. This one features hip-hop fixtures Rusty Redenbacher, Native Sun and Mr. Kinetik, all of whom are celebrating recent albums –– especially Redenbacher, whose Lower comes out very soon. Expect lots of fresh material and check back in with MFT soon for next month’s lineup.

24

music // 02.20.13-02.27.13 // NUVO // 100% RECYCLED PAPER

a hype hip-hop party. At midnight we cut off the music for two minutes. That was the start of the Old Soul attachment with Dilla.”

I asked Morris why he felt it was important to continue to pay tribute to the late producer.

“People don’t realize how much of an influence he made in the music that we love. Common’s Like Water for Chocolate is one of the most beloved hip-hop albums and J Dilla produced it. There are a lot of others too, from D’angelo’s Voodoo to Erykah Badu,” said Morris.

While Morris hopes to remind listeners of Dilla’s role behind their familiar favorites, event co-host Nick Saligoe (a.k.a. DJ Metrognome) wants fans to consider Dilla’s drive to push hiphop into the unfamiliar.

“He was a purveyor of musical fearlessness,” said Saligoe. “He constantly played with new ideas, sounds and techniques. He had vision. To me, artists that fit in that creative upper echelon deserve to be celebrated and studied. Hopefully that influence can be found in the next generation of artists and expand some of the listener’s horizons as well.”

–– KYLE LONG

OTHER THURSDAY PICKS

Luke Bryan at Memorial Colesium, all-ages Big Time at Moon Dog Tavern, 21+ Haydon at Birdy’s, 21+ Clepto, Mr. Clit and the Pink Cigarettes, Silverhound, Indien at the Melody Inn, 21+

Friday

PROM YELP, LIKE, 80S PROM

The Speak Easy, 5255 N. Winthrop Ave. 8 p.m., free with RSVP, 21+

Free booze, free snacks, free views of your fellow Hoosiers’ choice of ‘80s clothing –– RSVP for this party at the Speak Easy (hosted by our local Yelpers) and you’ll get it all.

DJ Jackola will keep the floor moving and a photographer or two will be on hand to snap your duds. Did you purge your closet of all the good old stuff? Don’t worry –– Broad Ripple Vintage and a few makeup artists will trick you out onsite.

SOUNDCHECK OTHER SATURDAY PICKS

MINI-FEST KELZEY-PALOOZA

Melody Inn, 3826 N. Illinois St. 7:30 p.m., $10, 21+

We’ll let this lineup speak for itself: Ancient Slang, Teenage Strange, The Vallures, The Constants, Echomaker, The Ridgelands, Shannon Hayden, The Cousin Brothers. Not feelin’ a full band? Hit the souldies lounge, run by DJs Action Jackson, Jackola and Stroble. Take note –– this one starts early to get everybody in.

FOLK POKEY LAFARGE, BRADFORD LEE FOLK AND THE BLUEGRASS PLAYBOYS

Radio Radio, 1119 E. Prospect St. 9 p.m., 21+

Read our interview on page 23

OTHER FRIDAY PICKS

Craig Brenner and the Crawdads at Cafe Django, all-ages Pavel Polanco-Safadit, Direct Contact at Jazz Kitchen, 21+ MojoRadio Launch at the Vogue, 21+ The Pink Floyd Experience at Murat Theatre at Old National Centre, all-ages Pravada, Cameron McGill at DO317 Lounge, all-ages Ivory Skies at Birdy’s, 21+ Dynomite at the Rathskeller, 21+

Saturday

Sunday

DUBSTEP CONSPIRATOR, BREAK SCIENCE Vogue Theater, 6259 N. College Ave. 7 p.m., 21+

More electronic rock + dubstep jams this Sunday at the Vogue. Conspirator is Aron Magner and Marc Brownstein (The Disco Biscuits) and DJ Omen. They solidified as a recording unit after several live performances and began releasing records and hitting major festivals. They’ll play with Break Science, a Brooklyn-based electronic duo touring Twilight Frequency.

OTHER SUNDAY PICKS

!Mindparade, Brick Mower, Counterfeit at the Melody Inn, 21+

Tuesday

WORLD RED BARAAT

The Jazz Kitchen, 5377 N. College Ave. 7,9 p.m., $15, 21+

HIP-HOP JAKE MILLER

Deluxe at Old National Centre, 502 N. New Jersey St. 8 p.m., $15, all-ages

At just 20 years old, multi-instrumentalist and rapper Jake Miller is blowing up. After securing cushy opening spots for Snoop Dogg and Mac Miller and performing alongside Flo Rida and Sean Kingston, this young South Floridian signed with E1 Music and launched a large headlining tour, which includes a stop at the Murat. Locals The Pro Letarians and Kid Quill will open.

BURLESQUE TEAZE N SLEAZE BURLESQUE White Rabbit Cabaret, 1116 E. Prospect St. 10 p.m., 21+

What’s the tease and what’s the sleaze? That’s up for you to decide at this rock and roll / hair metal burlesque show, featuring the Rocket Doll Revue and plenty of ‘80s favorites.

BARFLY

David Wilcox at Wheeler Arts Community Center Club Night at the Vogue, 21+ Midnight Ghost Train at Indy’s Jukebox, 21+ Blackberry Jam, The Hardees at Lizard’s, 21+ Not Your Momma’s Pop Punk Party at Hoosier Dome, all-ages Zach Lapidus Quartet at Jazz Kitchen, 21+ The Karaoke Machine at DO317 Lounge, all-ages

This bhangra funk band packs a punch; led by dhol player Sunny Jain and based in Brooklyn, Red Baraat is one of the best party bands on the touring circuit today. It’s hard to exactly explain the type of music they play, but it combines the multiple hemispheres of influences (East Coast hip-hop, North Indian wedding music) into a crazy dance party.

OTHER TUESDAY PICKS

Werk at the Melody Inn, 21+ Off the Air podcast taping with Chick McGee at Latitude 39, all-ages Jonathan Richman at Russian Recording, all-ages Scott Bender’s Showcase at Max’s Place, all-ages

EVEN MORE See complete calendar listings on NUVO.net and our brand new mobile site.

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NEWS OF THE WEIRD

Crazy kids

Plus, parents as stalkers An estimated 3.2 million kids aged 5 to 12 take mixed-martial arts classes, training to administer beatdowns modeled after the adults’ Ultimate Fighting Championships, according to a January report in ESPN magazine, which profiled the swaggering, Mohawked Derek “Crazy” Rayfield, 11, and the meek, dollclutching fighting machine, Regina “The Black Widow” Awana, 7. Kids under age 12 fight each other without regard to gender, and blows above the collarbone are always prohibited (along with attacks on the groin, kidneys and back). “Crazy” was described delivering merciless forearm chest smashes to a foe before the referee intervened, and the Black Widow won her match in less than a minute via arm-bar submission. Parental involvement appears to be of two types: either fear of their child’s getting hurt or encouragement to be meaner.

The Continuing Crisis

• Breaking Bad (and Quickly!): Tyrone Harris, 26, reported for his first shift at Dunkin’ Donuts in Morristown, N.J., in January and received his name tag. Seven minutes later, according to police, he was

on his way out the door with $2,100 from his supervisor’s desk. (Apparently, the supervisor had opened his drawer a little too far when reaching for the name tag, giving Harris a glimpse of the cash.)

• In a January submission to India’s Supreme Court, an association of the country’s caste councils begged for greater sympathy for men who commit “honor killings” of wayward females.

The councils denied encouraging such killings, but emphasized that fathers or brothers who murder a daughter or sister are usually “law-abiding, educated and respectable people” who must protect their reputations after a female has had a “forbidden” relationship -- especially a female who intends to marry within her sub-caste, which the councils believe leads to deformed babies.

• Aubrey Ireland, 21, a dean’s-list senior at the University of Cincinnati’s prestigious college of music, went to court in December to protect herself from two stalkers -- her mother and father, who, she said, had been paranoiacally meddling in her life. David and Julie Ireland put tracking devices on Aubrey’s computer and telephone and showed up unannounced on campus (600 miles from their home), telling officials that Aubrey was promiscuous and mentally imbalanced. A Common Pleas Court judge ordered the parents to keep their distance.

• Medium-Tech Warfare: (1) The mostly rag-tag army of Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime unveiled its first jerrybuilt armored vehicle in December.

The “Sham II” is an old diesel car with

cameras for navigation, a machine gun mounted on a turret with a driver looking at one flat-screen TV and a gunner another, aiming the machine gun via a Sony PlayStation controller. (2) Video transmissions from drone aircraft rose stiflingly to more than 300,000 hours last year (compared to 4,800 in 2001).

With input expected to grow even more, Air Force officials acknowledged in December seeking advice from a privatesector company experienced in handling massive amounts of video: ESPN. • Dog trainer Mark Vette showed off his best work in Auckland, New Zealand, in December: dogs driving a Cooper Mini on a closed course. Using knobs fitted to the dogs’ reach, Vette taught mixed-breed rescue dogs “Monty” and “Porter” 10 discrete actions, including handling the starter, steering wheel, gearshift, and brake and gas pedals, and then put them behind the wheel on live television. Monty handled the straightaway flawlessly, but Porter, assigned to steer around a bend, ran off the road.

of the nearly 80,000 applicants, only 44 were prosecuted for lying, and federal officials said the practice, well-known among applicants with shaky backgrounds, is known as “lie and try.”

Bright Ideas

Undignified Deaths

• Stress Relief for Students: (1) In November, students at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, ordered three therapy dogs and set up a room for “super stressed” final-exam studiers. The dogs typically are loaned to hospital patients and senior citizens.

(2) In December, Cornell University staff installed a patch of grass inside the Olin Library (trucked in from the Adirondack mountains) because, said an employee, the sight of it has a “cognitive relaxing effect.”

• Jorge Sanchez, 35, was arrested in Burbank, Calif., in February after walking into a Costco store, brazenly stuffing 24 quart cans of motor oil under his clothing (some affixed with bungee cords), and heading for the exit. A security guard noticed him, but Sanchez fled and actually outran the guard (though some of his cargo came loose). Still carrying 15 cans, he made it eight blocks before police overtook him.

Sanchez said he services cars part-time and that motor oil prices were just too high.

The Aristocrats!

• Gregory Bruni, 21, was arrested in North Fort Myers, Fla., in January after allegedly breaking into a residence at about 7 p.m. (first scurrying across the roof and jumping on one resident who came to investigate). According to police, Bruni was naked, ran maniacally around screaming in gibberish, failed to be intimidated when the female resident fired three “warning shots” with a handgun, fell to the floor after the third shot and began masturbating, and defecated near the front door and in a hallway.

Police soon arrived and Tasered him.

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Perspective

• The issue of “background checks” for gun purchases occupies center stage in the current gun-regulation debate, even though, ironically, current federal law on such checks is apparently half-heartedly enforced. In the latest data available (from 2010), nearly 80,000 Americans were denied the right to purchase guns because their applications contained false information (even though applicants swear, under penalty of law, that all information is true). However, The New York Times reported in January that

People With Issues

• Lawrence Adamczyk, 49, was arrested in Riverside, Ill., in January after reports that he was loitering at Riverside Brookfield High School during a swim meet. Police said he was quite talkative in custody, admitting that he was at the school to leer at boys (after being tipped off via “brainwave” messages from the singer Justin Bieber) and that moments before police arrived, he had been engaged in a solo sex act while ogling the swimmers. Amazingly, police found that Adamczyk was not on any sex offenders’ registry even though he had been arrested (with at least one conviction) for similar incidents in 2005, 2009 and 2011, and was on parole at the time of the Riverside arrest.

• (1) After a 51-year-old man was found dead in Everett, Wash., in January with his heavier girlfriend (192 pounds) lying face down on top of him, sheriff’s deputies attributed cause of death as his having been smothered by the 50-year-old woman’s breasts. Neighbors said they had heard the man screaming for the woman to get off of him. (2) In January, New York City police, arriving to check out an altercation and a death on the tracks at the East 125th Street subway station, found that the two incidents were unrelated. The man who was killed had actually fallen off of a train near the station while he was squatting between cars, defecating.

Readers’ Choice

• (1) Sophie Laboissonniere pleaded guilty in January to participating in the 2011 street riot in Vancouver, British Columbia, as part of a crowd that broke into a drugstore following the hometown Canucks’ loss in the Stanley Cup finals. Months before the riot, in the Miss Coastal Vancouver beauty pageant, she had been voted Miss Congeniality.

(2) On Nov. 4, “Holly” -- Jacob and Bonnie Richter’s 4-year-old cat -- fled the couple’s motor home (apparently frightened by fireworks) parked at the Daytona International Speedway and did not return. Searches were futile, and the Richters drove home to Palm Beach Gardens, about 190 miles away. Two weeks later, Holly appeared, disheveled with paws rubbed raw, about a mile from the Richters’ home, and the finder returned her to the Richters based on Holly’s microchip ID. Thanks This Week to Derek Costello, Jon Johnson, Bruce Leiserowitz, Annie Thames, Perry Levin, John McGaw, and Rich Heiden, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

©2012 CHUCK SHEPHERD DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE

Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.

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classifieds

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PAYMENT, & ADVERTISING DEADLINE All ads are prepaid in full by Monday at 5 P.M. Nuvo gladly accepts Cash, Money Order, & All Major Credit Cards.

POLICIES: Advertiser warrants that all goods or services advertised in NUVO are permissible under applicable local, state and federal la ws. Advertisers and hired advertising agencies are liable for all content (including text, representation and illustration) of advertisements and are res ponsible, without limitation, for any and all claims made thereof against NUVO, its officers or employees. Classified ad space is limited and granted on a first come, first served basis. To qualify for an adjustment, any error must be reported within 15 days of publication date. Credit for errors is limited to first insertion.

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Certified Massage Therapists Yoga | Chiropractors | Counseling To advertise in Body/Mind/Spirit, Call Ryan @ 808-4607 Advertisers running in the CERTIFIED MASSAGE THERAPY section have graduated from a massage therapy school associated with one of four organizations: American Massage Therapy Association (amtamassage.org)

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

© 2012 BY ROB BRESZNY

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the course of her world travels, writer Jane Brunette has seen many wonderful things -- as well as a lot of trash. The most beautiful litter, she says, is in Bali. She loves the “woven palm leaf offerings, colorful cloth left from a ceremony, and flowers that dry into exquisite wrinkles of color.” Even the shiny candy wrappers strewn by the side of the road are fun to behold. Your assignment, Aries, is to adopt a perceptual filter akin to Brunette’s. Is there any stuff other people regard as worthless or outworn that you might find useful, interesting, or even charming? I’m speaking metaphorically as well as literally.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The Old Testament tells the story of a man named Methuselah, who supposedly didn’t die until he was 969 years old. Some Kabbalistic commentators suggest that he didn’t literally walk the earth for almost ten centuries. Rather, he was extra skilled at the arts of living. His experiences were profoundly rich. He packed 969 years’ worth of meaningful adventures into a normal life span.

I prefer that interpretation, and I’d like to invoke it as I assess your future. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Taurus, you will have Methuselah’s talent in the coming weeks.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In the coming weeks, I’m expecting your life to verge on being epic and majestic. There’s a better than even chance that you will do something heroic. You might finally activate a sleeping potential or tune in to your future power spot or learn what you’ve never been able to grasp before. And if you capitalize gracefully on the kaleidoscopic kismet that’s flowing your way, I bet you will make a discovery that will fuel you for the rest of your long life. In mythical terms, you will create a new Grail or tame a troublesome dragon -- or both.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Jackalopes resemble jackrabbits, except that they have antlers like deer and tails like pheasants.

They love whiskey, only have sex during storms, and can mimic most sounds, even the human voice.

The milk of the female has curative properties.

Strictly speaking, however, the jackalope doesn’t actually exist. It’s a legendary beast, like the mermaid and unicorn. And yet Wyoming lawmakers have decided to honor it. Early this year they began the process of making it the state’s official mythical creature. I bring this to your attention, Cancerian, because now would be an excellent time to select your own official mythical creature.

The evocative presence of this fantastic fantasy would inspire your imagination to work more freely and playfully, which is just what you need.

What’ll it be? Dragon? Sphinx? Phoenix? Here’s a list: tinyurl.com/MythicCritters LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The temptation to hide what you’re feeling could be strong right now. You may wonder if you should protect yourself and others from the unruly truth.

But according to my analysis, you will be most brilliant and effective if you’re cheerfully honest.

That’s the strategy most likely to provide genuine healing, too -- even if its initial effects are unsettling. Please remember that it won’t be enough merely to communicate the easy secrets with polite courage. You will have to tap into the deepest sources you know and unveil the whole story with buoyantly bold elegance.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The word “chain” may refer to something that confines or restricts. But it can also mean a series of people who are linked together because of their common interests and their desire to create strength through unity. I believe that one of those two definitions will play an important role in your life during the coming weeks, Virgo. If you proceed with the intention to emphasize the second meaning, you will minimize and maybe even eliminate the first.

drove on the right-hand side. So on September 3, 1967, the law changed. Everyone switched over. All non-essential traffic was halted for hours to accommodate the necessary adjustments. What were the results? Lots of motorists grumbled about having to alter their routine behavior, but the transition was smooth. In fact, the accident rate went down. I think you’d benefit from doing a comparable ritual sometime soon, Libra. Which of your traditions or habits could use a fundamental revision?

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): When a woman is pregnant, her womb stretches dramatically, getting bigger to accommodate the growing fetus. I suspect you’ll undergo a metaphorically similar process in the coming weeks. A new creation will be gestating, and you’ll have to expand as it ripens. How? Here’s one way: You’ll have to get smarter and more sensitive in order to give it the care it needs. Here’s another way: You’ll have to increase your capacity for love.

Don’t worry: You won’t have to do it all at once.

“Little by little” is your watchword.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Do you floss your teeth while you’re meditating?

Do you text-message and shave or put on make-up as you drive? Do you simultaneously eat a meal, pay your bills, watch TV, and exercise? If so, you are probably trying to move too fast and do too much. Even in normal times, that’s no good.

But in the coming week, it should be taboo. You need to slowwww wayyyy dowwwn, Sagittarius.

You’ve got . . . to compel yourself . . . to do . . . one thing . . . at a time. I say this not just because your mental and physical and spiritual health depend on it. Certain crucial realizations about your future are on the verge of popping into your awareness -- but they will only pop if you are immersed in a calm and unhurried state.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): To make your part of the world a better place, stress loving workaholics may need to collaborate with slow-moving underachievers. Serious business might be best negotiated in places like bowling alleys or parking lots. You should definitely consider seeking out curious synergies and unexpected alliances. It’s an odd grace period, Capricorn. Don’t assume you already know how to captivate the imaginations of people whose influence you want in your life. Be willing to think thoughts and feel feelings you have rarely if ever entertained.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Gawker.com came up with colorful ways to describe actress Zooey Deschanel. In a weird coincidence, their pithy phrases for her seem to fit the moods and experiences you will soon be having.

I guess you could say you’re scheduled to have a Zooey Deschanel-according-to-Gawker.com kind of week. Here are some of the themes: 1.

Novelty ukulele tune. 2. Overemphatic stage wink.

3. Sentient glitter cloud. 4. Over-iced Funfetti cupcake. 5. Melted-bead craft project. 6. Living Pinterest board. 7. Animated Hipstamatic photograph. 8. Bambi’s rabbit friend. 9. Satchel of fairy dust. 10. Hipster labradoodle.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): You may have heard the thundering exhortation, “Know thyself!” Its origin is ancient. More than 2,400 years ago, it was inscribed at the front of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, Greece. As important as it is to obey this command, there is an equally crucial corollary: “Be thyself!” Don’t you agree? Is there any experience more painful than not being who you really are? Could there be any behavior more damaging to your long-term happiness than trying to be someone other than who you really are? If there is even the slightest gap, Pisces, now is an excellent time to start closing it. Cosmic forces will be aligned in your favor if you push hard to further identify the nature of your authentic self, and then take aggressive steps to foster its full bloom.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): People in Sweden used to drive their cars on the lefthand side of the road. But a growing body of research revealed it would be better if everyone

Homework: Is it possible there’s something you really need but you don’t know what it is? Can you guess what it might be? http://Freewillastrology.com

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