Marijana Grisnik included among Notable Kansas Women

Marijana Grisnik has strong ties to Strawberry Hill, a Croatian American community in Kansas City, Kansas. As a child, Marijana loved to sketch the sights of her neighborhood; as an adult she began painting her memories of growing up on Strawberry Hill. Through her canvases this self-taught artist became the storyteller of this ethnic community.

Notable Kansas Women get set in the history bookshttp://www.kshs.org/people/women.htm

tepeshk@aol.com
 

WWII Pilot Recalls Bailout Over Croatia

One more thrill for WWII's flyboys

The following appeared in today's Los Angeles Daily News. Scores of Allied pilots bailed out over Croatia during WWII. Many had been on bombing runs to the important oil fields of Polesti in Romania. As the article notes about one of these men, those who landed in Partisan controlled territory were transported behind enemy lines to the various islands held by the Partisans following Italy's capitulation, especially Vis. I recently came across a similar story concerning some American pilots who were bailed out over Krk Island. The local Partisan underground group arranged transport by boat all the way to Vis - in the 1990s, the son of one of the survivors visited Krk to thank his rescuers.

Other stories involve damaged planes which were able to limp their way back to Vis - some didn't quite make it and the remains of some planes can be visited offshore in the Adriatic as was noted in a story in the Croatian magazine Nacional last summer.

Some pilots off course did not get to the Partisans. The forces of the Independent State of Croatia treated these POWs very well (Serbian propaganda during and following the War claimed that such captured pilots were killed). Author Michael McAdams in his work, "Croatia: Myth and Reality," includes a very interesting chapter concerning these POWs and how they were kindly looked after by a number of people in war-time Zagreb.

One must also recall the bad side of Allied bombing runs - unfortunately many Croatian cities and civilians fell victim to bombings; anecdotally, it appears that some of these raids may have happened when the planes did not reach their targets - they would just drop their bombs over some city. A particularly fierce airraid in Zagreb drew the criticism of Archbishop Stepinac. A recent article in the Croatian magazine Golbus or Nacional drew attention to such raids in Bjelovar. Other Croatian cities which were hit by Allied bombs included Rijeka and Zadar (which were part of Italian territory since after World War I) and Senj.

John Kraljic

*************************************************

Los Angeles Daily News
One more thrill for WWII's flyboys
By Dennis McCarthy

Monday, May 03, 2004 - The last time Steve Politis went up in a B-17 bomber, he came down in a parachute. That was 60 years ago this month when his plane was shot down during World War II over Croatia.

"John Wayne bails out and lands in the arms of a beautiful woman," says the 87-year-old ex-radar man who lives in Tarzana. "I bail out and land in a tree, bleeding.

"The local underground hid us for four days, then took us in a fishing boat to a little island offshore where we were reunited with our troops at a landing strip we had there."

Thursday, Politis gets a chance to rewrite the ending of his last B-17 flight when he and a handful of other Army Air Forces servicemen who flew missions in the historic bomber during wartime will be going up one more time.

A vintage B-17 bomber traveling the country on a Salute to Veterans national tour will be stopping at Van Nuys Airport this weekend for the public to tour. Flights will also be available.

Before it's opened to the public, though, some of the men who were members of B-17 crews during wartime will get a chance to fly in it Thursday.

"It's going to bring back a lot of memories," says 80-year-old Dan Holland of Woodland Hills, who was a navigator on more than 35 missions over Germany during World War II.

"There was nothing more thrilling than rolling down the runway in one of those babies fully loaded down with bombs and fuel, wondering if it was ever going to get off the ground."

Both men had laid their B-17 memories to rest in scrapbooks for the past five decades until Ruth Mutti walked into Wendy's restaurant in West Hills a few weeks ago.

Mutti's a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association's Van Nuys chapter, which is hosting the local B-17 visit. She was looking for a group of ex-military pilots and flight crews who call themselves "Wings Over Wendy's." Every week, about 40 members meet at the restaurant for lunch and comradeship.

"I wanted to let them know the B-17 was coming into town for one of its rare visits, and they were welcome to come and see it," Mutti said.

"After the meeting, I met Dan and Steve, and they told me about their experiences flying in the B-17's during World War II. They were both so humble and sweet."

How about giving it one more try, Ruth asked them? Without the bombs, this time.

Both men looked at each other and said "why not?" How many guys in their 80s get to relive some of the most exciting times of their 20s? Not many, they figured.

This is one of the great things about these traveling military history tours. They're unique opportunities for the families of World War II vets -- who are dying off at an average 1,200 a day -- a chance to provide a loved one with some priceless memories of when they were young, and went off to war to serve and help save this country 60 years ago.

But it's a tough financial fight for EAA to keep these vintage aircraft flying because of high maintenance and fuel costs. So it's important for communities all over the country to support them when they visit now, or lose them in the future.

Flights take place every 45 minutes beginning at 10:15 a.m. Friday with the event running through Sunday. For more information on purchasing a flight, visit www.b17.org or call toll-free (800) 359-6217.


Ground tours are available each day when the plane is not flying, and in midafternoon after the final flight of the day. Tours are $10 for a family, $6 for adults and $5 for students, with no charge for accompanied children under 8. World War II vets are free.

Dennis McCarthy's column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

Dennis McCarthy, (818) 713-3749 dennis.mccarthy@dailynews.com

'The Croatian Piano Player' mesmerizes fans in Jakarta

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Screams, claps and whistles greeted his arrival on stage at the Indoor Tennis Stadium in South Jakarta on Tuesday night. It was a rousing welcome fit for a rock star. The 3,000-strong audience of mainly under 30s that packed the stadium made it difficult to believe they had all come to watch a classical piano recital.

Only it was not just any classical piano recital, it was Maksim "The Piano Player" and his brand of crossover -- infusing techno beats to invigorate centuries old classical compositions.

Maksim's all black costume of sleeveless shirt, leg-hugging pants, leather wrist bands and black rings on each finger, together with his jet-black hair streaked with white highlights, was far from the standard black tie and tails of the classical pianist.

Matching the costume, the stage was also draped in black, and the lively play of lights made the performance a feast for the eyes as well as for the ears. It was a classical concert refurbished.

Amid the screaming of fans, Maksim launched into Flight of the Bumblebee, the prelude to act three of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's 1899 opera Skazka o Tsare Saltane (The Tale of Tsar Saltan).

No hesitation and without any music score, Maksim's deft fingers dancing on the chromatic scales of the Yamaha Grand Piano in the middle of the stage whipped the audience to a frenzy and brought thunderous applause and shouts at the end of the piece.

Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A-Minor (1868), a more buoyant piece with less repetition, followed before Maksim addressed the audience.

There was no need to pretend to know a little Bahasa Indonesia, there was not even the need for much rapport for the audience to love Maksim, who took up the piano when he was nine years old. His evident bashfulness upon hearing a shout of "we love you Maksim!" made this 28-year-old Croatian even more endearing to his Indonesian fans.

"It's easier to play in front of an audience, because I feel there's energy from the audience," he said earlier.

But more than his energetic pieces, Maksim's treatment of the calmer compositions of his repertoire were like those of a lover's caress. His fingers moving in deliberate strokes across the keyboard, back hunched, the piano player was lost in his own world.

Maksim's rendition of the Sarabande by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) was like a cooling shower after a hot summer day, which he followed with Tonci Huljic's Croatian Rhapsody, a piece thick with the nuances of Eastern European traditional music.

Olympic Dream followed, a new composition Maksim wrote for the official album of the 2004 Olympic Games. Lead violinist Sally Jackson lent her voice for this inspiring piece.

Next came Ernest Gold's Exodus from the motion picture of the same name starring Paul Newman and directed by Otto Preminger about the founding of Israel in the days following World War II.

True to his classical background, Maksim then played three solo classical pieces on the piano, while his accompanying band and string ensemble retired backstage.

With Croatian composer Frano Parac's Dance of the Baroness, Fryderyk Chopin's Nocturne in D-Flat, and his own Variations on the Theme of Paganini, Maksim seemed most at home. Without accompaniment, he was in his element. Feeling the music flow from his fingers.

"I don't think about anything when I play, I just focus on the tone and color of the piece I am playing," Maksim, who admits to being a nostalgic person and always craves the sight of the sea as it reminds him of home, said.

He then took a short break while the band played Tonci Huljic's Cubana Cubana.

Maksim Mrvica (pronounced Maravitsa with a rolled "r") was born in Sibenik, a town on the Adriatic coast, in 1975. Amid the turmoil of war in Croatia in the 1990s, he kept practicing with his professor, Marija Sekso, and even won his first major competition in Zagreb, the capital, in 1993.

He moved to Budapest, Hungary, when he was 22 years old to study at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy. During this time Maksim won first prize in the Nicolai Rubinstein International Piano Competition.

In 2000, Maksim moved to Paris to study with Igor Lazko and the following year he won first prize in the Pontoise Piano Competition.

Maksim's breakthrough had not gone unnoticed in his own country, and when he returned to Croatia Maksim found himself in the media spotlight.

He released his first album Gestures, a compilation of contemporary Croatian piano music, in 2001 and it became the fastest-selling classical recording ever released in Croatia. Gestures brought him four Porin (equivalent to the Grammy Awards), including one for Best Classical Album.

It was not long before he was spotted by musician-poet-author Tonci Huljic -- who had composed several tracks for string quartet Bond -- and introduced to promoter Mel Bush.

And the rest, as they say, is history.
The second part of the concert was dedicated to Tonci Huljic's crossover compositions Claudine, Hana's Eyes and Wonderland. The last piece, and the longest, was the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, but the audience had not had enough. Shouts for an encore brought the piano player back on stage with more of Bumblebee and Cubana, then he was done for the night.

It was another step toward conquering the world for Maksim, as his website www.maksim.co.uk boasts.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailfeatures.asp?fileid=20040430.Q01&irec=0

Holding out for a hero

Writer-director Erik Palladino's admirably subtle bit of chronological trickery allows his small-scale drama, set in 9/11 New York, to deliver a sucker-punch of an ending. Structured as a series of short scenes punctuated by blackouts, the film cuts back and forth between three apparently unconnected stories. Activist lawyer Roberta Vasquez (Daphne Rubin-Vega), perpetually on her cell phone, tries to balance battling bureaucratic indifference, mentoring her associate, Monique (Joelle Carter), and keeping her marriage alive. Roberta and her husband are trying to have a baby, but she sometimes wonders how they'll be able to raise a child when they can't find time to make one. Hardworking Kashmiri immigrant Mohammed (Ajay Naidu) maintains a sunny and optimistic attitude as he crosses paths with the many varieties of New Yorker who patronize his "Breakfast Time" food cart. Although Mohammed never planned to stay in New York, he has fallen in love, both with the city and a woman he's afraid his old-fashioned parents won't accept. The bulk of the film's running time is given over to morose writer Drew (Palladino), who works for a Marvel-like mainstream comic-book publisher. Drew has lost his will to write the same old superhero stories since his best friend, Bobby Goldberg, died in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Determined to pay tribute to Bobby, Drew persuades his reluctant boss (David Patrick Kelly) to okay "Justice," a limited-run series about "the hero inside us all" in which an everyman becomes a crime-fighter. The gimmick — the boss says there has to be one — is that the particulars of Justice's everyday life will be based on those of a real, ordinary person. Once the first issue is on the stands, Drew and his collaborator, artist Julia (Marisa Ryan), cook up a guerilla publicity campaign that attracts the attention of a Village Voice writer. Unfortunately, she wants to interview the regular Joe behind Justice, and Drew never got around to asking substitute teacher Tre (SPAWN star Michael Jai White), whom he met on a neighborhood basketball court, whether it was okay to appropriate the details of his life and bestow them on a comic-book vigilante. It's hard to tell whether Palladino meant the sullen, self-pitying Drew to be such an irritating drip; if he did, kudos for courage but the character still drags down an otherwise likable drama that draws its three stories together in a quietly effective climax. — Maitland McDonagh

Producer
Amy R. Baird
Amelia Dallis
Assoc. Producer
Martin Schepelern
Director
Evan Oppenheimer
Writer
Evan Oppenheimer
Editor
Allison Eve Zell
Musical Composer
Nenad Bach
Production Designer
Beth Kuhn
Casting
Mary Vernieu
Felicia Fasano
Sound
Paul Bacca (recordist)
Bill Montei (designer)
Costumes
Dona Mandel
Make Up
Carol Brown
Cinematographer
Luke Geissbuhler
 

Country of Origin:
U.S.
Genre:
Drama
Color or b/w:
Color
Production Co(s).:
Black Sand Pictures
Released By:
Black Sand Pictures
MPAA Rating:
NR
Parental Rating:
Cautionary; some scenes objectionable



Erik Palladino
Drew Pettite
Michael Jai White
Tre
Daphne Rubin-Vega
Roberta
Ajay Naidu
Mohammed
Catherine Kellner
Mara Seaver
Marisa Ryan
Julia
Tom Guiry
The Red Anarchist
David Patrick Kelly
Marty
Joelle Carter
Monique
Michael Ealy
Woody
Leo Fitzpatrick
The Egg Machine
Larry Pine
The Legend
Helena Lewis
Helena
Alan Cox
Palm Sunday
Dan Cantor
Terrence the Ugly American
Tim Kang
Bodega Owner
Gloria Irizarry
Luiza
Firdous Bamji
Samir Khan
Monique Guesnon
Day-Old Bagel Lady
Scott Miller
Cigarette Man
Waleed Zuaiter
Pretzel Vendor
Shoshannah Stern
First Patron
Jimmy Wallick
Second Patron
Evan Lee Oppenheimer
He Got Next
Dan Ziemann
Perry
Emory Van Cleve
Big Guy

http://tvguide.com/movies/database/ShowMovie.asp?MI=45379

Croatian artist Ivan Kozaric at the Niavaran Cultural Center

Tehran: 17:31 , 2004/04/27
Installation Exhibit of Croatian Artist to Open in Niavaran
TEHRAN April 27 (MNA) –- An installation exhibit by Croatian artist Ivan Kozaric is to open on May 1 at the Niavaran Cultural Center. Cosponsored by the Visual Arts Promotion Institute and the Niavaran Artistic Foundation, the exhibit will run through to May 9.

Born in 1921 in Croatia, Kozaric graduated from the Academy of Arts in Croatia. He has so far held several exhibits, attending the 1976 Venice Biennial, as well.

http://www.mehrnews.com/wfNewsDetails_en.aspx?NewsID=73889&t=Cultural

Justice on HD TV May 3rd

Justice
Rating: NR
Year: 2003
Cast: Erik Palladino, Catherine Kellner, Daphne Rubin-Vega
Director: Evan Oppenheimer, Music: Nenad Bach
Synopsis: After a tragedy, a comic book writer searches for the perfect crime fighting hero.
Run Time: 1:20
Air Dates: 8:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM PT - Mon, May 3rd
11:15 PM ET / 8:15 PM PT - Mon, May 3rd

http://www.hd.net/movies_schedule_by_title.html

Teachers pool computer know-how

"You need to let them have fun," says Edin Kadic
Teachers from across Europe have met to swap ideas on the best use of technology in the classroom.
In the first of what is planned as an annual forum, 100 teachers from 45 countries met to discuss innovations in the use of ICT in schools.

The event - called the Forum for Innovative Teachers - is part of a scheme to build a community of teachers for sharing ideas and practices.

It was organized by the computer giant, Microsoft.

"The event highlights the benefits of technology in the education community and demonstrates working examples of ICT in practice to encourage educational excellence," said Micrososft's Mark East.

Body piercing

One of the participants was Professor Edin Kadic, who teaches the Croatian language and history of art at a medical school in Zadar, Croatia.

He is involved in an online collaboration with another medical school in neighboring Slovenia.

Students at the two schools hold video conferences and have put together a multi-lingual website, where they publish details of projects they have worked on.

They also have regular internet meetings where they discuss "love, jobs and the projects they are working on", says Professor Kadic.

"The students had the idea of studying the trend for body-piercing, so they put together questionnaires about why people wanted the piercings, looked at the medical side, and published their findings on the website.

"These are 15, 16 and 17 year olds and they were so happy to see the pages they had made, it was marvellous," said Professor Kadic.

In their study of Shakespeare, students used computers to build models of what they imagined it was like at the Globe Theatre in London in the playwright's time.

Professor Kadic says he aims to give the students the technology, show them how to use it, but then let them use it creatively.

That is something very close to the heart of one of the conference's main speakers, Professor Stephen Heppell, the director of Ultralab, a learning technology research centre at Anglia Polytechnic University.

And he thinks it is smaller countries such as Croatia which will make the biggest strides in innovative use of technology.


Our task is not to control and channel their creativity but to knock down the barriers to it

Stephen Heppell, Ultralab
"The countries which are doing best are mostly very small, with fewer than five million people and a stable culture, places where they are not using education to try to turn them into something else," he told BBC News Online.

"Countries like New Zealand, Singapore, Norway and Wales are all doing very well.

"Bigger countries are often trying to turn children into something they are not - 1950s children.

"The United States is a mess - some schools are innovative and are doing great work but that doesn't get taken up to school district level or state level.

"And in Germany, if you saw what they were doing in class with technology, it would make you cry - long programming or multiple choice."

Ultralab is working on 58 projects, in the UK and across the world.

Among them are schemes to test the idea of children's doing exams by mobile telephone, for people to study for degrees while at work, and a virtual school for children who have been excluded from mainstream school.

Not in school

Children involved in the virtual school - known as Notschool - have gone on to get much higher academic qualifications than they had been expected to, said Professor Heppell.

"They have usually been out of school for about two years before they come to us, but 54% have gone on to get five good GCSE passes, and 98% have got some qualifications," he told delegates.

Under the scheme, the children are put in groups of four and are linked to teachers who manage their learning and to others to do drama, sport and video work.

Stephen Heppell says teachers will never keep up with children on use of technology - their job is to encourage their creativity and ingenuity.

"Our task is not to control and channel their creativity but to knock down the barriers to it - school design, assessment, low expectation and limited resources and it is good that someone of the magnitude of Microsoft is helping us with that challenge."

It is hoped teachers attending the conference will form part of an online community to share ideas and approaches.

Microsoft has set up a programme called Innovative Teachers, which is free and open to all teachers.

It offers training to help them use ICT in their lessons. A key part of this is a virtual classroom tour which includes tips on how to set up a classroom for learning, lesson plans and materials for various subjects and topics.

For Herbert Hug, a delegate from Austria, it is a welcome development.

"A few years ago, it was most important to get money in for infrastructure, but this is changing - teachers now need to get more information on how to use this infrastructure."

One expert has said that schools will struggle to make best use of new, interactive online resources because their internal systems cannot make best use of it.
Mike Taylor, of e-learning company Equiinet, said schools should be allowed to spend their "e-learning credits" on hardware that would run such media-rich materials.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/3670815.stm
 

DOORS ART FOUNDATION
www.doors-art.com

CORDIALLY INVITES YOU
TO

THE MULTI- MEDIA EXHIBIT

OF
CROATIAN CONTEMPORARY ART
 

To celebrate our cultural heritage Doors Art Foundation invites all those interested in Croatian art and culture to join us for an evening of Art Exhibit of Contemporary Croatian Artists.

The Multi-Media Exhibition includes photography, graphic design, music and literature by the following artists:

Nenad Bach     www.nenadbach.com
Mario Lalich    www.mariolalich.com
Andrej Urem   www.andrejurem.com

We are pleased to announce our collaboration in organizing our event with an engineer and the five- times Grammy winner Mr. John Holbrook.


Opening night: Friday, May 07th 2004
6pm-9pm

Exhibit dates: May 08 and May 09 2004
Exhibit time: 9am – 7pm

Location: Bradford Grave’s Gallery
549 W. 52nd Street 8th Floor
(Between 10 and 11th Avenue)
New York, NY 10019

Directions via Subway:
a. A, C or E lines to 50th Street Station (8th Avenue/Worldwide Plaza)
b.. B,D,F,V lines to 47-50th Street, Rockefeller Plaza Station (6th Avenue)
c.. N, R or W line to 49th Street (7th Avenue)
d.. 1 or 9 line to 50th Street Station (Broadway)

Please, RSVP
Daniela: daniela@doors-art.com
212.265.0090
Edita : edita@doors-art.com

Our doors are widely open to welcome anybody interested in Croatian art!
 

"Justice" opened onApril 28 at the Pioneer Theater on 3rd Street
and Avenue A, New York City, New York. Full house so far and it'll play there for at least three weeks. For more info go to the website, www.justicethemovie.com .
 

Justice
The Festivals

Tribeca Film Festival -- Dramatic Competition
Maui Film Festival -- Dramatic Competition
Rhode Island Film Festival
New Haven Film Festival -- Fave of the Fest
Athens Film Festival -- Best American Film
Waterfront Film Festival
Dubrovnik Film Festival -- Dramatic Competition
Breckenridge Film Festival
Sao Paulo Film Festival -- International Competition
Annapolis Film Festival
Marco Island Film Festival -- Best Screenplay
Santa Fe Film Festival
Sarasota Film Festival
Myhelan Film Festival
Cleveland Film Festival
Reel World Film Festival
Newport Beach Film Festival

 

Principal Crew

Writer and Director -- Evan Oppenheimer
Producers -- Amy R. Baird, Amelia Dallis
Director of Photography -- Luke Geissbuhler
Music -- Nenad Bach
Editor -- Allison Eve Zell
Casting Directors -- Felicia Fasano, Mary Vernieu
Production Designer -- Beth Kuhn
Sound Designer -- Bill Montei
Sound Recordist -- Paul Bacca
Costume Designer -- Dona Mandel
Props -- Kirsten Kane
Music Supervisors -- David Hnatiuk, Ramsay Adams
Comic Book Art -- David Jerrel Anderson
Associate Producer -- Martin Schepelern
 

Lidia Bastianich among 100 Women who shape our New York City

"New York Daily News" dated Sunday April 25, 2004 listed

100 WOMEN WHO SHAPE OUR CITY
From A to Z, an honor roll of New Yorkers who are leaving an imprint on the way we live

written by Michele Ingrassia
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/187183p-161932c.html 

Lidia Bastianich is included among 100 Women who make a difference.

Below is a paragraph from the article "Walking Tour of Croatian History in New York"

Among most successful business people during the present time is chef Lidia Matticchio Bastianich. Lidia was born in 1947 in the village near Pula, Istria. She learned how to cook from her mother and grandmother and took her Istrian skills all the way to America. Lidia is now restaurant owner of Felidia on East 58 Street, cookbook author of four books and fantastically popular 52 part public television series PBS-TV chef. She prefers to market her business as Italian and considers her family ethnic Italian, but also speaks fluent Croatian. Lidia is a long time member of the "Istrian Club," a not-for-profit group in New York who assist Istrians in Croatia. From her childhood in Istria, Lidia recalls trips to the market, harvesting olives for olive oil, collecting mussels and clams at the seashore and sleeping under the stars on a mattress filled with dry cornhusks on summer nights. Lidia remembers going with her grandmother to the communal mill to grind the wheat into flour for pasta and bread. This "from the earth" understanding and respect for food has given her a definite style as a cook.