La Vida Nueva – Zapotec women’s weaving collective visits Seattle

Tuesday, September 30^th 3pm – 9pm

(Café Rozella: 9434 Delridge Way SW 206.763.5805 www.caferozella.com

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La Vida Nueva is a women’s weaving collective in Teotitlan del Valle , Oaxaca Mexico . These Zapotec artisans are continuing their traditional methods of dying, spinning, and weaving wool tapetes (rugs) all by hand. Their work and homeland are internationally acclaimed for the quality of weaving.

Pastora Gutierrez will be representing the 14 women of the collective on this 2008 West Coast Tour. Each stop is an opportunity to create cultural ties with the Zapotec women, as well as learning about the work and community of their cooperative. All the women of La Vida Nueva are independently supporting themselves and their children through the work of the collective.

There are two opportunities in Seattle to meet Pastora and her friend and translator Juanita Rodriguez. These are also opportunities to purchase heirloom quality traditional Zapotec tapetes. This annual selling tour is the main source of income for La Vida Nueva.

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La Vida Nueva - la colectividad que teje de las mujeres de Zapotec visita Seattle

Lunes, 29 de septiembre de 6 P.M. - 9pm

(residencia privada: para más Info 206.323.4483 o bikewitch@yahoo.com

)

Martes 30 de septiembre de 3 P.M. - 9pm

(Café Rozella: 9434 Delridge Way SW 206.763.5805 www.caferozella.com

)

La Vida Nueva es una colectividad que teje de las mujeres en el del Valle, Oaxaca México de Teotitlan. Estos artesanos de Zapotec están continuando sus métodos tradicionales de teňido, de giro, y de tapetes de las lanas que tejen todas a mano. Su trabajo y patria internacionalmente se aclaman para la calidad de tejer.

Pastora Gutiérrez representará a las 14 mujeres de la colectividad en este viaje 2008 de la costa oeste. Cada parada es una oportunidad de crear lazos culturales con las mujeres de Zapotec, así como el aprendizaje sobre el trabajo y la comunidad de su cooperativa. Todas las mujeres del La Vida Nueva se están apoyando independientemente y a sus niños a través del trabajo de la colectividad.

Hay dos oportunidades en Seattle de resolver Pastora y su amigo y traductor Juanita Rodriguez. Éstas son también oportunidades de comprar los tapetes tradicionales de Zapotec de la calidad de la herencia. Esta publicación anual que vende viaje es la fuente de ingresos principal para el La Vida Nueva.

Friday Film: Control Room - April 25th at 7:00 p.m.

Egyptian-American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim (Startup.com) directs Control Room, a documentary investigating the ethics of media-managed wars. This film particularly focuses on the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Noujaim and her film crew travel to the headquarters of Al-Jazeera, the media leader in the Arab world, to find out what the news looks like in Iraq. She interviews several journalists and producers involved in war reporting for Al-Jazeera, including senior producer Sameer Khader, journalist Hassan Ibrahim, and producer Deema Khatib. Noujaim also interviews American correspondents David Shuster from NBC and Tom Mintier from CNN. Control Room premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 as part of the American Spectrum program.


Boston Society of Film Critics
2004 Best Documentary

Broadcast Film Critics Association
2004 Best Documentary

Directors Guild of America
2004 Best Documentary Jehane Noujaim

Independent Spirit Award
2004 Truer Than Fiction Award Jehane Noujaim

Writers Guild of America
2004 Best Documentary

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room - Friday Night Movie at Cafe Rozella - March 8, 2008 at 7 p.m.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a 2005 documentary film based on the best-selling 2003 book of the same name by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, a study of one of the largest business scandals in American history.

The film examines the collapse of the Enron Corporation, which resulted in criminal trials for several of the company's top executives; it also shows the involvement of the Enron traders in the California electricity crisis.

Interviews are conducted with former executives, stock analysts, reporters and the former Governor of California Gray Davis.

The film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 78th Academy Awards.

As an analysis of corruption in corporations the film gives a realistic look at corporate culture and the inherent problems within. The movie presents two mechanisms for motivating a vastly immoral and profit-driven corporate culture; namely the vitality curve and the Milgram experiment.

The vitality curve is an idea of constant competition in the work place. Individuals are driven to out-perform each other wherever possible because the employees doing worst in a particular field will be fired. Enron constantly hired new staff because even with record profits it was firing people for making less than 1000 times what they were being paid. The atmosphere of the work place caused people to not only disregard the law, but also to act competitively in breaking the law.

The film features actual voice clips from Enron employees discussing the transfer of electricity from the state of California into nodes in other states where there was a surplus. California had signed legislation allowing for a free market in energy. As a response to this, Enron created a demand by causing blackouts across the state. Following this the price of electricity sky-rocketed, right in time for Enron to ship back the energy they took out of California back into California, making billions upon billons of dollars in profits. The controllers who were doing this discussed how much energy they had transferred knowing full well that it was going to blackout the cities in California.

The Milgram experiment was conducted to see how long an individual can take an order before they question that order. The test was set up so that a person is told that an individual will be shocked with electricity every time they push a button. The person is told to raise the voltage and push the button over and over until the person pushing the button decides to stop on moral grounds. On average a person would die three times over with the number of times the button was pushed.

With a goal derived from the pursuit of profit, Enron employees were constantly told to break laws or perform acts that could be considered immoral. Few Enron employees ever came forward to report the corruption. The factor that inevitably led to people coming forward was a "sinking ship" feeling, resulting in some of the Enron executives selling their shares while telling employees to keep their shares.

The Sun Makes a brief appearance

The sun made a brief appearance reminding us of warmer times to come and the joy of sipping a latter in our outdoor cafe.

Friday Film: Who Killed the Electric Car

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 15TH at 7 P.M.
Cafe Rozella Presents the Celebrated Documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car"

It begins with a solemn funeral…for a car. By the end of Chris Paine's lively and informative documentary, the idea doesn't seem quite so strange. As narrator Martin Sheen notes, "They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline." Paine proceeds to show how this unique vehicle came into being and why General Motors ended up reclaiming its once-prized creation less than a decade later. He begins 100 years ago with the original electric car. By the 1920s, the internal-combustion engine had rendered it obsolete. By the 1980s, however, car companies started exploring alternative energy sources, like solar power. This, in turn, led to the late, great battery-powered EV1. Throughout, Paine deftly translates hard science and complex politics, such as California's Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate, into lay person's terms (director Alex Gibney, Oscar-nominated for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, served as consulting producer).

And everyone gets the chance to have their say: engineers, politicians, protesters, and petroleum spokespeople--even celebrity drivers, like Peter Horton, Alexandra Paul, and a wild man beard-sporting Mel Gibson. But the most persuasive participant is former Saturn employee Chelsea Sexton. Promoting the benefits of the EV1 was more than a job to her, and she continues to lobby for more environmentally friendly options. Sexton provides the small ray of hope Paine's film so desperately needs. Who Killed the Electric Car? is, otherwise, a tremendously sobering experience. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Hedgebrook Café Rozella Event

On Wednesday, January 30, 2008 Café Rozella in conjunction with Hedgebrook Institute hosted a multi-cultural event. Two authors read from their works. Wendy Call, who is a writer in residence at Richard Hugo House and co-editor of the book, Telling True Stories (Plume/Penguin 2007) read from her latest work. www.wendycall.com

As well Maria Victoria, from Veracruz, Mexico and author of the novel Les Dejo el Mar (Ediciones B, 2005), a finalist for the 2006 Mariposa Book Award, also gave reading from her works. (www.mivictoria.com)

Music was provided by Charanga Danzon, Seattle’s New Cuban Music Ensemble. The ensemble is led by violinist Irene Mitri.

The evening was a grand success with over 70 people attending. A wonderful array of people from the local community as well as from the larger area were on hand for celebration of words and music. We look forward to hosting more such events.

Movies at Cafe Rozella

Last night we screened the Battle of Algiers at the Cafe. This is a powerful movie whose message appears timeless given the current state of events. The film depicts an episode in the war of independence in then-French Algeria, in the capital city of Algiers. It reconstructs the events of November 1954 to December 1960 in Algiers during the Algerian War of Independence, beginning with the organization of revolutionary cells in the Casbah. From there, it depicts the conflict between native Algerians and European settlers (pied-noirs) in which the two sides exchange acts of increasing violence, leading to the introduction of French paratroopers, under the direction of General Massu and then Colonel Bigeard, to root out the National Liberation Front (FLN). The paratroops are depicted as "winning" the battle by neutralizing the whole FLN leadership through assassination or capture. However, the film ends with a coda, depicting demonstrations and rioting by native Algerians for independence, in which it is suggested that though the French have won the Battle of Algiers, they have lost the war. (Wikepedia). And most certainly it is true that the French lost Algeria while neutralizing the combatants. A lesson we should all take to heart.

Next week's fare will be quite lighter with the showing of Woody Allen's film, "Annie Hall." This is certainly one of the classic meloncholy romantic films of our time. And it is, perhaps, Allen's best film. Annie Hall is an Academy Award-winning, 1977 romantic comedy film directed by Woody Allen from a script he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman. It is one of Allen's most popular films: it won numerous awards at the time of its release, and in 2002 Roger Ebert referred to it as "just about everyone's favorite Woody Allen movie." Allen had previously been known as a maker of zany comedies; the director has described Annie Hall as "a major turning point", as it brought a new level of seriousness to his work, in addition to consolidating his signature cinematic style, which includes long, realistically written scenes of conversation, often shot in uninterrupted takes, and an equal thematic investment in both hilarity and heartbreak. The film will be screened at Cafe Rozella at 7 p.m. on Friday February 8th at 7 p.m. As the file is sponsored by the White Center Arts Alliance it is free. Come and enjoy another classic at Cafe Rozella.