Community Compass
Community Compass is a service of OITM. GLBT organizations from around the state are invited to provide brief — 200 words or less — descriptions of recent or upcoming activities and events. Send your submissions to us by email by the 15th of the month.
OITM Receives Portable Gift
Mountain Pride Media would like to thank the anonymous donor who sent us a set of portable telephones. The staff is already putting them to good use.
We are looking for ad sales reps to sell ads for Out In The Mountains and for our web site www.mountainpridemedia.org. A monthly stipend and commission on all sales make this a great part or full time job. Just give us a call at 802-434-5237 or email us at ads@mountainpridemedia.org for additional information.
We’d like to welcome Judy, our new St. Albans distribution route volunteer. We currently have three distribution routes that are in need of new distribution volunteers: Plattsburgh (NY), Bennington (VT), and Putney (VT)/Keene (NH). We are also looking for couriers to deliver papers throughout the state to our distribution volunteers. For more information about distribution opportunities please contact us at circulation@mountainpridemedia.org or call us at 802-434-6486. Our March “Stuffing” night will be on Thursday, March 27th at our offices in Richmond (above The Daily Bread) starting at around 5 p.m. We are usually done by 7 p.m.
Have you entered Mountain Pride Media's 2003 Think Spring Raffle yet? Look for our ad and entry form in this issue of Out In The Mountains or download one from our web site by clicking on the Think Spring graphic. We have lots of fabulous prizes to give away. Tickets are just $25 or five for $100, and only 300 will be sold. The prize drawings will be held on the first day of Spring, Friday, March 21st. Time is running out so be sure to get your tickets today.
Looking for a great night of theater? We have balcony seats for the David Sedaris performance at the Flynn in Burlington. The show is Wednesday, April 2nd at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are just $25/ticket and proceeds go to benefit the work of Mountain Pride Media. We only have a limited number of tickets, so contact Roland today to get yours by calling 802-383-7679 (days) or by email at rfpvt@together.net.
Women’s Week at UVM
The Women’s Center at the University of Vermont is planning and co-sponsoring a series of events to celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month.
The events begin Tuesday, March 4th, 4:30-6:00p at the ALANA Student Center on the Redstone Campus with the Sisterhood Circle, a women's discussion group and soup dinner. The discussion topic is “Women Confronting War, Creating Peace.”
On Wednesday, March 5th, 12:00-1:00p in the North Lounge of Billings Student Center, Pat Fontaine will facilitate a Mothers And Daughters Panel talking about Generations of Conversation. Several mother-daughter pairs from different countries will speak on their experiences on immigration, life in America, and what it means to be a mother or daughter today. Moderator Pat Fontaine also teaches a course entitled “Mothers and Daughters.”
On Thursday, March 6th, 6:00-8:30p the film The Way Home will be shown, followed by a discussion sponsored by the Center for Cultural Pluralism. The film documents the conversations of several different groups of women brought together to discuss race/ethnic issues in the US. For more information, call Alina Torres at 656-7990.
On Friday, March 7th, get up early for a breakfast lecture from 7:30-9:00a at The Manor in Waterman Building with speaker Indai Sajor on “The Profound Struggle of the Asian Comfort Women: Militarized Sexual Violence.” There will be an admission charge of $3. Following the breakfast, at 10:10-11:15a in the North Lounge of the Billings Student Center Indai Sajor’s footage of the Asian Comfort Women’s Tribunal. After that, from 11:30-1:00, there will be an open discussion including UVM faculty with knowledge in the area of study will join Indai in a discussion of the film and the topics it addresses. One need not attend the film to join the discussion.
To wind up the day, from 9:30p - 1:00a catch Midnight Jazz, in the North Lounge of the Billings Student Center with performers: Tonal Vision, the only all-female jazz quartet in Vermont. There will even be refreshments.
For more information on any of these events, please contact Pamela Gardner at 656-4296 or pamela.e.gardner@uvm.edu.
Green Mountain Film Fest Features 3 Queer Movies
The sixth annual Green Mountain Film Festival will be held this year March 21-30 in Montpelier. Among 27 of the very best American independent films, foreign films, documentaries and Vermont-made films will be the New England premiere of Vermont filmmaker John O’Brien’s Nosey Parker, the third in his trilogy that includes Vermont Is For Lovers and Man With a Plan.
Of particular interest are three films co-sponsored by Mountain Pride Media. The Cockettes shows archival footage of the camp San Francisco performers in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s assembled with interviews with surviving members of the troupe. It won the Los Angeles Film Critics’ Best Documentary award this year.
His Secret Life, directed by Ferzan Ozpetek (Steam) follows a happily married woman who learns, on her husband’s death, that he’s conducted an affair for years with a man. The film traces her reluctant involvement with the “other” man and his friends.
In Ruthie and Connie, two irrepressible women now in their 70s describe to documentary filmmaker Deborah Dickson how as typical housewives in Brooklyn in the 1950s they fell in love and risked everything to be together.
There are feature films from the U.S., Turkey, Iran, West Africa, Japan, Russian, France, Italy and Switzerland, and documentaries on important social issues. Films are shown in two locations: Feature films in the Savoy Theater, 26 Main St., and documentaries in the City Hall Arts Center, 39 Main St. New this year will be advance ticket sales and reservations.
A number of related events have been scheduled. Stuart Klawans, The Nation’s film critic and New York Daily News columnist, will give a talk Sunday, March 23, at 10 a.m. in the Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main St. Five filmmakers will discuss their work immediately after screenings of their films, including John O’Brien, Judith Helfand (Blue Vinyl), Bess O’Brien (Here Today), Mirra Bank (Last Dance) and Lucia Small (My Father the Genius).
Discussions of two other films are scheduled. On Monday, March, in City Hall, Reed Brody of Human rights Watch and professor of international law at Columbia University will talk about The Pinochet Case. On Sunday, March 23, in City Hall, Robert Meeropol will discuss “Strange Fruit.” Meeropol is the son of Abel Meeropol who wrote the famous protest song.
For details consult the Festival website www.savoytheater.com/gmff or call 802-229-0598. The Festival’s E-mail is savoydv@together.net.
Marching on to Gaypril
As you anticipate the coming months of slowly-but-surely rising temperatures, add “Gaypril” to your list of events to look forward to. The University of Vermont LGBTQA has joined forces with the student group “Free to Be: GLBTA,” UVM’s ALANA (Asian, Latino, African, Native American) program, the Student Life office, and community groups R.U.12?, Safe Space, the Women’s Rape Crisis Center and Outright Vermont to organize a month-long Gaypril celebration during the month of April. Though other campuses across the country have hosted Gaypril events in the past, this is the first time campus and community organizations have come together at UVM for a month of musical performances, films, guest speakers, poetry, art exhibits, conversation and queer visibility.
Gaypril actually begins a little early – on March 27th – with a concert by Pamela Means at the Fireplace Lounge in the Living / Learning Building. On March 28th, Maya Angelou speaks at the Patrick Gymnasium as part of the Senior Class Speaker Series. The Allen House Gallery at 461 Main Street will host Linda Hollingdale’s photo exhibition, Creating Civil Union: Opening Hearts and Minds. Other campus events later in the month include poetry and music performances by Buddy Wakefield and Arjuna Greist, a concert by local singer/songwriter Gregory Douglass, and presentations about religion and queer identity by Reverend Marilyn McCord Adams and UVM alumna and children’s book author Leslea Newman. These events are free and open to the public – check the Calendar for times and locations.
As Dot Brauer, coordinator of UVM’s LGBTQA Services points out, “Other community events are tying into our month of celebration.” As part of Gaypril, UVM’s LGBTQA group is collaborating with the Women’s Rape Crisis Center, SafeSpace and RU12? to ensure that this year’s Take Back the Night march is “taking back the night” not only from violence targeting gender, but also from violence that targets “non-normative gender expression.”
The Gaypril calendar extends beyond the campus to include community events like RU12?’s annual Community Dinner and Silent Auction on April 14th. In addition, Gaypril includes a Flynn Center performance by Dave Sedaris (tickets available through Mountain Pride Media), a National Public Radio commentator and author of the popular books, Barrel Fever, Naked, and Me Talk Pretty One Day. Singer-songwriter Dar Williams will also pay a visit to perform a benefit concert. For information about these two events, visit www.flynncenter.org.
The Gaypril calendar stretches on to include even more campus and community events to anticipate, but perhaps the overarching reason for excitement about Gaypril is that it will be the culmination of cooperative efforts between students, faculty, alumnae and community members who are working together to recognize and celebrate diversity in both the university and the wider community. According to Brauer, “Even though April is still months away, this aspect of our first Gaypril is already a success.”
For more information about Gaypril events, contact the University of Vermont LGBTQA services at 802-656-8637.