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Indian-American Filmmaker Offers Comedy, Car Crashes
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Indian-American filmmaker Jay Chandrasekhar is being called one of Hollywood's most promising young directors. His comedy Dukes of Hazzard, which was released in August, features police chases and car crashes, ingredients that made it one the summer's moneymakers. The director learned his craft on small independent films, but is feeling at home in the big-budget world of Hollywood.
He has a very traditional Indian name, Jayant Jumbulingham Chandrasekhar, but Jay, as he likes to be known, has his finger on the pulse of young American moviegoers.
He says his parents, both doctors, long ago gave up the idea of his attending medical school. He took time off from studies at Colgate University in upstate New York to go home to Chicago and learn stand-up comedy.
"So I did that for nine months and I decided, OK, I'm getting laughs, and maybe I can give it a shot," he recalled. "So I went back to school and started a comedy group, which was a sketch group."
His comedy troupe, called "Broken Lizard," mixed stage sketches with videos. After graduation, the group's members moved to New York City to get more serious about filmmaking. Jay took a film class, learning how to load and use a camera. The group made a half-hour film, then an independent feature. For financing, Jay turned to his parents.
"I raised money through my parents and many of their doctor friends, my uncles," he explained. "I knew a lot of doctors, and I so I hit them each up for $5,000, $10,000."
In increments of $5,000 to $10,000, he finished the film, using himself and his friends as actors. The low-budget picture took first place at the Hamptons Film Festival, and the attention brought the group more than $1 million in funding for their next film.
Called Super Troopers, the comedy about bumbling state police became a cult favorite after its release in 2001.
More funding came for a bigger-budget movie, a horror comedy called "Club Dread," released last year.
Then came a call from Warner Brothers Studio, which tapped the young director for a high-profile feature, Dukes of Hazzard.
Based on a popular television show from 20 years ago, the comedy follows three young friends who try to thwart a crime lord in fictional Hazzard County, Georgia. The film stars pop singer Jessica Simpson and features veteran actor Burt Reynolds and country music star Willie Nelson.
The film's budget was $50 million.
"It was a big jump. In Super Troopers, we had four police cars, and we broke two of them on the first day," he noted. "In Dukes of Hazzard, we had 35 police cars. And we'd trash them, send them into the shop, and they kept coming back out again."
Warner Brother didn't mind the repair bill. Dukes of Hazzard earned more than $30 million its opening weekend alone. It will come out on DVD in December.
The director says a big-budget film is no more difficult to make than a small-budget movie. He says the financing gives him a high caliber crew, professional stunt coordinators, more room to experiment and less need to compromise, especially with car crashes.
"Jump it, flip it, blow it up. Your first idea can be realized, and it's nice," he explained.
The entertainment industry journal Variety has named Jay Chandrasekhar one of the young directors to watch in Hollywood. At 37, he is just settling into new offices on the Warner Brothers lot, getting ready for his next film, a comedy called Beer Fest, which is also aimed at a young audience.
What else is down the road for the young director? He says expect more high-energy movies and more car crashes, which audiences love.
"I think that one thing is very universal for everybody. Everybody loves to look at the bottom of a car as it flies over your head," he added. |
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Colgate students lend a hand in hurricane-ravaged region
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A herd of purple-shirted Colgate University students and administrators traveled to hurricane-ravaged Louisiana Oct. 7 to 12 where they spent their fall break helping put lives back together.
For four nights, the hardwood floor of the St. Mary Community Development Center, in the town of Four Corners, was home to the group. Each morning they headed out in a three-vehicle caravan to the Vermillion Parish towns of Erath, Henry or Ester.
Working with the Southern Mutual Help Association, they completed needs assessments and intake forms that would allow the agency to address residents' immediate concerns: Did people need tarps? Were they aware of where the feeding centers were? Just how extensive was the damage their homes sustained? Were they having successful interactions with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross?
The group cleaned, salvaged and consoled their way through the five-day trip, creating and leaving memories.
"I may only know about four or five of your names," Erath resident Betty Gaspard told the volunteers, "but I will never forget you for what you have done today." |
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In Chennai, expats learn Bharatanatyam
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Kannan, Preeti
Deccan Chronicle
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Walk into renowned danseuse Sudharani Raghupathy’s dance class and you will see young American boys and girls attired in dhotis, saris, salwar kameez, tracks and even shorts practising hard to master one of the oldest classical art forms of South India — Bharatanatyam. For over four decades now, William Skelton, a Western music conductor and professor at the Colgate University in the US, has been frequenting Chennai — the cultural capital of India.
What began as a journey to learn the Nadhaswaram in 1963, for William or Bill, as he is popularly known, has now culminated in a penchant for the tradition and ethos of the country. Skelton has managed to evince a similar interest among his students, and for the last four decades, they have been thronging the city to learn folk art, Bharatanatyam, music, mridangam, veena, philosophy, yoga, Hinduism and languages like Sanskrit and Tamil and the folk dances of the state. The students are from different streams of education — history, peace and conflict studies, religion, philosophy and economics.
This year, about 21 students, including five boys, have come from New York’s Colgate University for the “India Abroad Study Tour”. The tour, which lasts for almost four months, began in September and since then, they have been alternating between the various art forms.
Says 82-year-old Bill, “I do not bring my students so that they can be awed by the sights of India. They are not tourists here, but have come to work with the people. They have to feel the pulse of the people and their customs to understand India.”
Emerging from a rigorous session in Bharatanatyam, Laura, a student of peace and conflict studies, has been working hard at perfecting the art. She says she loves every minute of the study tour and this four-month in-depth study of the art forms, makes her feel every bit of the rich Indian culture.
“Not only are we exposed to dance, music, yoga and Hinduism, we also go regularly to the dance and music performances, which the city is famous for,” says the American. For Tera, it was a short trip to the Bandipur National Park in Karnataka that was memorably. The students danced on a hilltop with the tribal Karubas. “It was like we were in a trance and there were wild boars running all over the place,” says the excited student of neuroscience.
Bill first visited India in 1963 and started learning the Nadhaswaram under the tutelage of Saidapet Natrajan. He brought the first experimental group to India in 1969. Since then, at least 200 students have visited Chennai to take a little of the country’s culture back with them. A fresh batch of students come visiting every alternate year, as it takes Bill and Sudharani Raghupathy one whole year to plan the programme and everyone a year to plan the complete tour.
Two years back, the students presented the Silappadikaram, one of the oldest epics in the world at the festival of music and dance in the city. Now, the students are gearing themselves to go to Purasai, a village near Kumbakonam, to learn Poikal Kudhirai, Kavadi, Toda dance and peacock dancing. In December, the students will present a magnum opus of a melange of all the dances and music forms they have learnt, including other fine arts like pottery, weaving and batik art.
For Bill, each of his students are as diverse as the programme itself. “They later write back to me saying the experience has been a watershed,” he says. “In fact, many of my students come back and some have even helped in the rehabilitation of the tsunami victims,” he says. |
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Icon's impact still being felt today
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Growing up, India Kee heard teachers mention Rosa Parks.
But to Kee, now 43, Parks was just another name in history, someone who did something important long ago.
Last week, though, Kee watched a movie about the civil rights movement and Parks' role. She said the film opened her eyes to the abuse Parks, a black woman, suffered when she refused 50 years ago to give up her seat on a municipal bus in Montgomery, Ala., to a white man.
"I feel what she did helped me," said Kee, a black Utica woman.
As she spoke Tuesday aboard a Centro bus, which she rides everyday, Kee noted no rules restricted where she could sit.
Kee was among the Mohawk Valley residents mourning Parks' death Monday in Detroit at the age of 92.
"I feel we lost another angel," Kee said. "It's hard to come by people like her today."
Several people described drawing strength from Parks even today. They praised her courage in standing up against a rule she considered unjust and admired the grace with which she acted.
Linda Velazquez, 40, of Utica, said Parks took a principled stand during a difficult era.
"I think that she gave a lot of strength to women, especially minority woman," Velazquez said.
Parks' protest came as the civil-rights movement was only beginning to simmer. The wheels began turning as early as the 1930s and continued in the 1940s, sparked by racial strife in Detroit, the increased presence of blacks in the military and a U.S. Supreme Court school-desegregation decision, said Pete Banner-Haley, an associate professor of history and African-American studies at Colgate University.
Parks didn't start the civil-rights movement, he said, but her refusal to move on the bus, which set in motion a bus boycott and marches, symbolized the effect residents could have.
"Rosa Parks stands as a symbol of that grass-roots movement of working-class black people trying to get their rights," Banner-Haley said.
Banner-Haley said he met Parks in the late 1980s at a conference about women and the civil-rights movement. She was soft-spoken and gracious, he recalled, with a determined look in her eyes.
What he said he especially felt was something he couldn't directly see. Parks, he said, had a "presence."
"You clearly knew here was a person who was important," he said, "but important in a way that mattered to who I was."
Before Parks' took her stand, Erwin Shepphard and his mother were turned away from Baltimore streetcars because of their skin color. Shepphard, now 54 and pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church in Whitesboro, said Parks reminded blacks they weren't "second-class citizens."
"It gave them more encouragement to go forward and to let them know, 'You are a part of the nation you helped build,'" he said. |
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Salaries affect federal drug prosecutions
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A recent study suggests assistant U.S. attorneys in districts with high private salaries are more likely to take a drug-trafficking case to trial.
"Regional differences in private lawyer salaries affect whether cases prosecuted by assistant U.S. attorneys are tried in court, rather than settled through a plea bargain," said Richard Boylan, associate professor of economics at Rice University.
"In high-salary districts, governmental salaries are not competitive relative to the private sector," he said. "As a result, positions of federal prosecutors are often sought by lawyers (wishing) the trial experience needed to secure employment in large, high-paying law firms in the private sector."
Boylan and co-author Cheryl Long, assistant professor of economics at Colgate University, based their findings on a review of federal drug-related cases prosecuted between 1994 and 1998. The data were limited to 8,769 cases in which defendants were suspected of drug trafficking and in which evidence of drugs beings seized during the arrest was documented.
The researchers tracked the career paths of more than 1,000 private practice lawyers who had prior experience as U.S. assistant attorneys.
The study appears in the Journal of Law and Economics. |
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Do maple leaves turn red for a reason?
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Avril, Tom
Philadelphia Inquirer, The
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No question that the brilliant red of fall maple leaves is a treat for the eye.
But what good is it for trees?
The reason for nature's autumnal dazzle remains a bit of a scientific puzzle. In research unveiled this month, scientists from the U.S. Forest Service and Colgate University came up with different answers.
The red color comes from anthocyanins, potent antioxidants that also are found in berries and red wine.
Paul Schaberg, a plant physiologist at the Forest Service office in Burlington, Vt., says the anthocyanins help keep leaves on the tree longer. That allows the plant to extract the last sugars from the leaf before it falls off, he said.
But Colgate biologist Frank Frey sees a more sinister role in the reddish tinge. When leaves fall, the anthocyanins leach into the soil and prevent the growth of other plant species the following spring.
There's no mystery about yellow, on the other hand.
With the arrival of fall's shorter days, leaves produce less chlorophyll, the green substance that lets plants convert sunlight into sugar. As the green disappears, the leaves' remaining yellow color is revealed.
But for leaves that turn red, it's not just about subtracting the green. The plant expends energy to produce the red color - a curiosity given that the leaf is about to fall off anyway.
Besides acting as antioxidants, anthocyanins lower the freezing point of leaves, affording frost protection. The red color also protects leaves from the sun, as it reflects a high-energy portion of the spectrum.
But which is the main reason for red?
"The answer could well be it's doing all this stuff," Schaberg said. "It's nice to double-task." |
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Madison County Habitat building its 8th house
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Most of the people helping Richard Insel build his house don't know him.
Rain or shine though, they travel to a remote plot of land in West Eaton every Saturday to help the Pulaski native create a new home for his family. When they leave the worksite in the afternoon, their bodies sore from a full day of manual labor, they have no extra money in their pockets.
They come anyway though, and this weekend was no different. On Saturday, about 15 people braved the miserable weather to join Insel at the construction site off Route 26.
Insel's co-workers are volunteers from the Madison County chapter of Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit organization that builds affordable housing for people who need it. The non-denominational Christian organization has built more than 175,000 homes for people around the world since it was created in 1976, according to its website.
The Madison County chapter was created in 1984, and Insel's home is the eighth one they have built.
"I'm overwhelmed," Insel said. "It's a wonderful opportunity for my family to make a new start."
Insel currently lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Morrisville with his wife Tanya LeBeau, and their three children: Patrick, who is in fourth grade, Veronica, who is in third grade and 2-year-old Thomas.
A 34-year-old graduate of SUNY Morrisville, Insel is working part-time and studying elementary education at SUNY Cortland. He hopes to become a teacher when he is done with the program.
Thanks to Habitat for Humanity, he will have a new, affordable house to live in when he begins his new career.
Judy Parker, the secretary for Madison County's chapter of the organization, which is based in Cazenovia, said Insel was chosen to live in the new house because he and his family fulfilled Habitat's three criteria for selecting applicants. They have to have a need for housing, be able to afford the house they are given and be willing to contribute to the construction effort.
On Saturday, Insel was there helping with the other volunteers, many of whom had no construction experience, but just wanted to help.
"The skills are irrelevant. There is always something that needs to be done," said George Belton, an insurance adjuster who is also the project manager for the effort.
The volunteers started clearing the wooded land for the 1,334 square-foot house in July, said Belton, who lives in Cazenovia. Insel and his family chose the area in which they wanted to live, and the house is being made with four small bedrooms to accommodate the children.
Insel said his wife, who is from North Mexico, N.Y., chose the location because of the scenery.
"She just fell in love with the hills," he said.
The concrete foundation for the house was poured in early September by Ernie Hackney, a professional mason who donated his labor to the effort.
Since then the volunteers have put up wooden studs for the walls and have begun constructing the roof. Belton said they hope to have the house completed by Christmas.
When it is done Insel will have to make a monthly payment to the organization for an interest-free mortgage. Habitat holds a second mortgage on the house to prevent anyone from selling the house they receive for a profit.
He and his family also have to contribute 500 hours of labor to the organization, either building the house they will eventually move into or contributing to future projects.
Insel has contributed to the construction of his own house regularly, even though he has never worked construction.
"I've never done anything like this before," he said. "I just do what I'm told."
Parker, who lives in Morrisville, estimated that over 50 different volunteers have worked on the project so far, with about 10 to 15 people coming each week.
"Anyone who volunteers to do this goes away getting more than they gave," Parker said. "We all come out wanting to give and the experience is just overwhelming."
A handful of the volunteers working on Saturday were students from nearby Colgate University in Hamilton. Parker said different Colgate students have volunteered their time every weekend for the project.
John Demler, a 19-year-old sophomore at Colgate who is the co-leader of the university's Habitat volunteer group, has worked at the site almost every weekend.
"What better way to spend your lazy Saturday mornings than coming out here and swinging a hammer?" said Demler, who is from Glenview, Ill. He said he appreciated the opportunity not only to help people, but also learn some construction skills.
Other Colgate volunteers made their first trip to the site on Saturday, but were already planning to return in the future.
"The scenery is so nice. It's nice to be outside this time of year," said Tory Glerum, an 18-year-old student from Connecticut. "I think it's just really important to give back to the community."
Other volunteers echoed Glerum's idea about the importance of contributing to society.
"I think I have a gift for building and I just like helping people," said Belton, who has worked at the site every weekend since the project began.
Parker also said she believes people have a duty to use the skills they have.
"I think we were all given gifts and talents, and it's our responsibility to give back if we want to live in a better world," Parker said.
Insel said he is astonished that every week someone new comes out to help with the project, even though, like almost everyone else, they don't know him.
"I think it's amazing that these people take the time out of their lives," he said. "They all have families at home that have to put up with them not being there."
Once they step onto the worksite though, they become part of a new family, one that meets every Saturday at 8 a.m., rain or shine, to help Richard Insel and his family build their new home. |
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Abolition Hall of Fame sees first inductions
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Gifford, Aaron
Post-Standard - Madison County Bureau, The
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In the early 1990s, a group of Peterboro residents and history buffs formed a volunteers group dedicated to raising emergency repair money for their beloved community center.
In the years that followed, those same volunteers organized a Civil War history weekend that blossomed into one of Central New York's most anticipated summer events.
They completed much-needed renovations to the community center en route to its inclusion on the national register of historic landmarks.
Then they formed a partnership with Colgate University, enlisting history experts and students to help them with future research.
And on Saturday, exactly 170 years after the inaugural meeting of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society in Peterboro, the Smithfield Community Association held its inaugural Abolition Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
"For me, tonight is also a celebration of a wonderful partnership," said Jill Tiefenthaler, director of Colgate University's Upstate Institute, which coordinated the induction event at Colgate with the community association.
An afternoon of lectures and presentation preceded a ceremony in Hamilton's Palace Theater, where freedom fighters Gerrit Smith, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and Lucretia Mott were officially recognized.
Exhibits on all five inductees will be placed in the hall of fame, which initially is planned for the upper floor of the Smithfield Community Center in the hamlet of Peterboro.
Peterboro, Gerrit Smith's home, was once a hotbed of political abolitionism in the Northeast.
In the mid-1800s, wealthy landowner Smith opened his estate to fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad.
He funded the abolitionist cause and helped organize anti-slavery conventions in many New York communities.
Smithfield Community Association President Steve Joeckel said his group has ambitious plans for the future hall of fame and museum: It is planning to buy the three remaining buildings of Gerrit Smith's estate from a private landowner.
One of them, a barn, was an essential piece of the Underground Railroad.
"It has first-person documentation as a hiding place for escaped slaves," he said.
The first five hall of fame inductees were selected by a national panel of abolition experts, said Corinne Martin-Rice, a Syracuse University graduate student who will help organize the Peterboro museum.
Future nominations, she said, will be made by the public. |
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5 enter Abolitionist Hall of Fame
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Joyce E. Jones' great-grand aunt Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave who helped others find freedom through the Underground Railroad, was a powerful force in her life.
"It's a real honor," said Jones of Syracuse as she accepted a plaque on Tubman's behalf Saturday at the first National Abolitionist Hall of Fame induction ceremony. "She was a very courageous and loving relative who brought my family to the North out of slavery. If it wasn't for her, I would not be here today."
One year after its formation, the Hall of Fame inducted its first five members — Tubman, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith and Lucretia Mott. Each was integral during the 19th century struggle to end to slavery in the United States.
The Hall of Fame was established in October 2004 by the Smithfield Community Association in Peterboro, the home of Smith, a wealthy abolitionist who established a trade school for blacks on his estate.
Dorothy Willsey, chairwoman of the hall, said this year's inductees were chosen by a panel of historians for their impact on abolitionist movement.
Additional abolitionists inductees will follow in the future, Willsey said.
Nuriyah Bone-Owens, National Abolition Hall of Fame Cabinet of Freedom member, listens during a symposium Saturday at the Hall's Inaugural Induction Ceremony at Colgate University.
HALL OF FAMErs
* Frederick Douglass: Best-known black abolition speaker from Rochester.
* William Lloyd Garrison: Publisher of the radical abolitionist newspaper "Liberator."
* Lucretia Mott: Spoke out for women's rights and the abolition of slavery. Helped organize the first women's rights convention.
* Gerrit Smith: Utica native and Peterboro resident who championed women's rights and abolition.
* Harriet Tubman: Escaped slave who transported many slaves along the Underground Railroad to freedom from her home in Auburn. |
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Abolition Hall of Fame to induct first members
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Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass will be among the first five people inducted into the new National Abolition Hall of Fame today.
The hall of fame also was created to focus attention on today's human rights issues. Once built, it will be located in Peterboro, 25 miles east of Syracuse.
Today's other inductees at the Palace Theater in Hamilton are women's rights pioneer Lucretia Mott, publisher William Lloyd Garrison and Utica native Gerrit Smith, who supported John Brown's campaign to free Southern slaves.
Colgate University's Upstate Institute, Morrisville State College's Johnson Institute and the Smithfield Community Association created the hall of fame and museum. |
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The National Abolition Hall of Fame
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Bolt, Chris
WAER-FM
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| Jill Tiefenthaler, director of the Upstate Institute and associate dean of the faculty, discussed the National Abolition Hall of Fame and the university's role in the development of the organization. |
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The National Abolition Hall of Fame
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Monaski, Jeff
WIBX-AM
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| Jill Tiefenthaler, director of the Upstate Institute and associate dean of the faculty, discussed the National Abolition Hall of Fame and the university's role in the development of the organization for a pre-recorded interview. |
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