Painting Visions of Tibet

THE ART OF EXILE, Paintings by Tibetan Children in India (Museum of New Mexico Press, $29.95, jacketed paper, $45, slipcase).

The Dalai Lama left Tibet in 1959, fleeing political and religious repression by the People’s Republic of China. Since then, an estimated 130,000 Tibetan Buddhists have followed him into exile. Some of those were children, many of whom have been sheltered and cared for by the Tibetan Homes Foundation. In 1995, an American, Sarah Lucas, created a painting club at the foundation’s school in Mussoorie, India, and her students began using their training in Tibetan Buddhist art in secular work. The results, reprinted in this high-quality paperback, are alternately uplifting and heartbreaking.

At heart, this is a book of propaganda in support of a free Tibet, and traces of religious and political indoctrination diminish a few of these paintings. Most, however, spring from an aesthetic and ideological innocence. That innocence gives power to the young artists’ raw expressions of fear and loss, and makes their playful exuberance in other paintings irresistible.

Striking as the paintings are, the accompanying photographs by Kitty Leaken may be more so. They capture not only the children with clarity, but also the beautiful landscape and culture that many of these children never knew. It’s a powerful book.

THE MILLENNIUM, a Rough Guide to the Year 2000 (Rough Guide, $8.95, paper).

This little book will help you understand the Big Event, whether you plan to bunker down and watch the Y2K computer glitch destroy Western civilization, or party like it’s 1999; whether you’ll wait till the new millennium really starts in 2001, or figure, as some scholars do, that Christ was actually born in 4 BC and so the Big Two-Oh-Oh-Oh has already passed.

Where will the sun first rise on New Year’s Day 2000? Well, either the South Pacific Republic of Kiribati’s Millennium Island, or Pitt Island, New Zealand--depending on whether you accept Kiribati’s decision, four years ago, to loop its time zone about 1,000 miles east.

Still, there may be better places to pop open the bubbly. London’s borough of Greenwich, for instance, has big plans and a big Millennium Dome, which will open on New Year’s Eve to rock music, fireworks and a laser show.

All of Christendom is going bonkers over one click of the clock, and this guide can help travelers decide what to do.

Which leads to the book’s most relevant question: “Where can I go to avoid the millennium?”

Answer: Maybe China, where it will be year 4698. Or to an Islamic nation, where the year will be 1420.

Quick trips

NATIVE PEOPLES OF ALASKA, a Traveler’s Guide to Land, Art, Culture by Jan Halliday (Sasquatch Books, $17.95, paper).

This is a vital look at Alaskan native peoples’ five distinct cultural regions. That it blends political discussion--of subsistence issues, for instance--with descriptions of native museums and nuts-and-bolts information about native-owned tourist operations such as B&Bs;, tour outfitters and gift shops is to the author’s credit because that’s the diverse reality of native life in the 49th state.

NATIVE’S GUIDE TO NEW YORK by Richard Laermer (W.W. Norton, $15, paper).

As the cover blurb says, “Being bored in New York City is a sin.” In a style as staccato as a clattering subway, Laermer clues you in to all manner of diversions even born-and-bred locals may not know, from bars, restaurants and bargain shops to the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum, the Lesbian Herstory Archives and the Maidenform (bra) Museum.

Books to Go appears the second and fourth week of every month.