McDermott goes to Beverly Hills

Siem Reap’s iconic Arkansas-reared temple photographer John McDermott returns to Los Angeles in triumph next month. McDermott worked for four years in the movie industry in LA before departing to Bangkok in 1993 to pursue a career as photographer.

Now he’s returning to LA briefly for an exhibition of his work from his book, Elegy: Reflections on Angkor, at the trendy Sundaram Tagore Gallery in Beverly Hills.

The gallery, which also has outlets in New York and Hong Kong, was established in 2000, and has a mission statement of “examining the exchange of ideas between Western and non-Western cultures”. It focuses “on developing exhibitions and hosting not-for-profit events that engage in spiritual, social and aesthetic dialogues”.

The Beverly Hills exhibition kicks off with a cocktail reception on February 17 and runs through to March 10.

It’s a gas

SOFITEL Angkor Phokeethra Golf and Spa Resort is holding a launch with a difference on Monday morning.

The hotel is unveiling a new addition to its environment protection program – a waste recycling biogas machine, which it says is unique in Siem Reap and in line with the Accor hotel group’s “Earth Guest program”.

Call for books

GRACE House Community Centre in Kor Kranh village has opened a library and is raising funds to stock it with Khmer books, in preparation for eventually opening it as a lending library for the wider community. 

The Siem Reap Book Centre, next to U-Care Pharmacy in the Pub Street precinct, has a list of books needed and the NGO hopes people will buy books from this list for the library.

Grace House has also expanded its vocational training service and is now teaching disadvantaged young men to be electricians. It’s also started a woodcraft school teaching wood-turning and scroll work

to villagers.

Cow bank swells

RONNIE Yimsut, US-based coordinator of the Cow Bank Project in Siem Reap, reports good news and bad news. The bad news is that one much-loved cow was killed by lighting late last year.

The good news is about good karma “interest earned” through the agency of copulating cows – about thirty calves are expected to be born shortly and entered into the Cow Bank’s ledger.

At present, the bank has 20 cows at Teukville, and 23 at Bakong.