The Messenger Band Tour Diary (on Souciant)

Souciant was kind enough to publish a cleaned-up version of my Tour Diary with the Messenger Band, up now. An excerpt:

DECEMBER 25, 5 PM Watching an entire village gather in a field in a southern province of Cambodia to celebrate, feed, and entertain trans women and an all-girl pro-labor and human rights musical group is so far beyond anything I have ever experienced in the American punk underground that I spend some time alone recalibrating what I mean by the word “awesome.”

I've pulled my own posts on same in this space, and if you're bummed you can't see the images online anymore, rest assured they'll by published in a book with Green Lantern Press later this year called Hip Hop Apsara.

Comics in Cambodia in Review

Chicago-based comics artist Sara Drake's tenure with the IYDCPC in Phnom Penh is coming to a close, and we're busy documenting and reflecting on our accomplishments and creations as 2011 ends. We're currently strategizing a comics archive, to which international comics creators will be invited to submit, a publication (of course!), and future programming.

Have ideas for us? That's why god invented the comments section.

PUC Video Slide Show

My pals at PUC Radio Talk Show put together this amazing video slideshow. I'm honored to have been included with more than a few of my colleagues, particularly as I did, actually, choreograph a dance to this song when I was in my early teens. Perhaps I will offer to perform it next time I make an appearance on this radio program.

Information about PUC Radio Talk Show is easy enough to find on Facebook, but here's a link to host Soma Norodom's awesome blog.

Democratic Kampuchea’s National Anthem

Hear it here.

Glittering red blood which blankets the towns and countryside of the Kampuchean motherland! 

Blood of our splendid workers and peasants!

Blood of our revolutionary youth! Blood that was transmuted into fury, anger, and vigorous struggle!

On 17 April, under the revolutionary flag!

Blood that liberated us from slavery!

Long life 17 April, the great victory! More wonderful and much more meaningful than the Angkor era!

We unite together to build up Kampuchea and a glorious society, democratic, egalitarian, and just; Independent-master; absolutely determined to defend the country, our glorious land.

Long life! Long life! Long life new Kampuchea, democratic and gloriously prosperous; determine to raise up the revolutionary red flag to be higher; build up the country to achieve the glorious Great Leap Forward!

MP3 and lyrics courtesy our pals at DC Cam, as a reminder of the intention of the leaders currently on trial at the ECCC.

Flood relief and Cambodian Grrrl

My publisher, Cantankerous Titles, sent me an email a few weeks ago, up in arms about why the disastrous floods in Cambodia weren't receiving any media attention in comparison to tourist- (and media-) friendly locales like Thailand. Then he did what no big publisher would ever think to: He offered to donate a buck per book to Cambodian flood relief.

Now through February 1, if you buy a book direct from Cantankerous, a little over an eighth of the price will go to an aid organization doing good work on the ground in Cambodia. You can order that right here, or check the reviews, interviews, and excerpts updated here.

Here are a couple background articles, for further reading:

• Relief Is Slow to Reach Cambodia Flood Victims (The New York Times)
• Cambodia floods bring mounting disease toll (Guardian)

Dispatch from the IYDCPC

My Arts Network Asia-funded project, the IYDCPC (Independent Youth-Driven Cultural Production of Cambodia) has been gaining momentum over the last five weeks as Chicago-based comics artist Sara Drake gets up to speed on how things work in Phnom Penh. She's just posted some comics from one of her recent classes to our blog in the comics section, and they are (as you can see above) great. (You can also see some zines from my work in Phnom Penh in the zines section.)

Sara's been working mostly with women at Strey Khmer so far, but has just started teaching a class at Pannasastra University of Cambodia. She's also working to build a public archive of comics to continue fostering the form after her period of residency ends at the end of December.

Here's more about the work we're doing:

Anne Elizabeth Moore’s initiative Independent Youth-Driven Cultural Production in Cambodia (IYDCPC) is an international institute based in Phnom Penh that encourages multidisciplinary creative responses to issues related to popular culture, with a particular focus on media, advertising, marketing, youth, gender, democracy, human rights, and globalization in Southeast Asia. Primary partners work in institutions and organizations in Phnom Penh, and affiliate organizations are brought in on a project-by-project basis. Programming hinges around an international residency program with a cultural producer who comes to the region to work with groups of young people on projects that allow them to creatively reinvision public space, global media, and their society.

You can also read the feature on Sara in Time Out Chicago here.

Cambodian Grrrl reviews and interviews

Reviews of the new book—and the events, which across the US often brought out a gratifying intergenerational mix of Cambodian-Americans and punk rockers—have been really great. If you haven't ordered a copy yet, pick one up here—and keep in mind, reviewing it on Amazon before the end of the month is all you need to get another Cantankerous Title mailed to you for free.

"The best travel book I've read this year." —USA Today

"Moving, hilarious, and unbelievable in the way that only true stories are." —Portland Mercury

"Moore's unfeigned candor, along with an inventive, almost giddy narrative voice that becomes more and more like the voices of her teenage dorm mates, leaves scarce room for readers to indulge their cynicism. Moore hits the mark on just about every topic [revealing a] skill at distilling complicated ideas through a language barrier with a veteran artist's acute irreverence ... With its slender binding and intimate voice, Cambodian Grrrl ... risks more, and reveals more, than plenty of those longer books that are practically branded as "serious literature" (you know the ones). Its emotional and intellectual honesty remind us what storytelling is for." —Truthout

"Quite enjoyable ... I would highly recommend Cambodian Grrrl." –Gender Across Borders

"This premise can’t help but raise red flags: a white woman traveling to a Third World country -- on a Fulbright, no less -- intent on bestowing her knowledge on an unenlightened population. It’s a blueprint for the benevolent colonialism that is the hallmark of modern US history. Yet the peculiarity of Moore, a former editor of Punk Planet, bringing her riot grrrl ethos to Cambodia ... works. ... Cambodian Grrrl exposes -- whether it was Moore’s intention or not -- how corporate control of the media in the US is continuous with the logic of profitability which creates exploitative conditions in Cambodia [and] attains the modest yet important success of making personal narratives and experience matter to critiques of history and globalization." —Hyphen Magazine

"This book is neither about Cambodia nor self-publishing. Rather it is about love. ... Somehow [the author] is able to discuss issues of democracy, freedom of speech, the global garment market, slave labor, rape, mass murder and a litany of other tough subjects and leave me smiling. That left me with hope that all we really do need is love." —Viva La Feminista

"Quirky, brisk, and piercingly honest." —The Rumpus  


An excerpt appears here at Chicago Publishes.
Read an interview about the book on Today's Chicago Woman.
Listen to Moore talk about the project on The Matthew Filipowicz Show.
Watch this interview on GritTV with Laura Flanders.
Click here to check out the Cambodian Grrrl Reader's Guide.