A donation ‘balikbayan box’ will be set up at the Sunday Salon, November 15th. Please help by donating any basic items that you can spare (see list below). 

Our contact in the barangay, or barrio, of Caba is Pete Gonzales, a Filipino-American painter / musician, who after over forty years of living in the US, decided to move back to the Philippines to manage a small family business of vacation guest houses, which employs many of the people from the village. Since the severe flooding began, Mr. Gonzales has been reaching out to anyone who can help in his effort to provide relief to his local community. He will receive and distribute any donated items to assure proper distribution to those in the most need.

*Rice is by far the most important staple, but any of the below items will help and be greatly appreciated.*

Food:

• Rice (5lb bags)
• Canned goods: proteins such as Vienna sausages, corned beef, cans of corn beef, Spam, pork and beans, sardines
• Instant noodles such as Top Ramen cup-o-noodles
• Instant drinks such as coffee, Taster’s Choice,Nescafe, powdered milk

Clothing: (Any summer items that you need to purge?)

• Mens S-L, Womens XS-L. Children – All sizes 
• T-shirts 
• Shorts
• New underwear
• Light pants / jeans
• Flip-Flops 
• Shoes

Other items:

• Bandages
• Hydrogen peroxide
• Betadine
• Pain relievers
• For children: coloring books, crayons, candy, small toys

Below is an additional list from The Philippine National Red Cross:

• Food items: Rice, noodles, canned goods, sugar, iodized salt, cooking oil, monggo beans
• Medicines: Paracetamol, antibiotics, analgesic, oral rehydration salts, multivitamins and medications to treat diarrheal diseases
• Non-food items: Bath soaps, face towels, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, plastic mats, blankets, mosquito nets, jerry cans, water containers, water purification tablets, plastic sheeting, and laundry soap

If you want to send items directly to Caba, you may send to the following address:

Mr. Pete Gonzales
Paiko Shores Resort
Barangay, San Carlos
Caba, La Union, Philippines

Thank you in advance for helping the people of Caba, La Union, and special thanks to thanks to writer Erica Miguel for bridging us to the community of Cabo!

Sunday Salon is thrilled to welcome writer Andrei Codrescu for a special writers’ workshop and reading event, both free and open to the public, on Sunday, December 6, 2009 from 4-6pm at Jimmy’s No. 43 at 43 E. 7th St. (btw 2 & 3 Ave.) in Manhattan!

Workshop Description:

Writing exquisite corpses on paper, fruit, and skin with Andrei Codrescu. Participants should bring a fine point magic marker and a writeable fruit (no oranges, they’re too bumpy). Session will be podcast from corpse.org.

(And feel free to bring laptop/questions!)

Andrei Codrescu is senior commentator on National Public Radio’s (NPR) All Things Considered, the national news-magazine he has contributed to for 25 years (www.npr.org). The listenership for ATC has grown from six million listeners in 1983 when he started to twenty-three million listeners today. While he was never off the air for longer than six weeks, there has recently been an upswell of interest in his consistently radical and demythicising work, and NPR has decided to air his essays regularly every Wednesday. Andrei Codrescu’s work in radio is complemented by film: his documentary movie, Road Scholar (which was also a book published in both hardcover and paper by Hyperion) had wide theatrical distribution, and the nationally broadcast PBS version won a Peabody Award.

Andrei is also a novelist: The Blood Countess (Simon & Schuster, a national best-seller in both hardcover and paper), Messiah, Casanova in Bohemia, and Wakefield have sold well, received a good deal of critical attention, and were translated in a number of languages. Andrei is also a poet and an essayist, the author of monographs and scholarly essays on diverse subjects (see codrescu.com). He is the editor of Exquisite Corpse: a Journal of Life & Letters, online at www.corpse.org, and MacCurdy Distinguished Professor at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge.

In addition to the Peabody Award, he is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the ACLU Freedom of Speech Award, the Ovidius Prize, and the Towson University Literature Prize. For a list of his published work, work in other media, and live appearances, there is more at www.codrescu.com.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc. with public funds from The New York State Council for the Arts, a state agency.

More change. Sunday Salon is relocating to our new home in Manhattan this summer: Seventh Street Small Stage at Jimmy’s 43, 43rd E 7th St. (btw 2/3rd Ave).

And more change. The stellar reading series is turning SEVEN this month! Party in the house!

Cheers,
Nita & Caroline

The mission of the Daraja Academy is to cultivate a community of individuals with a sense of cultural awareness, social conscience, and environmental responsibility, all while instilling talents that will enable them to open doors to a global society. You can support the school and its mission. Just check out the website at: daraja-academy.org.

Educator and writer Jabiz Raisdana, whose compelling story Five Minutes is published on this website, has visited the school and has this to say about the place, its founder, and its purpose:

The first thing you notice about Daraja are the sounds: An orchestra of sound composed by hundreds of species of birds- an aviary city in perpetual movement. Behind this cacophony enters the slow odd beat of a cowbell clacking its slapdash jazz rhythm. An occasional yelp of children subduing an animal. A goat bleats. More birds, now more aggressive like trumpets. A low buzz of insects cellos drumming in the background. A rare car passing along an unseen road. An airplane, sound first, enters the sky exiting through clouds, then horizon.

Beyond this ensemble is silence. The beautiful all-encompassing silence of the Earth alone without civilization. An enduring peace punctuates the score like measures of necessary rests.

Even without the classrooms, teachers, books or curriculum, this campus is a place to reconnect with the urge to explore. A place to self-reflect and place oneself in the symphony of the Earth. A bare-boned canvas with ancient stories waiting to be investigated, rethought, and expanded. These grounds carved from the soil of the Kenyan savannah are the perfect place to begin a journey that will never end.

I had arrived at Daraja at night. In the darkness of that first night the campus appeared as nothing more than an empty space waiting to be filled with my expectations, my hopes, dreams, and goals not only for this small grassroots school, but also for Kenya, Africa, and the world itself.

After spending eight days on campus, I realized that Jason had transformed hours of our idealistic chatter and conjecture into a living breathing school. After meeting the staff and seeing how many people were involved with the success of the school–from the volunteers, to Peter Wahatu, to most importantly Jason’s amazing wife and partner, Jenni–it became obvious that there was no way that he could have done this on his own.

For an idea as simple yet ambitious as Daraja to work, people must believe in it. While the idea may have hatched through years of reverie and optimism, it was through Jason’s stubborn persistence that it became real. But now, it is bigger than him. Daraja needs every person who hears about the cause to support it with their time, their love, and their faith in the belief that educating young women is the best tool to build a more sustainable, just, and peaceful world.

It is this faith in collaboration and grassroots organizing that makes Daraja such a special place. To promote this school is to declare your support for a better world. It is to admit that a difference can be made in other people’s lives.

With this newsletter in hand, take action. Obviously Daraja would welcome a donation of any kind, but there is so much more one can do: share pictures, videos, blog posts about the school. Raise awareness for this project with as many people in your local community as possible. Remember Daraja means bridge and YOU are Daraja.

Yes, your Salon hostesses were soaking in all the stellar prose and poetry vibes that night and are still floating somewhere between heaven and earth. Missed it? Well then, have a look at the photos: http://www.sundaysalon.com/pics/

And to share the love, we’re welcoming poetry to the SalonZine. That’s right: long live prose and poetry on-line! Our inaugural issue poets include the veritable KC Trommer and S.G. Frazier. Read ‘em now and spread the word!