Walt Whitman (b. March 31, 1819-1892)
In honor of the birthday of the Good G(r)ay Poet, three poems from his groundbreaking collection Leaves of Grass (1860 edition), a volume I try to reread at least once every few years, not only because of the sheer novelty and beauty of the poems, but because of their profound capaciousness, reflection, humanity, liberty, simplicity, and love.
"When I heard at the Close of the Day"
WHEN I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d;
And else, when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d, still I was not happy;
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing, bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter—and all that day my food nourish’d me more—and the beautiful day pass’d well,
And the next came with equal joy—and with the next, at evening, came my friend;
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me, whispering, to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.
‡ ‡ ‡
"O Me! O Life!"
O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
‡ ‡ ‡
"Who is now Reading This?"
WHO is now reading this?
May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past life,
Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me,
Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with derision,
Or may-be one who is puzzled at me.
As if I were not puzzled at myself!
Or as if I never deride myself! (O conscience-struck! O self-convicted!)
Or as if I do not secretly love strangers! (O tenderly, a long time, and never avow it;)
Or as if I did not see, perfectly well, interior in myself, the stuff of wrong-doing,
Or as if it could cease transpiring from me until it must cease.
***
And in memory of poet about whom and whose work I have long had rather complicated feelings: Robert Creeley (1926-2005). He died on Wednesday in Texas. What follows is one of my favorites of his poems, an apt (and ironic) epitaph:
HEROES
In all those stories the hero
is beyond himself into the next
thing, be it those labors
of Hercules, or Aeneas going into death.
I thought the instant of the one humanness
in Virgil's plan of it
was that it was of course human enough to die,
yet to come back, as he said, hoc opus, hic labor est.
That was Cumaean Sibyl speaking.
This is Robert Creeley, and Virgil
is dead now two thousand years, yet Hercules
and the Aeneid, yet all that industrious wis-
dom lives in the way the mountains
and the desert are waiting
for the heroes, and death also
can still propose the old labors
Copyright © 1959, Robert Creeley.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
The Art of Obits + Harold Cruse, RIP
I have long been fascinated by obituaries; I usually don't conclude a reading of either a print or online newspaper without having glanced at the obituary page or section. And I do mean obituaries, rather than death notices, which are usually very brief and say almost nothing beyond listing information on the funeral, surviving relatives, and so on. Although this is a macabre enthusiasm, I love to read about the lives people have led, especially lives very different from my own, whatever the quotient of joy or tragedy, and I find that the best obituaries are really bonsaized biographies or potted histories that reveal not only something about the people they're memorializing, but about the world they lived in.
I even considered at one time of pursuing obituary-writing as a side-profession, though I had no idea of how you went about it; I wasn't sure if one applied specifically to a given news bureau's obituary division or section, or whether all the reporters or writers on staff tried their hands (pens, keys) at it, or when some famous outside person is asked to pen something appropriate and summary. I subsequently read a few online and published articles on how different newspapers prepare obituaries, and I did scan Porter Shreve's novel on this topic as well, so now I have a better sense of the process, but questions remain.
One is, when do ertain major papers or news bureaus (like the AP, Reuters or AFP), at the behest of the editor of the obituary or another bureau, decide toprepare the obituaries of the famous (but not always moribund) people? Is it after the first burst of fame or notoriety? Or at the sign of a major health crisis? And is it true that in some cases the editors will request that these famous people indicate whom the staff might contact for updates, information, and so on? This strikes me as even more creepy (though also flattering)--will the obit prep become prophetic? Take the case of Susan Sontag, for example: the Times may have begun writing her obituary well before her first serious bout with cancer in 1973 or 1974; but certainly after it they had some draft text in place to epitaphize her. (And even then, it became clear the "newspaper of record" didn't know exactly how to write her epitaph or what was appropriate and what excessive, as it edited down one of the most mesmerizing descriptions of a creative person I've ever read to much more inert prose in a later edition, and left out the fact that her longtime lover was--her lover!) Here, in fact, is Margalit Fox's amazing passage that someone edited down:
Related to this is the language and forms that obituary writers (and the editors who scrutinize) employ. I've studied them closely for tips on narrative concision, and have always said I would assign a fictional obituary as an exercise in one of my creative writing classes, but haven't done so--yet. It's obvious what the plot and climax are, and outside of fiction works, truth must be central (verifiable truth, no less)--so characterization, tone, voice, structure and narrative weight, pacing, and the process of narration become key. There are certain linguistic formulas or phrases that crop up in smaller papers, such as "baptized into the Hope of Christ's Resurrection" or "received the Sacrament of the Holy Mother Church" (both used for Roman Catholics), as well as structural formulas. In fact, the obituaries in smaller papers are utterly formulaic; my local paper, the Jersey Journal, usually has a page or two of obituaries that follow the formula "Services for X, age, [where, when, etc.]--X died [where], X was born [where], X worked [job, where, how long], X has the following survivors [names, order=spouse, children, parents, siblings, grandchildren, great grandchildren, friends]." If there's a divergence from this pattern, I immediately take note. I used to read the black-owned newspapers in St. Louis (one of which is owned by a distant relative) when I was growing up, and I found their obituaries to be fairly formulaic too, but always full of extraordinary details; they often were like little history lessons, on the early post-slavery era, the Great Migration, and so on. But even larger papers like the Chicago Tribune or Boston Globe follow formulas of this sort for all except designated prominent people. At times these obits read like microfictions or short-shorts, though of course they're about real people who've died. They are, in effect, gravemarkers--so we return to the macabre--yet they're also, at a certain level mnemonics. I can recall details in some obituaries that I may never forget, and it is these shorthands, like details in works of fiction, that keep the deceased alive.
And what about the people who've died? What would they think about some of these write ups? Some, of course, would be furious, while others, like Sontag, I think, might have been quite charmed at the NY Times's exuberant, elliptical initial piece, though I can only imagine she'd have been annoyed by ex-NY Times Book Review editor-in-chief Charles McGrath's subsequent, inexact, inept attempt at a memento mori.
***
Speaking of the deceased, Harold Cruse, the African-American studies pioneer and intellectual pathblazer who wrote The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, a trenchant, often brilliant and infuriating critique of black intellectual life and agency, and Plural but Equal: A Critical Study of Blacks and Minorities and America's Plural Society, as well as other important works, just passed. I first read this book while an undergraduate, and found it both appealing in its scorching analysis of black intellectuals' dependence upon European models and their pro-integrationist stance, particularly at a critical moment during the Civil Rights era, and also deeply troubling in its problematization of what seemed to me to be every option other than a separatist nationalist approach, which I knew even then would have little place for my cosmopolitan affinities and liberal ideological leanings. I also found his racial essentialism troubling too. I did, however, take to heart his emphasis on the creation of self-defining black cultural identities (vis-à-vis America in general), on striving for autonomy (in all forms), and on economic and social solidarity, and his concept of the "triple front" (political, cultural, and economic) as a means of measuring the success of black political and revolutionary movements. Some of his criticisms, such as of cultural appropriation, have lost some, but not all, of their salience. Ironically, though he co-created the Black Arts Repertory Theater/School in Harlem with Amiri Baraka to foster black creativity and agency, Cruse ended up in a majoritarian institution, the University of Michigan; his own career trajectory has become the standard for many--and one might say most--black American intellectuals, and it remains a point of contention, especially given the indifference and disdain, on every level, with which such institutions treat the issues and concerns of black people. Cruse created a crucial and necessary space for contemplating and enacting resistance.
I even considered at one time of pursuing obituary-writing as a side-profession, though I had no idea of how you went about it; I wasn't sure if one applied specifically to a given news bureau's obituary division or section, or whether all the reporters or writers on staff tried their hands (pens, keys) at it, or when some famous outside person is asked to pen something appropriate and summary. I subsequently read a few online and published articles on how different newspapers prepare obituaries, and I did scan Porter Shreve's novel on this topic as well, so now I have a better sense of the process, but questions remain.
One is, when do ertain major papers or news bureaus (like the AP, Reuters or AFP), at the behest of the editor of the obituary or another bureau, decide toprepare the obituaries of the famous (but not always moribund) people? Is it after the first burst of fame or notoriety? Or at the sign of a major health crisis? And is it true that in some cases the editors will request that these famous people indicate whom the staff might contact for updates, information, and so on? This strikes me as even more creepy (though also flattering)--will the obit prep become prophetic? Take the case of Susan Sontag, for example: the Times may have begun writing her obituary well before her first serious bout with cancer in 1973 or 1974; but certainly after it they had some draft text in place to epitaphize her. (And even then, it became clear the "newspaper of record" didn't know exactly how to write her epitaph or what was appropriate and what excessive, as it edited down one of the most mesmerizing descriptions of a creative person I've ever read to much more inert prose in a later edition, and left out the fact that her longtime lover was--her lover!) Here, in fact, is Margalit Fox's amazing passage that someone edited down:
Over four decades, public response to Ms. Sontag remained irreconcilably divided. She was described, variously, as explosive, anticlimactic, original, trendy, iconoclastic, captivating, hollow, rhapsodic, naïve, sophisticated, approachable, abrasive, aloof, attention-seeking, charming, condescending, populist, puritanical, sybaritic, sincere, posturing, ascetic, voluptuary, right-wing, left-wing, mannered, formidable, brilliant, profound, superficial, ardent, bloodless, dogmatic, challenging, ambivalent, accessible, lofty, erudite, lucid, inscrutable, solipsistic, intellectual, visceral, reasoned, pretentious, portentous, maddening, lyrical, abstract, narrative, acerbic, opportunistic, chilly, effusive, careerist, sober, gimmicky, relevant, passé, facile, illogical, ambivalent, polemical, didactic, tenacious, slippery, celebratory, banal, untenable, doctrinaire, ecstatic, melancholic, humorous, humorless, deadpan, rhapsodic, aloof, glib, cantankerous and clever. No one ever called her dull.Also, what do obituary writers decide to focus on, or omit (beyond the required date and place of birth, occupation, surviving relatives, etc.), and why? Are there things they're required to leave out, along the lines of "not speaking ill of the dead?" What do the emphasized facts (or in some cases, lies) and those silences mean? Who are they geared towards, and how (much) do these contribute, especially in the cases of obituaries of notable public figures (or even unknowns) in major publications or the leading newswire services, to shaping popular, public perceptions of the deceased persons? In the case of Johnnie Cochran's LA Times obit, the author focused a great deal on Cochran's pre-O.J. civil rights legal practice in Los Angeles, which was the city of his upbringing, and mentioned the fact that he was the first black law clerk in the city attorney's office, a significant historical achievement, yet did not broach the Bruce trial. It also gave far more information about his personal life, though it drew somewhat of a veil over large portions of it. The NY Times cited far less about this earlier work and naturally focused extensively on his New York highlights. There was no mention of his being the first black law clerk or one of the first black assistant city attorneys, though it probably would have noted this about the person holding a similar distinction in New York. Or maybe not.
Related to this is the language and forms that obituary writers (and the editors who scrutinize) employ. I've studied them closely for tips on narrative concision, and have always said I would assign a fictional obituary as an exercise in one of my creative writing classes, but haven't done so--yet. It's obvious what the plot and climax are, and outside of fiction works, truth must be central (verifiable truth, no less)--so characterization, tone, voice, structure and narrative weight, pacing, and the process of narration become key. There are certain linguistic formulas or phrases that crop up in smaller papers, such as "baptized into the Hope of Christ's Resurrection" or "received the Sacrament of the Holy Mother Church" (both used for Roman Catholics), as well as structural formulas. In fact, the obituaries in smaller papers are utterly formulaic; my local paper, the Jersey Journal, usually has a page or two of obituaries that follow the formula "Services for X, age, [where, when, etc.]--X died [where], X was born [where], X worked [job, where, how long], X has the following survivors [names, order=spouse, children, parents, siblings, grandchildren, great grandchildren, friends]." If there's a divergence from this pattern, I immediately take note. I used to read the black-owned newspapers in St. Louis (one of which is owned by a distant relative) when I was growing up, and I found their obituaries to be fairly formulaic too, but always full of extraordinary details; they often were like little history lessons, on the early post-slavery era, the Great Migration, and so on. But even larger papers like the Chicago Tribune or Boston Globe follow formulas of this sort for all except designated prominent people. At times these obits read like microfictions or short-shorts, though of course they're about real people who've died. They are, in effect, gravemarkers--so we return to the macabre--yet they're also, at a certain level mnemonics. I can recall details in some obituaries that I may never forget, and it is these shorthands, like details in works of fiction, that keep the deceased alive.
And what about the people who've died? What would they think about some of these write ups? Some, of course, would be furious, while others, like Sontag, I think, might have been quite charmed at the NY Times's exuberant, elliptical initial piece, though I can only imagine she'd have been annoyed by ex-NY Times Book Review editor-in-chief Charles McGrath's subsequent, inexact, inept attempt at a memento mori.
***
Speaking of the deceased, Harold Cruse, the African-American studies pioneer and intellectual pathblazer who wrote The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, a trenchant, often brilliant and infuriating critique of black intellectual life and agency, and Plural but Equal: A Critical Study of Blacks and Minorities and America's Plural Society, as well as other important works, just passed. I first read this book while an undergraduate, and found it both appealing in its scorching analysis of black intellectuals' dependence upon European models and their pro-integrationist stance, particularly at a critical moment during the Civil Rights era, and also deeply troubling in its problematization of what seemed to me to be every option other than a separatist nationalist approach, which I knew even then would have little place for my cosmopolitan affinities and liberal ideological leanings. I also found his racial essentialism troubling too. I did, however, take to heart his emphasis on the creation of self-defining black cultural identities (vis-à-vis America in general), on striving for autonomy (in all forms), and on economic and social solidarity, and his concept of the "triple front" (political, cultural, and economic) as a means of measuring the success of black political and revolutionary movements. Some of his criticisms, such as of cultural appropriation, have lost some, but not all, of their salience. Ironically, though he co-created the Black Arts Repertory Theater/School in Harlem with Amiri Baraka to foster black creativity and agency, Cruse ended up in a majoritarian institution, the University of Michigan; his own career trajectory has become the standard for many--and one might say most--black American intellectuals, and it remains a point of contention, especially given the indifference and disdain, on every level, with which such institutions treat the issues and concerns of black people. Cruse created a crucial and necessary space for contemplating and enacting resistance.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Happy Birthday, Salvador + Johnnie Cochran, RIP
It was to be a brief post, but...: This week marks the 456th birthday of one of my favorite cities, São Salvador da Bahia dos Todos os Santos (The Holy Savior of All Saint's Bay). Salvador, also known as Bahia, was the first capital of Brazil (from 1549 to 1763), making it the religious, political and social brain and heart of the early Portuguese colony, a fact reflected in its architectural patrimony, which includes more than 300 churches, including Brazil's first cathedral, which is still standing. Salvador was also the chief Brazilian port through which enslaved Africans passed for three centuries, which indelibly stamped and shaped the city, the surrounding state of Bahia, and most of the northeastern region. Although Rio de Janeiro, Recife-Olinda, and Belém do Pará were also major Brazilian slave transit points, more than 1.3 million Africans passed through Salvador alone, or more than all the slaves brought to the United States during our own unofficial and official periods of African slavery and servitude (1619-1865).
Salvador's world famous musical and dance traditions (samba, afoxé, forró, etc.), cuisine (particularly the spicy, dendê-based dishes), martial arts (capoeira), and spiritual-religious traditions (most notably Candomblé), to name a few, result from this heritage, and a contemporary visitor to Salvador can find all of them thriving throughout the Bahian capital. But these are not just historical artifacts or traces; a tourist in Bahia will also notice quickly what Brazil's census has quantified: the city and state have the largest percentage of self-identified black or mixed people in the country, and the Afro-Brazilian cultural traditions are thoroughly woven into the fabric of Bahian life, from the Baianas, in their headwraps and white and multicolored petticoats, to its park (O Parque Dique de Tororó) with giant statues of the Candomblé Orixás to the black-saint filled Igreja da Nossa Senhora do Rosario dos Homens Pretos do Pelourinho (the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary of Black Men of the Pelourinho) to its Carnaval celebration, one of the three most important ones in Brazil (along with Rio's and Recife's). The cultural and spiritual vibes, the links to an African past (Yoruba, Congolese, etc.) that still lives in the present, I can attest, are palpable, and I know several black Americans whose lives were changed forever after stays there.
Today, Salvador is the third most populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo and Rio), and has cemented its position as one of Brazil's major cultural capitals. It remains the birthplace or home of numerous internationally reknowned musicians and musical groups, such as Brazil's minister of culture, Gilberto Gil, his former bandmate Caetano Veloso and Veloso's sister, Maria Bethânia; the blocos afros Olodum, Ilê Aiyê, Muzenza, and Ara Ketu; the group Timbalada, led by Carlinhos Brown, Margareth Menezes, and so many others. C. and I saw Olodum live in 2000, right in the outdoor square, the Terreiro de Jesús. Many of Salvador's and Bahia's native musicians frequently perform in and around the city, and Veloso supposedly appears from time to time right on the Barra, Ondina and Pituba beaches.
Salvador draws so many tourists that the Brazilian and Bahian governments decided, in the 1990s, to invest money in rehabilitating and restoring large sections of historic core, especially the Pelourinho ("[little] pillory" in Portuguese), returning much of the original beauty to the area without Disneyfying or destroying it. It was also the longtime home of one of Brazil's most famous and prolific writers, Jorge Amado (a native of the southern Bahian city of Itabuna, and author of the masterpieces Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon and Dona Flor, and Her Two Husbands), and the Fundação Casa Jorge de Amado is located right in the center of the Pelourinho. One sight not to be missed is the barococo, ultragilt interior of the São Francisco church, with its sexualized caryatids and carvings, and in its adjoining convent, the scary room of saints (I was transfixed), the upstairs room with its bleeding Jesus (ropes of velvet--it has to be seen), or the ossuary crypt in the basement.
Other areas in the city, such as Lower City (Cidade Baixa, the commercial district where the city's port, its Mercado Modelo, and the famous Bunda ("Booty") sculpture are all located), and the Barra (where we stayed), Dois de Julio, Campo Grande, Liberdade, Saúde, Pituba, Ondina, Rio Vermelho, and Itapoã neighborhoods all offer a lot to see and explore as well. In addition, Salvador is the best starting off point for boat tours of the nearby bay islands (giant Itaparica, and the islets of dos Frades and da Maré); the cross-bay Valença party town of Morro de São Paulo; the interior, former sugar-growing regions of the Recôncavo, or the northern beaches along the Linha Verde (Green Line), some of which have become increasingly commercialized (like the Costa do Sauípe).
Salvador also is home to the oldest gay group in Brazil, Grupo Gay da Bahia, which has transformed the conservative city into a cynosure of pro-gay legislation and activism.
Neither Brazil nor the Bahian state government have been able to remedy the endemic problem of (local) poverty. While the city doesn't experience anywhere near the levels of violent crime of Rio or São Paulo, the class and racial divisions, which show themselves in economic, social and political divisions and disparities, are evident. I have read that the employment situation over the last few years has slightly improved (though perhaps nowhere near as well as many had hoped when the Worker's Party candidate Lula da Silva assumed the presidency), and in terms of the street children, several local and international groups actively raise money on their behalf (the colored fitas do bomfim that many visitors to Salvador bring back are part of this effort).
I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to get back to Salvador, but I hope it's soon. Until then, I'm wishing the city and its people a Feliz Aniversario! Salvador wears its more than four centuries of history and tradition remarkably well!
***
I also want to acknowledge the passing of Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. (1937-2005), who died after a two-year battle with brain cancer. Though he'll forever be associated with his successful defense of O.J. Simpson in that infamous 1995 criminal trial, he also won many other important cases, particularly in the area of civil rights. He won numerous judgments against the Los Angeles city government and LAPD, beginning in the 1970s, usually for non-celebrity clients. Later, he won a judgment on behalf of torture victim Abner Louima in his lawsuit against the NYPD, and he eventually avenged the 1972 prosecution of Black Panther Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt by gaining a reversal in 1997. He also got Sean "P.Diddy" Combs acquitted of gun possession charges. One other really interesting aspect of his career is that, as a deputy city attorney for Los Angeles in the early 1960s (he had been the first black law clerk in that office), he prosecuted Lenny Bruce on criminal obscenity charges, which were later overturned on First Amendment grounds. A remarkable lawyer, person, and race man (in WEB DuBois's and Hazel Carby's senses of the term), by any measure, and one of the major defenders not only of the already powerful, but, throughout his career, of those at the bottom of society as well.
Salvador's world famous musical and dance traditions (samba, afoxé, forró, etc.), cuisine (particularly the spicy, dendê-based dishes), martial arts (capoeira), and spiritual-religious traditions (most notably Candomblé), to name a few, result from this heritage, and a contemporary visitor to Salvador can find all of them thriving throughout the Bahian capital. But these are not just historical artifacts or traces; a tourist in Bahia will also notice quickly what Brazil's census has quantified: the city and state have the largest percentage of self-identified black or mixed people in the country, and the Afro-Brazilian cultural traditions are thoroughly woven into the fabric of Bahian life, from the Baianas, in their headwraps and white and multicolored petticoats, to its park (O Parque Dique de Tororó) with giant statues of the Candomblé Orixás to the black-saint filled Igreja da Nossa Senhora do Rosario dos Homens Pretos do Pelourinho (the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary of Black Men of the Pelourinho) to its Carnaval celebration, one of the three most important ones in Brazil (along with Rio's and Recife's). The cultural and spiritual vibes, the links to an African past (Yoruba, Congolese, etc.) that still lives in the present, I can attest, are palpable, and I know several black Americans whose lives were changed forever after stays there.
Today, Salvador is the third most populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo and Rio), and has cemented its position as one of Brazil's major cultural capitals. It remains the birthplace or home of numerous internationally reknowned musicians and musical groups, such as Brazil's minister of culture, Gilberto Gil, his former bandmate Caetano Veloso and Veloso's sister, Maria Bethânia; the blocos afros Olodum, Ilê Aiyê, Muzenza, and Ara Ketu; the group Timbalada, led by Carlinhos Brown, Margareth Menezes, and so many others. C. and I saw Olodum live in 2000, right in the outdoor square, the Terreiro de Jesús. Many of Salvador's and Bahia's native musicians frequently perform in and around the city, and Veloso supposedly appears from time to time right on the Barra, Ondina and Pituba beaches.
Salvador draws so many tourists that the Brazilian and Bahian governments decided, in the 1990s, to invest money in rehabilitating and restoring large sections of historic core, especially the Pelourinho ("[little] pillory" in Portuguese), returning much of the original beauty to the area without Disneyfying or destroying it. It was also the longtime home of one of Brazil's most famous and prolific writers, Jorge Amado (a native of the southern Bahian city of Itabuna, and author of the masterpieces Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon and Dona Flor, and Her Two Husbands), and the Fundação Casa Jorge de Amado is located right in the center of the Pelourinho. One sight not to be missed is the barococo, ultragilt interior of the São Francisco church, with its sexualized caryatids and carvings, and in its adjoining convent, the scary room of saints (I was transfixed), the upstairs room with its bleeding Jesus (ropes of velvet--it has to be seen), or the ossuary crypt in the basement.
Other areas in the city, such as Lower City (Cidade Baixa, the commercial district where the city's port, its Mercado Modelo, and the famous Bunda ("Booty") sculpture are all located), and the Barra (where we stayed), Dois de Julio, Campo Grande, Liberdade, Saúde, Pituba, Ondina, Rio Vermelho, and Itapoã neighborhoods all offer a lot to see and explore as well. In addition, Salvador is the best starting off point for boat tours of the nearby bay islands (giant Itaparica, and the islets of dos Frades and da Maré); the cross-bay Valença party town of Morro de São Paulo; the interior, former sugar-growing regions of the Recôncavo, or the northern beaches along the Linha Verde (Green Line), some of which have become increasingly commercialized (like the Costa do Sauípe).
Salvador also is home to the oldest gay group in Brazil, Grupo Gay da Bahia, which has transformed the conservative city into a cynosure of pro-gay legislation and activism.
Neither Brazil nor the Bahian state government have been able to remedy the endemic problem of (local) poverty. While the city doesn't experience anywhere near the levels of violent crime of Rio or São Paulo, the class and racial divisions, which show themselves in economic, social and political divisions and disparities, are evident. I have read that the employment situation over the last few years has slightly improved (though perhaps nowhere near as well as many had hoped when the Worker's Party candidate Lula da Silva assumed the presidency), and in terms of the street children, several local and international groups actively raise money on their behalf (the colored fitas do bomfim that many visitors to Salvador bring back are part of this effort).
I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to get back to Salvador, but I hope it's soon. Until then, I'm wishing the city and its people a Feliz Aniversario! Salvador wears its more than four centuries of history and tradition remarkably well!
***
I also want to acknowledge the passing of Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. (1937-2005), who died after a two-year battle with brain cancer. Though he'll forever be associated with his successful defense of O.J. Simpson in that infamous 1995 criminal trial, he also won many other important cases, particularly in the area of civil rights. He won numerous judgments against the Los Angeles city government and LAPD, beginning in the 1970s, usually for non-celebrity clients. Later, he won a judgment on behalf of torture victim Abner Louima in his lawsuit against the NYPD, and he eventually avenged the 1972 prosecution of Black Panther Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt by gaining a reversal in 1997. He also got Sean "P.Diddy" Combs acquitted of gun possession charges. One other really interesting aspect of his career is that, as a deputy city attorney for Los Angeles in the early 1960s (he had been the first black law clerk in that office), he prosecuted Lenny Bruce on criminal obscenity charges, which were later overturned on First Amendment grounds. A remarkable lawyer, person, and race man (in WEB DuBois's and Hazel Carby's senses of the term), by any measure, and one of the major defenders not only of the already powerful, but, throughout his career, of those at the bottom of society as well.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Paulo José Miranda's Hijinks (Lead to My Web Mention!)
Until a few days ago, Paulo José Miranda, a Portuguese author (poet, playwright, and novelist, and winner of the 1999 José Saramago Prize [?]), didn't register on my radar. To tell the truth, I know quase nada about contemporary Portuguese literature beyond the big names: José Saramago, the Nobel Laureate novelist; Antonio Lobo Antunes, the acclaimed fiction writer and frequent Nobel candidate who'd served in and written about the Angolan War of liberation and whom my only Portuguese teacher, an Azorean woman, peremptorily dismissed as a hack ("the great writers don't need to have a war to write about"); Fernando Namora, the country doctor whose simple prose remains among the most difficult I've ever tried to translate; and a few others, like the gay poet Joaquim Manuel Magalhães, or writers I struggled through in my lessons, like the surrealist Agustina Bessa Luis, the poet Sophia de Mello Breyner, and the deceased earlier writers Vergílio Ferreira, Jorge de Sena and José Cardoso Pires. (Pessoa, Castelo Branco and Camões aren't of recent vintage.) Most of the literature in Portuguese that I know a little about comes from Brazil; I've said I'm going to familiarize myself with contemporary African Lusophone literature, which a colleague extolled, but I haven't gotten beyond a few authors (Luandino Vieira, etc.).
In fact, I'd never even heard of Miranda until I read Jan Herman's arts and politics blog on Arts Journal. (Greg Sandow's infrequently updated music blog is the other one I always scan on that site.) Herman was calling attention to a bombastic flash site set up by Miranda and several friends, called "America Is," which Herman described as "very weird, well-designed, right-wing propaganda." On first glance, it appears to be so. The site asks you to click on a box that will give you Miranda's "ontological proof of America in 99 points." You only get 17 (the rest you have to pay for! ha ha), which read as if one of the "sleepwalkers" (cf. Musil, Broch or Mabuse) had snapped them off, between claps and Bible glances, at this past summer's Republican National Convention. For example, No. 4: "America keeps growing. America keeps welcoming the world." Or No. 18, which begins, "Iraq is not invaded. Iraq is being updated...." Or No. 19: "The product Coca Cola is more widely known than the Eiffel Tower, the tower of Pisa or the Vatican. America makes things the world understands. America makes things for its people." Or most simplistically, No. 41, "America is it."
Now, my first response was, I think these Portuguese folks are having a bit of fun at our expense. And why not? Hell, 51% (or so we've been conned into believing, or accepting, or both) of the voting electorate put W back in office just last fall. His main order of business has been to destroy (under the Orwellian description "reform") Social Security, the best US government program created in the 20th century, and one of the few remaining corners of a nation-wide safety net. He's got his Republibots to ram through an awful "tort-reform" (cf. above) bill (a gift to insurance companies and megacorporations), and an even worse "bankruptcy" reform bill (a gift to the credit card companies), and he's further weakened laws that prevent environmental degradation. As a sop to his anti-gay base, he wasted precious minutes of his State of the Union Address to again call for the hateful anti-gay FMA. The self-admitted doper (finally!), who supposedly found "Christ" at the age of 40, burns news paths of anti-Christian behavior by pushing for making his tax cuts permanent while calling for draconian cuts to a range of programs geared to help the poor and working-classes. He elevated an inept, incompetent, serial dissembler, and a bad one at that, to be Secretary of State. He made the legalistic enabler of torture our Attorney General. He nominated anti-UN ranter John Bolton to be...Secretary to the UN. He has nominated neoconservative liar and adulterer Paul Wolfowitz...to head the World Bank. He named John Negroponte, who still has blood on his hands from his years in Central America, to be...first Ambassador to Iraq and then head of the National Intelligence Office. And let's not even get started on Iraq, or the rest of the Middle East, which remains in turmoil though he's taking (and being given) credit for unleashing "freedom" (cf. ibid, Orwell, etc.). Then there's the steadily increasing theocratic cast of his party, which has even got some GOPers up in arms--he actually flew back from his ranch to grandstand on the Terri Schiavo tragedy, even though he and the rest of his racket claim to stand up for the "sanctity of marriage" and he signed a law in Texas allowing the ending of life support, and a black baby just last...oh, why even go on? I'm sure the Taliban are feeling pretty envious right about now....
At any rate, I didn't need to consider even ONE of the W Unltd. administration's actions to realize what Miranda and company are up to. Why? Because although I can be obtuse at times (pronouncing "gimlet" like "gym-lit" and forgetting the Pythagorean Theorem), I do get paid to read critically, and I could see through this bit of jollity--irony-steeped jollity at that--as if I were peering through the Grand Canyon. So I wrote Senhor Herman a little e-mail, and...he published it in his blog, mentioning me by name. As you see, I give him his props, because I was raised that way and I really like his blog, especially when he quotes his white friend, Bill Osborne, who loves to go off about "honky myopia" (no, he's actually making sharp critiques, not being a self-hating racist). But I was very surprised that he didn't see through Miranda's funning. I mean, Europe does have authentic right-wing fanatics and nutjobs. Lots of them. They actually are running Italy, were (are?) running Austria, and are quite strong in Germany, the Netherlands, France (remember Chirac's LePen scare, and he's a corrupt rightist himself), Spain, etc. Portugal, by the way, was ruled by a right-wing dictator for much of the 20th century. Europe also has lots of left-leaning folks who are also quite racist and anti-Semitic. And lots of casual racism (cf. Spanish soccer fans).
But Miranda e seus amigos (or os amigos dele, as some Brazilians might say), I think, is sticking a poniard (that's what did in Marlowe, right?) into America's eye. In the case of João Felino, a lots of them (cf. my post on Ellen Gallagher!). Look at the "More America" links he lists on the blog: Anal Philosopher, Andrew Sullivan.... Let's see how long it takes for others to figure this out. Or maybe not. [WARNING: Clicking on Nuno Miguel Alves's or Rui Parada's links caused my Mozilla browser to freeze!] I really want to read one of his novels.
In fact, I'd never even heard of Miranda until I read Jan Herman's arts and politics blog on Arts Journal. (Greg Sandow's infrequently updated music blog is the other one I always scan on that site.) Herman was calling attention to a bombastic flash site set up by Miranda and several friends, called "America Is," which Herman described as "very weird, well-designed, right-wing propaganda." On first glance, it appears to be so. The site asks you to click on a box that will give you Miranda's "ontological proof of America in 99 points." You only get 17 (the rest you have to pay for! ha ha), which read as if one of the "sleepwalkers" (cf. Musil, Broch or Mabuse) had snapped them off, between claps and Bible glances, at this past summer's Republican National Convention. For example, No. 4: "America keeps growing. America keeps welcoming the world." Or No. 18, which begins, "Iraq is not invaded. Iraq is being updated...." Or No. 19: "The product Coca Cola is more widely known than the Eiffel Tower, the tower of Pisa or the Vatican. America makes things the world understands. America makes things for its people." Or most simplistically, No. 41, "America is it."
Now, my first response was, I think these Portuguese folks are having a bit of fun at our expense. And why not? Hell, 51% (or so we've been conned into believing, or accepting, or both) of the voting electorate put W back in office just last fall. His main order of business has been to destroy (under the Orwellian description "reform") Social Security, the best US government program created in the 20th century, and one of the few remaining corners of a nation-wide safety net. He's got his Republibots to ram through an awful "tort-reform" (cf. above) bill (a gift to insurance companies and megacorporations), and an even worse "bankruptcy" reform bill (a gift to the credit card companies), and he's further weakened laws that prevent environmental degradation. As a sop to his anti-gay base, he wasted precious minutes of his State of the Union Address to again call for the hateful anti-gay FMA. The self-admitted doper (finally!), who supposedly found "Christ" at the age of 40, burns news paths of anti-Christian behavior by pushing for making his tax cuts permanent while calling for draconian cuts to a range of programs geared to help the poor and working-classes. He elevated an inept, incompetent, serial dissembler, and a bad one at that, to be Secretary of State. He made the legalistic enabler of torture our Attorney General. He nominated anti-UN ranter John Bolton to be...Secretary to the UN. He has nominated neoconservative liar and adulterer Paul Wolfowitz...to head the World Bank. He named John Negroponte, who still has blood on his hands from his years in Central America, to be...first Ambassador to Iraq and then head of the National Intelligence Office. And let's not even get started on Iraq, or the rest of the Middle East, which remains in turmoil though he's taking (and being given) credit for unleashing "freedom" (cf. ibid, Orwell, etc.). Then there's the steadily increasing theocratic cast of his party, which has even got some GOPers up in arms--he actually flew back from his ranch to grandstand on the Terri Schiavo tragedy, even though he and the rest of his racket claim to stand up for the "sanctity of marriage" and he signed a law in Texas allowing the ending of life support, and a black baby just last...oh, why even go on? I'm sure the Taliban are feeling pretty envious right about now....
At any rate, I didn't need to consider even ONE of the W Unltd. administration's actions to realize what Miranda and company are up to. Why? Because although I can be obtuse at times (pronouncing "gimlet" like "gym-lit" and forgetting the Pythagorean Theorem), I do get paid to read critically, and I could see through this bit of jollity--irony-steeped jollity at that--as if I were peering through the Grand Canyon. So I wrote Senhor Herman a little e-mail, and...he published it in his blog, mentioning me by name. As you see, I give him his props, because I was raised that way and I really like his blog, especially when he quotes his white friend, Bill Osborne, who loves to go off about "honky myopia" (no, he's actually making sharp critiques, not being a self-hating racist). But I was very surprised that he didn't see through Miranda's funning. I mean, Europe does have authentic right-wing fanatics and nutjobs. Lots of them. They actually are running Italy, were (are?) running Austria, and are quite strong in Germany, the Netherlands, France (remember Chirac's LePen scare, and he's a corrupt rightist himself), Spain, etc. Portugal, by the way, was ruled by a right-wing dictator for much of the 20th century. Europe also has lots of left-leaning folks who are also quite racist and anti-Semitic. And lots of casual racism (cf. Spanish soccer fans).
But Miranda e seus amigos (or os amigos dele, as some Brazilians might say), I think, is sticking a poniard (that's what did in Marlowe, right?) into America's eye. In the case of João Felino, a lots of them (cf. my post on Ellen Gallagher!). Look at the "More America" links he lists on the blog: Anal Philosopher, Andrew Sullivan.... Let's see how long it takes for others to figure this out. Or maybe not. [WARNING: Clicking on Nuno Miguel Alves's or Rui Parada's links caused my Mozilla browser to freeze!] I really want to read one of his novels.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Swerve #13 + Max Gordon on Oprah Presents: Their Eyes..."
Tonight I ventured over to Brooklyn to attend a launch party for the literary journal Swerve's issue #13, which features original hand-painted covers by a friend and collaborator on a book project, artist Christopher Stackhouse. Images of some of them are available on Swerve's Website; unfortunately for art-lovers (but fortunately for Swerve), the issue has completely sold out, but they are always accepting new subscriptions (and the poetry they publish is quite good; this issue includes poems by m. (Mike) loncar, author of 66 galaxie).
Christopher's covers truly are works of art, and I don't use that term lightly, or just to roll logs on his behalf; these tight pieces, which form the first, outer panel of the z-folded periodical, span a range of styles, some of them redolent of Japanese rice-paper paintings, while others recall in miniature form such painters as William T. Williams, Sam Gilliam, Richard Diebenkorn, Agnes Martin, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Gerhard Richter; yet they are evidently Christopher's own creations and follow from other larger works on canvas and paper that he's done. They're neither echoes nor knock-offs. Viewing the covers up close reveals many details like the speed, intricacy and delicacy of the brushwork; the screen-like layering on many of them; the richness of the covers, and the tinier touches, such as the splatters, grisailling and subtle geometric patterns. They're like visual versions of piano studies, of considerable melodic and harmonic range and color--études diverses. I hope Christopher decides to issue prints of many of them, and to produce larger works (he's said that many of these are studies) in this vein. He'll have a winner of a show.
***
Tisa B. called my attention to Max Gordon's trenchant analysis of Oprah Winfrey's ABC version of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. I missed it (no TiVo, didn't videotape or DVR), because I went to see Lydia Diamond's fine stage adaptation of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater. Hallie Gordon was the director. (I was weary of how a staged version of Morrison's first novel might turn out, but the outstanding acting, the inventive sets and lighting, the condensation of the narrative, and parceling out of Morrison's third person narration, both the exposition and the more lyrical, interior sections, to the various characters, sometimes in varying chorus-like groups, all succeeded).
As for Their Eyes, I did enjoy Oprah's somewhat misguided take on Beloved, an unfilmable book because of its narrative density and complexity, its lyrical interiority (which Jazz, I think, exceeds) and in general I am all for adaptations of black literature--God knows, we need to draw upon sources that might provide something else besides the rampant, unironic schmaltz, minstrelsy and ersatz depictions of our lives that fill movie and TV screens on a daily basis. But I still had misgivings, based on advance commentary that I was reading and hearing.
At any rate, if you saw the TV movie and want one writer's astute and acerbic take, read Gordon's commentary. I especially took to heart the passages on the differences between witnessing and watching, particularly in light of the truly f*cked up society (and world) we're living in now. Zora was a witness; Gordon, as I read his review, is saying that instead of her powerful, challenging and beautiful art and testimony, we got something quite different, lacking, mangled, therapeutic: something geared primarily for us to watch (and soon forget).
Here are fifteen novels by black authors I'd like to see adapted--adroitly, of course--into films: Calixthe Béyala's Loukoum: The Little Prince of Belleville; Dionne Brand's In Another Place, Not Here; Octavia Butler's Kindred; Cyrus Colter's The Catacombs; Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions; Louis Edwards's Ten Seconds; E. Lynn Harris's Invisible Life; Paule Marshall's The Chosen Place, The Timeless People; Gayl Jones's Corregidora; Andrea Lee's Sarah Phillips; Zakes Mda's The Heart of Redness; Ishmael Reed's Reckless Eyeballing; Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá's The Renunciation; Sherley Ann Williams's Dessa Rose; and Shay Youngblood's Black Girl in Paris.
+++
Easter = Redemption.
Christopher's covers truly are works of art, and I don't use that term lightly, or just to roll logs on his behalf; these tight pieces, which form the first, outer panel of the z-folded periodical, span a range of styles, some of them redolent of Japanese rice-paper paintings, while others recall in miniature form such painters as William T. Williams, Sam Gilliam, Richard Diebenkorn, Agnes Martin, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Gerhard Richter; yet they are evidently Christopher's own creations and follow from other larger works on canvas and paper that he's done. They're neither echoes nor knock-offs. Viewing the covers up close reveals many details like the speed, intricacy and delicacy of the brushwork; the screen-like layering on many of them; the richness of the covers, and the tinier touches, such as the splatters, grisailling and subtle geometric patterns. They're like visual versions of piano studies, of considerable melodic and harmonic range and color--études diverses. I hope Christopher decides to issue prints of many of them, and to produce larger works (he's said that many of these are studies) in this vein. He'll have a winner of a show.
***
Tisa B. called my attention to Max Gordon's trenchant analysis of Oprah Winfrey's ABC version of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. I missed it (no TiVo, didn't videotape or DVR), because I went to see Lydia Diamond's fine stage adaptation of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater. Hallie Gordon was the director. (I was weary of how a staged version of Morrison's first novel might turn out, but the outstanding acting, the inventive sets and lighting, the condensation of the narrative, and parceling out of Morrison's third person narration, both the exposition and the more lyrical, interior sections, to the various characters, sometimes in varying chorus-like groups, all succeeded).
As for Their Eyes, I did enjoy Oprah's somewhat misguided take on Beloved, an unfilmable book because of its narrative density and complexity, its lyrical interiority (which Jazz, I think, exceeds) and in general I am all for adaptations of black literature--God knows, we need to draw upon sources that might provide something else besides the rampant, unironic schmaltz, minstrelsy and ersatz depictions of our lives that fill movie and TV screens on a daily basis. But I still had misgivings, based on advance commentary that I was reading and hearing.
At any rate, if you saw the TV movie and want one writer's astute and acerbic take, read Gordon's commentary. I especially took to heart the passages on the differences between witnessing and watching, particularly in light of the truly f*cked up society (and world) we're living in now. Zora was a witness; Gordon, as I read his review, is saying that instead of her powerful, challenging and beautiful art and testimony, we got something quite different, lacking, mangled, therapeutic: something geared primarily for us to watch (and soon forget).
Here are fifteen novels by black authors I'd like to see adapted--adroitly, of course--into films: Calixthe Béyala's Loukoum: The Little Prince of Belleville; Dionne Brand's In Another Place, Not Here; Octavia Butler's Kindred; Cyrus Colter's The Catacombs; Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions; Louis Edwards's Ten Seconds; E. Lynn Harris's Invisible Life; Paule Marshall's The Chosen Place, The Timeless People; Gayl Jones's Corregidora; Andrea Lee's Sarah Phillips; Zakes Mda's The Heart of Redness; Ishmael Reed's Reckless Eyeballing; Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá's The Renunciation; Sherley Ann Williams's Dessa Rose; and Shay Youngblood's Black Girl in Paris.
+++
Easter = Redemption.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Saturday Quote: Tom Miller + Another Hate Crime
"I've done a lot of work where I paint on furniture and other objects. The pieces that I use are what I grew up with--furniture like what my grandmother would have in her dining room--that type of thing. And these pieces, in many cases, are things that have been discarded. Not valuable antiques but working-class people's furniture mostly from the '30s and '40s with a few pieces from the '50s. I paint a 'skin' on the furniture and the pieces become very active--wiggling and moving. It's like Friday night in Baltimore City. Everybody's out, everybody's moving. I try to capture the same energy level that I admire in black people, like when Michael Jordan jumps--how can another human being do that?"
--artist Tom Miller, "Interview with Greg Henry, Tom Miller and Al Carter," from Next Generation: Southern Black Aesthetic (Winston Salem: South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art, 1990), p. 152.
***
A day ago Planetblack sent along links about another attack on a gay man of color in New York, this time activist Nelson Torres:
Bruthas,
Yet another violent attack against a gay man of color. Nelson Torres, an employee of Hispanic AIDS Forum, was attacked outside of his Bronx home this past Saturday. For more info, go to:
Press release
Photos
I don't know any more about this, but as I learn and hear more I'll post more.
--artist Tom Miller, "Interview with Greg Henry, Tom Miller and Al Carter," from Next Generation: Southern Black Aesthetic (Winston Salem: South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art, 1990), p. 152.
***
A day ago Planetblack sent along links about another attack on a gay man of color in New York, this time activist Nelson Torres:
Bruthas,
Yet another violent attack against a gay man of color. Nelson Torres, an employee of Hispanic AIDS Forum, was attacked outside of his Bronx home this past Saturday. For more info, go to:
Press release
Photos
I don't know any more about this, but as I learn and hear more I'll post more.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Bebel Gilberto + Pierre Boulez
Can these two figures--Bebel Gilberto and Pierre Boulez--really inhabit the same sound world? For me they do.
Bebel Gilberto's scrumptious Tanto Tempo was one of the top CDs of 2001 and provided track after track (in original and remixed versions, by Suba, Kruder & Dorfmeister and countless others) for lounges and lounge lizards all over the world. (It actually became one of Brazil's best-selling CDs ever, matching her famous father João Gilberto's efforts.)
Last year she released her long-awaited followup, the eponymous Bebel Gilberto, which actually improves upon her debut issue. Gilberto tries out and succeeds with a wider range of musical source material and collaborators while keeping this new CD as mellow and melodic. She sings tunes these often ethereal sounding tunes in Portuguese, English and a mix of the two. As with the first CD, her music rooted in my ear while also seeming ripe for DJs' and mixers' re-visions.
My favorite tracks so far are "Aganjú," a Candomblé-flavored song written by Bahian impresario and musician Carlinhos Brown (most recently of Tribalistas fame), featuring a danceable melody and rhythm--and it actually conjures the Yoruba orisha it invokes; "Simplesmente," which is as simple and lovely a meditative song as its title suggests; "Winter," a slow and seductive charmer that is at least a season away from the chilly weather outdoors; and "All Around," another English-lyric song, written with Japanese musician Masa Shimizu, which Gilberto has said is her personal favorite; it even features a complete string orchestra accompaniment. Its refrain, the almost-banal but beautiful "Never forget that when / I think of you / You're not alone" keeps running through my head. Gilberto's music manages to enchant and relax at the same time, and here it falls more on casting its spells.
I missed Gilberto during her summer and fall tour of the US, so I hope to hear her perform some of these songs live eventually, but I also want to hear what remixers--and she attracts some of the best out there--stir up in the meanwhile.
***
Tomorrow marks the 80th birthday of the one of the 20th century's former infants terribles, the extraordinary French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez (1925-). After taking a degree in mathematics he later studied with the inimitable Frenchman Olivier Messiaen, and René Leibowitz, the doyen of the Darmstadt School. Boulez originally became famous for his extreme, authoritarian pronouncements about music, such as that opera houses should be blown up, or, having dismissed most of the music of his predecessors in favor of the serial technique pioneered by Schoenberg, his subsequent triumphant declaration that Schoenberg was "dead!" Ah youth! In fact, Boulez was dismissive of almost all his peers as well, including such notable American composers as John Cage and Morton Feldman (some of whose chance techniques he soon incorporated into his works), arguing for a strict, scientific approach that emphasized atonality and organized every aspect of a composition (he did study math!). Boulez was known to be especially cutting and frosty in person, and Feldman in particular rants quite a bit about him, though he was hardly alone. Having killed off his father, Schoenberg, he then went out at wrote a piece in 1954, "Le marteau sans maître," whose debt to Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire" is so obvious it's painful--but it feels, at the same time, almost sui generis in sound, like music beamed down from Jupiter. It wasn't only the Austrian father he slew; having symbolically shot down French daddy Claude Debussy (so little variation! all that static harmony! that Hispanophilia!), Boulez then incorporated the poetry of Stephane Mallarmé into one of his major works, "Pli selon pli" (as Debussy had done in his greatest composition, the orchestral masterpiece "Prélude de l'aprés-midi d'un faune")....
But, with time for some comes maturity (also known as the combination of perspective and a little wisdom), and so it was with Boulez. He began conducting in the 1960s, and gradually became one of the most noteworthy interpreters not only of early 20th century avant-garde music (especially Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky, Debussy, Bartók, Messiaen, Ligeti, and Carter), but also of some of the Romantic composers he so harshly decried, such as Mahler (some of his versions are among the best), Wagner, Bruckner, Dvorak, and...yes, Beethoven! The destroyer of institutions later led both the London Philharmonic (1971-1974) and, gods be stilled, the New York Philharmonic (1971-1977), conducted at the Bayreuth (!) and Paris Operas, and in the late 1970s founded both the l'Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), one of the leading institutions of electronic music in the world, and the Ensemble InterContemporain, an outstanding contemporary music performance group. Boulez has been a guest conductor for many years with several other major establishment orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and before that with Cleveland's great symphony, and is supposedly now much more generous, not only to fellow composers, but to musicians and concert attendees. (I hope to see him conduct Berg's "Chamber Concerto" in Chicago later this spring.)
As for his own music, he began to relax some of his strictures by the late 1950s, and has rewritten or reworked a number of his pieces. Others he has withdrawn. Some of the compositions since the mid-1960s not only have tone coloristic qualities that echo Romanticism and much of the 20th century's sonic experiments, but moments approximating an emotional presence and warmth. A number of the later pieces are fragments, which seems quite fitting for a composer who called for total serialization and organization, while sniffing at others who were writing in standard key signatures and using traditional forms. (If you throw out all the foundations, well, you've got to come up with new ones!)
Of course there are many who still loathe him, or at least the idea of him. Grudges die hard, and the man has long held considerable power and is the embodiment of the contemporary, moribund classical music establishment, which is enough of a crime for many people. Josh Ronsen came up with a novel way of expressing his Boulez-disgust, while the leading American composer John Adams and the young British composer Thomas Adès both offer up deliciously waspish thoughts (scroll down to the bottom) about Boulez's historical significance. Pre-mid 60s Boulez is often harsh, rigid and suffused, I think, with an anger born of arrogance and superiority, an attempt to surpass, and in a certain sense, erase all else that has come before, while the later works often appear to battle through their failures to live up to his grand designs. His struggles are audible throughout them, with their often ghostly instrumental pairings and multiples, their insistent harmonic bleets, shimmers and moans, and the sometimes thrilling racing or glacial tempi. As formal artifacts that convey intellectual beauty or conceptual possibility more than emotion, they strike me as better musical analogs of Mallarmé, for example, particularly the Mallarmé of the "livre pur" than anything Debussy composed.
I personally like a number of his later compositions, including "...explosant-fixe..." and the related works "Anthèmes" and "Anthèmes 2," and "Mémoriale"; "Messagesquisses"; "Dialogue de l'Ombre Double"; "Répons" (I've gone back and forth with this one); and "Dérive I" and "II." The early piano sonatas and "Notations" (for piano--I like the orchestral version) I can stomach on an exceptional day, like "Marteau." As a conductor, I think he's one of the best with the Second Viennese School, the French composers, and Bartók, Mahler, and Stravinsky. In truth I'm rather glad to have Boulez around (still), especially since I've never had to deal with him in person. The music, often beautiful and often strange, stands on its own.
Bebel Gilberto's scrumptious Tanto Tempo was one of the top CDs of 2001 and provided track after track (in original and remixed versions, by Suba, Kruder & Dorfmeister and countless others) for lounges and lounge lizards all over the world. (It actually became one of Brazil's best-selling CDs ever, matching her famous father João Gilberto's efforts.)Last year she released her long-awaited followup, the eponymous Bebel Gilberto, which actually improves upon her debut issue. Gilberto tries out and succeeds with a wider range of musical source material and collaborators while keeping this new CD as mellow and melodic. She sings tunes these often ethereal sounding tunes in Portuguese, English and a mix of the two. As with the first CD, her music rooted in my ear while also seeming ripe for DJs' and mixers' re-visions.
My favorite tracks so far are "Aganjú," a Candomblé-flavored song written by Bahian impresario and musician Carlinhos Brown (most recently of Tribalistas fame), featuring a danceable melody and rhythm--and it actually conjures the Yoruba orisha it invokes; "Simplesmente," which is as simple and lovely a meditative song as its title suggests; "Winter," a slow and seductive charmer that is at least a season away from the chilly weather outdoors; and "All Around," another English-lyric song, written with Japanese musician Masa Shimizu, which Gilberto has said is her personal favorite; it even features a complete string orchestra accompaniment. Its refrain, the almost-banal but beautiful "Never forget that when / I think of you / You're not alone" keeps running through my head. Gilberto's music manages to enchant and relax at the same time, and here it falls more on casting its spells.
I missed Gilberto during her summer and fall tour of the US, so I hope to hear her perform some of these songs live eventually, but I also want to hear what remixers--and she attracts some of the best out there--stir up in the meanwhile.
***
Tomorrow marks the 80th birthday of the one of the 20th century's former infants terribles, the extraordinary French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez (1925-). After taking a degree in mathematics he later studied with the inimitable Frenchman Olivier Messiaen, and René Leibowitz, the doyen of the Darmstadt School. Boulez originally became famous for his extreme, authoritarian pronouncements about music, such as that opera houses should be blown up, or, having dismissed most of the music of his predecessors in favor of the serial technique pioneered by Schoenberg, his subsequent triumphant declaration that Schoenberg was "dead!" Ah youth! In fact, Boulez was dismissive of almost all his peers as well, including such notable American composers as John Cage and Morton Feldman (some of whose chance techniques he soon incorporated into his works), arguing for a strict, scientific approach that emphasized atonality and organized every aspect of a composition (he did study math!). Boulez was known to be especially cutting and frosty in person, and Feldman in particular rants quite a bit about him, though he was hardly alone. Having killed off his father, Schoenberg, he then went out at wrote a piece in 1954, "Le marteau sans maître," whose debt to Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire" is so obvious it's painful--but it feels, at the same time, almost sui generis in sound, like music beamed down from Jupiter. It wasn't only the Austrian father he slew; having symbolically shot down French daddy Claude Debussy (so little variation! all that static harmony! that Hispanophilia!), Boulez then incorporated the poetry of Stephane Mallarmé into one of his major works, "Pli selon pli" (as Debussy had done in his greatest composition, the orchestral masterpiece "Prélude de l'aprés-midi d'un faune")....
But, with time for some comes maturity (also known as the combination of perspective and a little wisdom), and so it was with Boulez. He began conducting in the 1960s, and gradually became one of the most noteworthy interpreters not only of early 20th century avant-garde music (especially Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky, Debussy, Bartók, Messiaen, Ligeti, and Carter), but also of some of the Romantic composers he so harshly decried, such as Mahler (some of his versions are among the best), Wagner, Bruckner, Dvorak, and...yes, Beethoven! The destroyer of institutions later led both the London Philharmonic (1971-1974) and, gods be stilled, the New York Philharmonic (1971-1977), conducted at the Bayreuth (!) and Paris Operas, and in the late 1970s founded both the l'Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), one of the leading institutions of electronic music in the world, and the Ensemble InterContemporain, an outstanding contemporary music performance group. Boulez has been a guest conductor for many years with several other major establishment orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and before that with Cleveland's great symphony, and is supposedly now much more generous, not only to fellow composers, but to musicians and concert attendees. (I hope to see him conduct Berg's "Chamber Concerto" in Chicago later this spring.)
As for his own music, he began to relax some of his strictures by the late 1950s, and has rewritten or reworked a number of his pieces. Others he has withdrawn. Some of the compositions since the mid-1960s not only have tone coloristic qualities that echo Romanticism and much of the 20th century's sonic experiments, but moments approximating an emotional presence and warmth. A number of the later pieces are fragments, which seems quite fitting for a composer who called for total serialization and organization, while sniffing at others who were writing in standard key signatures and using traditional forms. (If you throw out all the foundations, well, you've got to come up with new ones!)
Of course there are many who still loathe him, or at least the idea of him. Grudges die hard, and the man has long held considerable power and is the embodiment of the contemporary, moribund classical music establishment, which is enough of a crime for many people. Josh Ronsen came up with a novel way of expressing his Boulez-disgust, while the leading American composer John Adams and the young British composer Thomas Adès both offer up deliciously waspish thoughts (scroll down to the bottom) about Boulez's historical significance. Pre-mid 60s Boulez is often harsh, rigid and suffused, I think, with an anger born of arrogance and superiority, an attempt to surpass, and in a certain sense, erase all else that has come before, while the later works often appear to battle through their failures to live up to his grand designs. His struggles are audible throughout them, with their often ghostly instrumental pairings and multiples, their insistent harmonic bleets, shimmers and moans, and the sometimes thrilling racing or glacial tempi. As formal artifacts that convey intellectual beauty or conceptual possibility more than emotion, they strike me as better musical analogs of Mallarmé, for example, particularly the Mallarmé of the "livre pur" than anything Debussy composed.
I personally like a number of his later compositions, including "...explosant-fixe..." and the related works "Anthèmes" and "Anthèmes 2," and "Mémoriale"; "Messagesquisses"; "Dialogue de l'Ombre Double"; "Répons" (I've gone back and forth with this one); and "Dérive I" and "II." The early piano sonatas and "Notations" (for piano--I like the orchestral version) I can stomach on an exceptional day, like "Marteau." As a conductor, I think he's one of the best with the Second Viennese School, the French composers, and Bartók, Mahler, and Stravinsky. In truth I'm rather glad to have Boulez around (still), especially since I've never had to deal with him in person. The music, often beautiful and often strange, stands on its own.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Editions Balland Le Rayon series: Mort
During an overseas trip a few years ago, I picked up several books, by Erik Remès, Nicolas Pages, Djallil Djellad, and Michel Zumkir, which were all published by French publisher Éditions Balland, under their le Rayon (the Ray) gay fiction line. 
The editor of the series was a writer I in my ignorance had never heard of, though he was already zooming down the path of becoming one of the most notorious and exciting figures in contemporary French publishing: Guillaume Dustan. I grabbed these books because I'd asked one of the people working in the bookstore, Les Mots à la Bouche, who the most interesting younger French gay writers were, and he pointed me towards table stacked with Rayon's colorful, eyecatching volumes. I also grabbed Rachid O.'s Chocolat Chaud, published by Gallimard. Whenever I've been fortunate enough to travel I've looked for new work by (younger) black or LGBT or black LGBT authors, since it's usually the last to be translated. Though none of the authors were from sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean or Latin America--which is to say, black Francophone people as I'd mentally constructed them--Djellad and O. were among the few Maghrebi (from north Africa) presences in this new gay wave.
My original goal was to read and translate all of these works--but of course translation is tough work! I did make some headway with O., Pages, Djellad, and Zumkir, and eventually contacted Balland via e-mail to inquire about publishing the translations of the Swiss artist and writer Pages's novel Je mange un oeuf (I Eat an Egg for Breakfast) in an American literary journal. I'd gotten furthest with it. Who responded? Not a foreign rights representative, as with Gallimard, but the editor-in-infamy himself, Guillaume Dustan! I had sort of expected a snappish exchange the author of the laceratingly ironic and anti-sentimental autofiction brickbats Dans ma chambre (translated into English and published by Serpents Tail), Je sors ce soir, Plus fort que moi, and Nicolas Pages, but he was both professional and pleasant, and stated that I needed to have whatever journal that agreed to publish the work contact Balland to square things away. Doing the translations, he made clear, were okay. I gathered that he actually could speak and write English well (as is the case with nearly every non-U.S. author I've translated), but didn't want to and wouldn't, so our correspondence was in my faltering and too formal written French.
Okay, so I had this e-mail exchange with Dustan, whoop-de-doo. Well, in the interim, I've tried repeatedly to place the selections from Pages's novel...but no one will touch them. (Pages has since written two others, spent time in the US working with Nan Goldin, and been immortalized, as I noted above, by Dustan, in the eponymous volume that won the Prix de Flore in 1999.) I thought this might be because the translations weren't that good, but I did have several readers and speakers of French review them and they thought they were on target and lively enough. (I refuse to believe that people in the literary world have caught the virus of Francophobia, and rather think the work is just not sophisticated enough.) The Pages novel is a breezy, highly repetitious diary of his activities, from waking (je me reveille) to sleeping (je me dors, je me couche), with a heavy emphasis on cruising guys, having sex, smoking pot, hitting clubs, obsessing over his health, and eating raclettes (a Swiss delicacy). The prose style pulses, like strobe lights (or the techno music that hovers beneath its surface), à la post-modern Pater. Pages jaunts all over the place--across his native country of a thousand years of peace, to London, Paris, Mykonos, etc.--and subtly details an ethics of living and artmaking that parallels, in many ways, gay men's all over the world, but more closely Dustan's. In fact, Dustan appears to have incorporated elements, down to the prose style itself, of Pages's novel into his novel Nicolas Pages, which differs, however, in its greater formal complexity, thematic depth, and overall chattiness and bitchiness. Where Pages's novel steadily opens onto the (his) self, Dustan's encompasses the (his) world.
So I couldn't publish the Pages pieces, though I've subsequently applied for grants (about which I'm extremely doubtful about my chances of getting any funds) to continue translations of Djellad and O., because it struck me that, for a variety of reasons, especially right now, providing Americans and other English speakers access to original texts by (LGBT) Muslims living in a hostile Western (a/k/a French) society might be helpful in fostering greater knowledge and understanding--and perhaps even one means to a dialogue. But when I went to contact Dustan again, I learned that he was no longer the editor of the Rayon series, and woe betide, it no longer existed. Balland was still offering the books for sale, but the line was gone. In fact, they'd effectively wiped it from their Website. Then, last fall, on the online Nouvel Observateur, I read that Balland itself had to file for bankruptcy. (This despite its great success in publishing Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.) Many of the books have found publishers, but Rayon was significant for blazing a path in publishing a wide range of younger, out, sometimes controversial, and usually very talented French authors, as well as notable foreign authors.
I do intend to keep translating these works, I guess as private projects, though perhaps I will find a publisher for some of them. Pages' novel has since been republished--this is now the third time--by J'ai lu. It's definitely got something going for it. Or take Patrick Thévenin's word: "I remember the first time I read this book, I said to myself that this book only spoke about me. When, in fact, this book spoke only about Nicolas Pages himself, or another. But the important thing was that it spoke so well about me. And I thought that books that spoke so well about me, or about anyone else, were far too rare." At any rate, maybe I'll even get to Dustan's works too. He, by the way, has published about 4 or 5 new works since our e-mail exchange, including his most recent nonfiction work, Premier essai: chronique du temps présent [First essay: Chronicle of the Present Times] (Broché, 2005), and Dernier roman [Last Novel] (Flammarion, 2004).
The editor of the series was a writer I in my ignorance had never heard of, though he was already zooming down the path of becoming one of the most notorious and exciting figures in contemporary French publishing: Guillaume Dustan. I grabbed these books because I'd asked one of the people working in the bookstore, Les Mots à la Bouche, who the most interesting younger French gay writers were, and he pointed me towards table stacked with Rayon's colorful, eyecatching volumes. I also grabbed Rachid O.'s Chocolat Chaud, published by Gallimard. Whenever I've been fortunate enough to travel I've looked for new work by (younger) black or LGBT or black LGBT authors, since it's usually the last to be translated. Though none of the authors were from sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean or Latin America--which is to say, black Francophone people as I'd mentally constructed them--Djellad and O. were among the few Maghrebi (from north Africa) presences in this new gay wave.My original goal was to read and translate all of these works--but of course translation is tough work! I did make some headway with O., Pages, Djellad, and Zumkir, and eventually contacted Balland via e-mail to inquire about publishing the translations of the Swiss artist and writer Pages's novel Je mange un oeuf (I Eat an Egg for Breakfast) in an American literary journal. I'd gotten furthest with it. Who responded? Not a foreign rights representative, as with Gallimard, but the editor-in-infamy himself, Guillaume Dustan! I had sort of expected a snappish exchange the author of the laceratingly ironic and anti-sentimental autofiction brickbats Dans ma chambre (translated into English and published by Serpents Tail), Je sors ce soir, Plus fort que moi, and Nicolas Pages, but he was both professional and pleasant, and stated that I needed to have whatever journal that agreed to publish the work contact Balland to square things away. Doing the translations, he made clear, were okay. I gathered that he actually could speak and write English well (as is the case with nearly every non-U.S. author I've translated), but didn't want to and wouldn't, so our correspondence was in my faltering and too formal written French.
Okay, so I had this e-mail exchange with Dustan, whoop-de-doo. Well, in the interim, I've tried repeatedly to place the selections from Pages's novel...but no one will touch them. (Pages has since written two others, spent time in the US working with Nan Goldin, and been immortalized, as I noted above, by Dustan, in the eponymous volume that won the Prix de Flore in 1999.) I thought this might be because the translations weren't that good, but I did have several readers and speakers of French review them and they thought they were on target and lively enough. (I refuse to believe that people in the literary world have caught the virus of Francophobia, and rather think the work is just not sophisticated enough.) The Pages novel is a breezy, highly repetitious diary of his activities, from waking (je me reveille) to sleeping (je me dors, je me couche), with a heavy emphasis on cruising guys, having sex, smoking pot, hitting clubs, obsessing over his health, and eating raclettes (a Swiss delicacy). The prose style pulses, like strobe lights (or the techno music that hovers beneath its surface), à la post-modern Pater. Pages jaunts all over the place--across his native country of a thousand years of peace, to London, Paris, Mykonos, etc.--and subtly details an ethics of living and artmaking that parallels, in many ways, gay men's all over the world, but more closely Dustan's. In fact, Dustan appears to have incorporated elements, down to the prose style itself, of Pages's novel into his novel Nicolas Pages, which differs, however, in its greater formal complexity, thematic depth, and overall chattiness and bitchiness. Where Pages's novel steadily opens onto the (his) self, Dustan's encompasses the (his) world.
So I couldn't publish the Pages pieces, though I've subsequently applied for grants (about which I'm extremely doubtful about my chances of getting any funds) to continue translations of Djellad and O., because it struck me that, for a variety of reasons, especially right now, providing Americans and other English speakers access to original texts by (LGBT) Muslims living in a hostile Western (a/k/a French) society might be helpful in fostering greater knowledge and understanding--and perhaps even one means to a dialogue. But when I went to contact Dustan again, I learned that he was no longer the editor of the Rayon series, and woe betide, it no longer existed. Balland was still offering the books for sale, but the line was gone. In fact, they'd effectively wiped it from their Website. Then, last fall, on the online Nouvel Observateur, I read that Balland itself had to file for bankruptcy. (This despite its great success in publishing Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.) Many of the books have found publishers, but Rayon was significant for blazing a path in publishing a wide range of younger, out, sometimes controversial, and usually very talented French authors, as well as notable foreign authors.
I do intend to keep translating these works, I guess as private projects, though perhaps I will find a publisher for some of them. Pages' novel has since been republished--this is now the third time--by J'ai lu. It's definitely got something going for it. Or take Patrick Thévenin's word: "I remember the first time I read this book, I said to myself that this book only spoke about me. When, in fact, this book spoke only about Nicolas Pages himself, or another. But the important thing was that it spoke so well about me. And I thought that books that spoke so well about me, or about anyone else, were far too rare." At any rate, maybe I'll even get to Dustan's works too. He, by the way, has published about 4 or 5 new works since our e-mail exchange, including his most recent nonfiction work, Premier essai: chronique du temps présent [First essay: Chronicle of the Present Times] (Broché, 2005), and Dernier roman [Last Novel] (Flammarion, 2004).
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Frida Kahlo, the Love Affair All Over Again
When I was in my early 20s, I came across Hayden Herrera's biography of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), and immediately became obsessed with Kahlo. Obsessed to the point of drawing badly derivative pieces of myself splayed out nude on a white background, with umbilical cords or wires or ropes or cualquier sabe solamente el Díos extending from my body--from stigmata? I can't recall--out into the foreground (or negative space, what have you). In one drawing I do recall, the cords/wires/ropes were tethered to books, and I actually created little books (cut the covers and pages, sewed them together, penned in tiny texts, etc.) which I planned to attach to the (unrealized) oil paintings that, like Kahlo's, were going to be my modest but ultimately epoch-shattering contributions to the visual arts. 
Last summer while cleaning up my main desk drawer I even came across one of the booklets. Its cover was cobalt blue (in homage to none other than Yves Klein, who will merit a mention here at some point down the pike, and Miles Davis), its miniscule pages filled with doggerel. Others I'd planned to fill with the great epic poem I was going to write, which would bear the combined essences, while being utterly original, of Aimé Césaire, St.-John Perse and none other than Pablo Neruda, whose lines like redwoods have rooted in my consciousness forever: " Ah vastedad de pinos, rumor de olas quebrándose...."
But back to Kahlo--I shook off my thrall eventually, but not after pig-earing and breaking the spine of that Herrera volume and hunting down anything I could find about her in every bookstore and library within a 5-mile radius of Boston. At the time, my friend Kevin K. and I imagined, maybe even vowed that we would live lives like those of the artists we admired (Kahlo! Basquiat! Klein! Warhol! García Márquez! Genet! etc.), and for me, Kahlo's rebelliousness, her bisexuality (or polysexuality), her endless physical and emotional suffering, her Catholic and mixed heritages, her leftist political allegiances, and her passionate and undying love (for a difficult but amazing man) were things I totally identified with. She nearly died for love--more than once! She hosted and slept with Trosky and Noguchi! She seduced Breton's wife (or maybe that was just a rumor) and countless other women! She had her loyal acolytes come to her house in Coayacán, where she liberated their minds and aesthetics, while sometimes running around in the nude. She was an artist who was fêted in other countries (the United States, France!) yet didn't have an exhibit of her work in her home country until she could no longer get out of bed--and so, being the diva she was, she had her bed brought by ambulance to the gallery! I also loved those images, which she ginned up in her head but which drew upon a wealth of traditions, stunning even the Surrealists. For me her artwork was the main thing, and those images remain indelible.
But as I said, the thrall broke, and I found new artists to worship--Anselm Kiefer and Joseph Beuys, Wilfredo Lam, Dana C. Chandler Jr., Meret Oppenheim, David Hammons, nearly all the Russian Constructivists, and almost anyone who happened to be exhibiting at MIT's List Visual Arts Center, which for me became one of the cutting edge places to see (new) art, especially from beyond the U.S.'s shores, and then babble about it with people like Kevin and the (more sophisticated, it seemed) Dark Room writers, some of whom were watching Tarkovsky films at the Harvard Film archives and hobnobbing with the likes of Richard Leacock.
The thrall broke, and soon it seemed everyone was latching onto Frida Kahlo. Including Madonna. Supposedly a movie was in the works...a Hollywood movie, no less!...which of course is basically a death knell...and then it appeared in 2002, starring Salma Hayek, which led me to stifle a scream, because at the very least, she is Mexican (but was it just me, or were all the tan and dark-skinned Mexicans who populate Mexico's capital city and its suburbs somehow overlooked [erased?] during the filming of that biopic?), and she produced it. The movie was colorful and entertaining and included some charming mimicry by Hayek and Alfred Molina, but it and the industry that had developed around her led me to cross Frida Kahlo off my list, at least for the foreseeable future.
But tonight, like a good bourgeois spectator, I was watching TV, and after surfing between "America's Next Top Model," which I'd managed to avoid so far, and "Survivor: Palau," which I'd also managed to ignore until Ryan C. urged me to check out Ibrehem ("the lips," etc.), I decided I'd stay glued to the couch and watch the PBS special on Kahlo, "The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo," which I'd also read about in Anita Gates's preview in the increasing irrelevant New York Times. And lo and behold...Kahlo cast her spell over me all over again. By the end of the hour and a half I didn't want the narrative to end. I wanted more images, anecdotes--more Frida! I restrained myself from pointing out to my partner C. that one of my former professors, the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, was one of the talking heads, or from giving a potted history of who Carlos Monsiváis or Elena Poniatowska was, even from rushing upstairs and fishing out my copy of Herrera's biography--I was satisfied simply to sit and listen, watch, start my mental tape and enjoy being in Kahlo's company again. I understood why I'd fallen in awe before, and why people will continue to do so; she was and remains an extraordinary figure, an utter original.
"VIVA LA VIDA"--Frida Kahlo
Last summer while cleaning up my main desk drawer I even came across one of the booklets. Its cover was cobalt blue (in homage to none other than Yves Klein, who will merit a mention here at some point down the pike, and Miles Davis), its miniscule pages filled with doggerel. Others I'd planned to fill with the great epic poem I was going to write, which would bear the combined essences, while being utterly original, of Aimé Césaire, St.-John Perse and none other than Pablo Neruda, whose lines like redwoods have rooted in my consciousness forever: " Ah vastedad de pinos, rumor de olas quebrándose...."But back to Kahlo--I shook off my thrall eventually, but not after pig-earing and breaking the spine of that Herrera volume and hunting down anything I could find about her in every bookstore and library within a 5-mile radius of Boston. At the time, my friend Kevin K. and I imagined, maybe even vowed that we would live lives like those of the artists we admired (Kahlo! Basquiat! Klein! Warhol! García Márquez! Genet! etc.), and for me, Kahlo's rebelliousness, her bisexuality (or polysexuality), her endless physical and emotional suffering, her Catholic and mixed heritages, her leftist political allegiances, and her passionate and undying love (for a difficult but amazing man) were things I totally identified with. She nearly died for love--more than once! She hosted and slept with Trosky and Noguchi! She seduced Breton's wife (or maybe that was just a rumor) and countless other women! She had her loyal acolytes come to her house in Coayacán, where she liberated their minds and aesthetics, while sometimes running around in the nude. She was an artist who was fêted in other countries (the United States, France!) yet didn't have an exhibit of her work in her home country until she could no longer get out of bed--and so, being the diva she was, she had her bed brought by ambulance to the gallery! I also loved those images, which she ginned up in her head but which drew upon a wealth of traditions, stunning even the Surrealists. For me her artwork was the main thing, and those images remain indelible.
But as I said, the thrall broke, and I found new artists to worship--Anselm Kiefer and Joseph Beuys, Wilfredo Lam, Dana C. Chandler Jr., Meret Oppenheim, David Hammons, nearly all the Russian Constructivists, and almost anyone who happened to be exhibiting at MIT's List Visual Arts Center, which for me became one of the cutting edge places to see (new) art, especially from beyond the U.S.'s shores, and then babble about it with people like Kevin and the (more sophisticated, it seemed) Dark Room writers, some of whom were watching Tarkovsky films at the Harvard Film archives and hobnobbing with the likes of Richard Leacock.
The thrall broke, and soon it seemed everyone was latching onto Frida Kahlo. Including Madonna. Supposedly a movie was in the works...a Hollywood movie, no less!...which of course is basically a death knell...and then it appeared in 2002, starring Salma Hayek, which led me to stifle a scream, because at the very least, she is Mexican (but was it just me, or were all the tan and dark-skinned Mexicans who populate Mexico's capital city and its suburbs somehow overlooked [erased?] during the filming of that biopic?), and she produced it. The movie was colorful and entertaining and included some charming mimicry by Hayek and Alfred Molina, but it and the industry that had developed around her led me to cross Frida Kahlo off my list, at least for the foreseeable future.
But tonight, like a good bourgeois spectator, I was watching TV, and after surfing between "America's Next Top Model," which I'd managed to avoid so far, and "Survivor: Palau," which I'd also managed to ignore until Ryan C. urged me to check out Ibrehem ("the lips," etc.), I decided I'd stay glued to the couch and watch the PBS special on Kahlo, "The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo," which I'd also read about in Anita Gates's preview in the increasing irrelevant New York Times. And lo and behold...Kahlo cast her spell over me all over again. By the end of the hour and a half I didn't want the narrative to end. I wanted more images, anecdotes--more Frida! I restrained myself from pointing out to my partner C. that one of my former professors, the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, was one of the talking heads, or from giving a potted history of who Carlos Monsiváis or Elena Poniatowska was, even from rushing upstairs and fishing out my copy of Herrera's biography--I was satisfied simply to sit and listen, watch, start my mental tape and enjoy being in Kahlo's company again. I understood why I'd fallen in awe before, and why people will continue to do so; she was and remains an extraordinary figure, an utter original.
"VIVA LA VIDA"--Frida Kahlo
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Thom Mayne + Bobby Short
Yesterday Los Angeles-based architect Thom Mayne won the 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the "Nobel" of the architecture world, for his "'talent, vision, and commitment to furthering the art of architecture,' and for an outstanding body of work and future promise." He's the first American winner in more than a decade, and has been described by critics as a "maverick," which I take to mean that he truly has done his own thing. His buildings (the Caltrans Headquarters in Los Angeles being the most notable of the recent ones), especially the major ones of them certainly singular works of this ancient collaborative art, bear this out. Some critics have snarked at his work, though in photo and jpeg form, at least, their originality and boldness, as well as their emphasis on particular details, such as a metal screens and monumental signage, charm me. Mayne runs a very hot architectural shop called Morphosis, which means "being in the process of change," and has many more high-level commissions on the way, including a new building for the Cooper Union on Cooper Square and a planned Olympic Village for Queens). But one of the most significant aspects of his career, I think, is his co-founding of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), an architectural school that he hoped would "radical[ly]" rejuvenate architectural education by bringing a new complexity of vision and incorporating then-current theoretical discussions--in addition to the necessary studies in drafting, history and aesthetics--into the classroom. SCI-Arc still exists, and though Mayne no longer teaches there, this kind of visionary educational work is but one of his important legacies.
***
Yesterday, I heard that pianist Bobby Short died at age 80 from leukemia. I'd always wanted to see him perform at the Café Carlyle, but never got around to it, mainly out of laziness and a fear of disappointment (though that has hardly kept me from realizing any number of other longstanding wishes over the years). Or maybe it was some other fear--of enjoying his performance too much? Some things about him--his prissiness, his ties to the New York aristocracy, and especially Gloria Vanderbilt, his seeming Tom-ishness and equanimity about racial issues, what I thought to be his narrow repertoire--annoyed me. And yet I was also fascinated by him, from childhood on. I wondered what his life was really like--what lurked behind that always gay façade? Later I learned that he often paid homage to the tradition of African-American musical composition, and was less of a jester than the media made him out to be. I learned that he didn't grow up in luxury, but was the 9th of 10 children from Danville, Illinois, and had started working while still a child, gaining fame for his pianistic prowess by his early teens. I learned that while he'd played for the likes of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, he'd also jammed with Louis Armstrong and Mabel Mercer. I also grew to like his interpretations of certain songs, including Cole Porter's "You're the Top," even though I couldn't bear to hear him singing it when I was 21. All that finickiness, his phrasings, his timbre...now I actually enjoy it. I don't own even one Bobby Short CD, but I probably would buy one, maybe even the supposedly incredible one pairing him and Mercer, just to be able to listen to him from time to time. Better late than never.
***
Yesterday, I heard that pianist Bobby Short died at age 80 from leukemia. I'd always wanted to see him perform at the Café Carlyle, but never got around to it, mainly out of laziness and a fear of disappointment (though that has hardly kept me from realizing any number of other longstanding wishes over the years). Or maybe it was some other fear--of enjoying his performance too much? Some things about him--his prissiness, his ties to the New York aristocracy, and especially Gloria Vanderbilt, his seeming Tom-ishness and equanimity about racial issues, what I thought to be his narrow repertoire--annoyed me. And yet I was also fascinated by him, from childhood on. I wondered what his life was really like--what lurked behind that always gay façade? Later I learned that he often paid homage to the tradition of African-American musical composition, and was less of a jester than the media made him out to be. I learned that he didn't grow up in luxury, but was the 9th of 10 children from Danville, Illinois, and had started working while still a child, gaining fame for his pianistic prowess by his early teens. I learned that while he'd played for the likes of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, he'd also jammed with Louis Armstrong and Mabel Mercer. I also grew to like his interpretations of certain songs, including Cole Porter's "You're the Top," even though I couldn't bear to hear him singing it when I was 21. All that finickiness, his phrasings, his timbre...now I actually enjoy it. I don't own even one Bobby Short CD, but I probably would buy one, maybe even the supposedly incredible one pairing him and Mercer, just to be able to listen to him from time to time. Better late than never.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Sometimes in April
Yesterday I posted Raquel Cepeda's AP question-and-answer transcipt with actor Idris Elba to call attention to his work as an actor in general, and to his current role in the Raoul Peck film "Sometimes in April," which I saw tonight. If you have access to HBO East or West, I strongly urge you to see it, but I will say that it's far more graphic and saddening than "Hotel Rwanda," which was a tragic and moving film. Telling the story of two Hutu brothers (Elba is soldier Augustin Muganza, who married a Tutsi woman and had three children, while Oris Erhuero is Honoré Muganza, a radio DJ who helped to fan the flames of ethnic rage) who found themselves on opposite sides of the 1994 genocide, "Sometimes in April" explores the roots of the tragedy in Rwanda's colonial history and the inaction of the West as nearly 1 million people were murdered. Its incisive pacing and cross-cutting narrative structure, its chronotopic authenticity and verisimilitude (it's the first movied on the 1994 massacres filmed on the sites in Rwanda where they took place) wrench you out of emotional complacency.
As I watched, sometimes having to turn away from the screen because of the brutal events portrayed (though the film mostly avoided gore), I kept asking myself, how on earth do we as human beings allow these kinds of tragedies to occur? Why? Why do we value human lives so little that so many of us would either participate in the oppression and slaughter of those around us, because of some perceived or real difference (in race, ethnicity, sexual orientation religion, language, social class, and so on), or, as horrible, why do so many of us sit by silently and not speak out?
I cried more than once while watching this film, and I thank director Raoul Peck, the outstanding cast of actors (especially Elba, Erhuero, Debra Winger, and others, including the hundreds of Rwandan extras), and HBO Films for making this movie possible.
***
If you haven't seen Raoul Peck's 2001 feature film Lumumba, I highly recommend it. Though it's primarily a historical biopic on the late Congelese liberation hero and leader, it opens up a window onto the history of early post-colonial Africa, and the Cold War's (and in particular the US's) role in the failed politics that have plagued so many African nations since the 1960s. I also highly recommend Peck's excellent documentary, Lumumba, la mort du prophéte (Lumumba: Death of a Prophet), which appeared in 1992 and won the Procirep Prize, Festival du Réel and Best Documentary at the Montreal Film Festival.
As I watched, sometimes having to turn away from the screen because of the brutal events portrayed (though the film mostly avoided gore), I kept asking myself, how on earth do we as human beings allow these kinds of tragedies to occur? Why? Why do we value human lives so little that so many of us would either participate in the oppression and slaughter of those around us, because of some perceived or real difference (in race, ethnicity, sexual orientation religion, language, social class, and so on), or, as horrible, why do so many of us sit by silently and not speak out?
I cried more than once while watching this film, and I thank director Raoul Peck, the outstanding cast of actors (especially Elba, Erhuero, Debra Winger, and others, including the hundreds of Rwandan extras), and HBO Films for making this movie possible.
***
If you haven't seen Raoul Peck's 2001 feature film Lumumba, I highly recommend it. Though it's primarily a historical biopic on the late Congelese liberation hero and leader, it opens up a window onto the history of early post-colonial Africa, and the Cold War's (and in particular the US's) role in the failed politics that have plagued so many African nations since the 1960s. I also highly recommend Peck's excellent documentary, Lumumba, la mort du prophéte (Lumumba: Death of a Prophet), which appeared in 1992 and won the Procirep Prize, Festival du Réel and Best Documentary at the Montreal Film Festival.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
AP Q&A with actor Idris Elba
One of my favorite actors, the gorgeous Briton Idris Elba, will be starring in director Raoul Peck's (Lumumba) new film, on the Rwanda genocide, "Sometimes in April," which premieres tonight on HBO at 8 pm. Recently, the AP's Raquel Cepeda conducted an interview with Elba that I'm reprinting here, according to the Fair Use doctrine.
Originally posted by the AP on Tuesday, Mar. 15, 2005
AP Q&A with actor Idris Elba
by Raquel Cepeda, Associated Press
NEW YORK - Fans of "The Wire" lost a family member when Idris Elba's drug dealing, real-estate-loving character Russell "Stringer" Bell got whacked last December. Now the Afro-European actor is back on HBO, playing Hutu soldier Augustin Muganza in director Raoul Peck's new film "Sometimes in April," which premieres Saturday at 8 p.m. EST.
The epic unfolds concurrently in April 2004 and April 1994. The latter marks the onslaught of the Rwandan ethnic genocide that would claim an estimated 800,000 lives in just 100 days. Based on true stories and filmed where the actual events occurred, "Sometimes in April" shows Muganza as a survivor trying to reconcile the atrocities that tore his family and country apart.
The 32-year-old Brit spoke with The Associated Press in his native Cockney accent about Don Cheadle, his mid-life music crisis and the state of black cinema:
AP: How emotional was it for you to get into character to play Augustin Muganza?
Elba: I knew this was going to be a difficult film, but I didn't realize that by the end of the film I'd be so attached to it that it became a solid part of my memory, and changed my viewpoint on a lot of things. The people (that survived the genocide) lived through it and here am I as an actor - it nearly turned my world over and strengthened me at the same time.
AP: Carole Karemera, your wife in the movie, is she one of the survivors?
Elba: Yes, there were times when she was definitely moved more so than we were because this was her home. But she is a survivor and there is a lot of pride that comes with that. There were other actors that had to take five minutes to collect their thoughts. We shot this movie in exactly a lot of locations where it actually happened, and for a lot of the survivors it was like re-living the whole thing again.
AP: With the acclaim for Don Cheadle and "Hotel Rwanda," did you feel an added pressure to carry your film?
Elba: No, it was encouraging, in fact. ... I was so pleased that Don Cheadle was going to take on a role like this and his film is such a big Hollywood blockbuster, I was glad that they were going for it and I am proud that it has done so well.
AP: Is there still tension between the Tutsis and the Hutus in present day Rwanda
Elba: In Rwanda now there is race of Rwandese people - whether Hutu, Tutsi or Twa - who are trying to make a better and successful place. They have issues with poverty and they're dealing with that. They have a business structure they are trying to build up. Rwanda is a success story. If you compare the Rwanda from ten years ago until now, it's an amazing success story.
AP: Films like "Sometimes in April" are so few and far in between in black cinema today. Americans, on the other hand, are cranking out one "Barbershop" after another.
Elba: All these films have their place in the market and are necessary for the commerce of black film. I don't think that commercial films hurt us. I do believe that the educated audience that is out there are starving and need films that are going to broaden their minds. Not everyone wants to laugh and giggle at a film on a Friday night, and those that do are sufficiently taken care of. Films that are more educational are more difficult to fund. Like Raoul made two films that challenged politics and challenged the way we think about it, and gave us a broader view of what happened in certain parts of Africa. I'm not mad at these films that get made (like) the "Fridays" and it keeps our black dollar relevant, you know what I mean?
AP: Would you ever consider starring in one of those films?
Elba: I don't limit myself at all. Musicians, painters, directors or writers that kind of snub that commercial world are often fearful because they can't do it.
AP: Talk about the film you're currently shooting, "The Gospel."
Elba: It's about a black church in Georgia. I play a young pastor who was brought up by a man who brought up his son and me. His son is a very successful R&B singer and my character stays in the church. When the pastor dies, my character wants to turn it into a more electronic, T.D. Jakes type of church. But the son from the R&B world wants to keep the church more traditional, so there's sort of a dilemma with what kind of faith you should follow.
AP: Like your fictional brother in "The Gospel," music is your passion in real life. I've been to some really amazing parties where you've DJed on the wheels of steel.
Elba: I'm going through a mid-music-life crisis right now (laughs). I was born and raised in London, by African parents. I was brought up with the sound system of England, and I did pirate radio for a long time. When I first came to America, I needed to use my records to make money to survive while I was auditioning. I got into the hip-hop world really heavily. After my work on "The Wire," I got exposed to that world even more so. In Europe, drum-n-bass and house, and U.K. hip-hop and all of that stuff, and garage is all big. So my future sets are going to be much more mixed, but finding an audience for
that is hard to do. I do a lot of mixtapes where I blend in stuff. I'll put rock vocals with some reggae, I'll mix some drum-n-bass with some hip-hop.
AP: Have the floodgates of opportunity opened for you due to your work in "Sometimes in April?"
Elba: It's really from "The Wire," that's really where people discovered what I do. It hasn't exactly turned into checks yet, but the interest is definitely there. I'm not in a rush to become a "movie star" because as a black actor, we often tend to rush things or believe our hype a bit too early, and therefore our careers are shortened in the long run.
AP: Playing Stringer Bell also turned you into a sex symbol.
Elba: (Laughs.) Well, "Sometimes in April" knocked that out the box. There is no sex appeal in that movie nowhere! I think there's a shot of my feet, and I must not have had a pedicure for that month or so. That whole sex symbol thing came from Stringer being such a charismatic gangster, and Americans are in love with charismatic gangsters.
Originally posted by the AP on Tuesday, Mar. 15, 2005
AP Q&A with actor Idris Elba
by Raquel Cepeda, Associated Press
NEW YORK - Fans of "The Wire" lost a family member when Idris Elba's drug dealing, real-estate-loving character Russell "Stringer" Bell got whacked last December. Now the Afro-European actor is back on HBO, playing Hutu soldier Augustin Muganza in director Raoul Peck's new film "Sometimes in April," which premieres Saturday at 8 p.m. EST.
The epic unfolds concurrently in April 2004 and April 1994. The latter marks the onslaught of the Rwandan ethnic genocide that would claim an estimated 800,000 lives in just 100 days. Based on true stories and filmed where the actual events occurred, "Sometimes in April" shows Muganza as a survivor trying to reconcile the atrocities that tore his family and country apart.
The 32-year-old Brit spoke with The Associated Press in his native Cockney accent about Don Cheadle, his mid-life music crisis and the state of black cinema:AP: How emotional was it for you to get into character to play Augustin Muganza?
Elba: I knew this was going to be a difficult film, but I didn't realize that by the end of the film I'd be so attached to it that it became a solid part of my memory, and changed my viewpoint on a lot of things. The people (that survived the genocide) lived through it and here am I as an actor - it nearly turned my world over and strengthened me at the same time.
AP: Carole Karemera, your wife in the movie, is she one of the survivors?
Elba: Yes, there were times when she was definitely moved more so than we were because this was her home. But she is a survivor and there is a lot of pride that comes with that. There were other actors that had to take five minutes to collect their thoughts. We shot this movie in exactly a lot of locations where it actually happened, and for a lot of the survivors it was like re-living the whole thing again.
AP: With the acclaim for Don Cheadle and "Hotel Rwanda," did you feel an added pressure to carry your film?
Elba: No, it was encouraging, in fact. ... I was so pleased that Don Cheadle was going to take on a role like this and his film is such a big Hollywood blockbuster, I was glad that they were going for it and I am proud that it has done so well.
AP: Is there still tension between the Tutsis and the Hutus in present day Rwanda
Elba: In Rwanda now there is race of Rwandese people - whether Hutu, Tutsi or Twa - who are trying to make a better and successful place. They have issues with poverty and they're dealing with that. They have a business structure they are trying to build up. Rwanda is a success story. If you compare the Rwanda from ten years ago until now, it's an amazing success story.
AP: Films like "Sometimes in April" are so few and far in between in black cinema today. Americans, on the other hand, are cranking out one "Barbershop" after another.
Elba: All these films have their place in the market and are necessary for the commerce of black film. I don't think that commercial films hurt us. I do believe that the educated audience that is out there are starving and need films that are going to broaden their minds. Not everyone wants to laugh and giggle at a film on a Friday night, and those that do are sufficiently taken care of. Films that are more educational are more difficult to fund. Like Raoul made two films that challenged politics and challenged the way we think about it, and gave us a broader view of what happened in certain parts of Africa. I'm not mad at these films that get made (like) the "Fridays" and it keeps our black dollar relevant, you know what I mean?
AP: Would you ever consider starring in one of those films?
Elba: I don't limit myself at all. Musicians, painters, directors or writers that kind of snub that commercial world are often fearful because they can't do it.
AP: Talk about the film you're currently shooting, "The Gospel."
Elba: It's about a black church in Georgia. I play a young pastor who was brought up by a man who brought up his son and me. His son is a very successful R&B singer and my character stays in the church. When the pastor dies, my character wants to turn it into a more electronic, T.D. Jakes type of church. But the son from the R&B world wants to keep the church more traditional, so there's sort of a dilemma with what kind of faith you should follow.
AP: Like your fictional brother in "The Gospel," music is your passion in real life. I've been to some really amazing parties where you've DJed on the wheels of steel.
Elba: I'm going through a mid-music-life crisis right now (laughs). I was born and raised in London, by African parents. I was brought up with the sound system of England, and I did pirate radio for a long time. When I first came to America, I needed to use my records to make money to survive while I was auditioning. I got into the hip-hop world really heavily. After my work on "The Wire," I got exposed to that world even more so. In Europe, drum-n-bass and house, and U.K. hip-hop and all of that stuff, and garage is all big. So my future sets are going to be much more mixed, but finding an audience for
that is hard to do. I do a lot of mixtapes where I blend in stuff. I'll put rock vocals with some reggae, I'll mix some drum-n-bass with some hip-hop.AP: Have the floodgates of opportunity opened for you due to your work in "Sometimes in April?"
Elba: It's really from "The Wire," that's really where people discovered what I do. It hasn't exactly turned into checks yet, but the interest is definitely there. I'm not in a rush to become a "movie star" because as a black actor, we often tend to rush things or believe our hype a bit too early, and therefore our careers are shortened in the long run.
AP: Playing Stringer Bell also turned you into a sex symbol.
Elba: (Laughs.) Well, "Sometimes in April" knocked that out the box. There is no sex appeal in that movie nowhere! I think there's a shot of my feet, and I must not have had a pedicure for that month or so. That whole sex symbol thing came from Stringer being such a charismatic gangster, and Americans are in love with charismatic gangsters.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Saturday Quotes: Ludwig Wittgenstein + 3.19.2003
"Don't think, but look!"
"Ethics and aesthetics are one."
"Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination."
"For heaven's sake, don't be afraid of talking nonsense. But you must pay attention to your nonsense."
"The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something - because it is always before one's eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him. - And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful."
"If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done."
--all quotes by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
***
March 19, 2003 / March 19, 2005
Q: Was it worth it? (The costs so far--over 1,500 US and coalition soldiers killed; over 13,000 wounded; over 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed or wounded; hundreds of billions of dollars spent, many unaccounted for; Osama bin Laden still on the loose; a pro-Iranian Islamic government now in control of Iraq; the US's international standing now worse than before, our longstanding alliances severely damaged; and on and on.)
W. Definitely not, especially given the what we've learned about the original premises (the nonexistent WMDs, the phantom Hussein-Al Qaeda links, etc.).
"Ethics and aesthetics are one."
"Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination."
"For heaven's sake, don't be afraid of talking nonsense. But you must pay attention to your nonsense."
"The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something - because it is always before one's eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him. - And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful."
"If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done."
--all quotes by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
***
March 19, 2003 / March 19, 2005
Q: Was it worth it? (The costs so far--over 1,500 US and coalition soldiers killed; over 13,000 wounded; over 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed or wounded; hundreds of billions of dollars spent, many unaccounted for; Osama bin Laden still on the loose; a pro-Iranian Islamic government now in control of Iraq; the US's international standing now worse than before, our longstanding alliances severely damaged; and on and on.)
W. Definitely not, especially given the what we've learned about the original premises (the nonexistent WMDs, the phantom Hussein-Al Qaeda links, etc.).
Friday, March 18, 2005
Ellen Gallagher + More Lives Cut Short
I've known Ellen Gallagher since way back when. Or more accurately, I first met Ellen when she was just out of art school and living in Boston, back in the late 1980s. I had just joined the Dark Room Collective and Ellen was often at the Inman Street readings, exhibiting her artwork, drawing, hanging out, and generally being a lovely, gentle, and warm spirit. I didn't know her well, but we did chat from time to time. What else I recall: her smile mixing amiability and canniness, her quiet manner, and her determination to create art, which was what the Dark Room was in part about. She's kept on creating art, very fine art, in fact, for which she's now become quite famous.
Last fall the prestigious Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan held a solo show of Ellen's work, and just a few months ago, an exhibit of her recent work, "DeLuxe," opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in Manhattan. The specially created photogravures in "DeLuxe" rework imagery taken from black magazines, focusing on hair: she has painted over wigs in ads she's collected, from the late 1930s through the 1970s, geared to black women, with variously colored plasticene bouffants and bobs, while covering, framing, masking and otherwise transforming the figures' faces. She has grouped some of these images into larger grids that, like her earlier work, don't immediately disclose their complexity, careful draftspersonship, or profundity.
"Deluxe," from what I can tell, is chatting over the fence in terms of familial resemblance with Adrian Piper, in its deployment of grids, its mingling of media, its movement between conceptual abstraction and ontological critique, its utilization of process, its historical consciousness. It defies, unlike the work of some other contemporary artists, easy ideological analysis. Like some of Nayland Blake's works, it avoids a reductive reversal of (racial or sexual) stereotypes.
Like both Piper and Blake, Gallagher is playing on a sometimes fraught black cultural aesthetic and prosthetic--here hair, and in specific, the wig and black female imaginary, and more specifically self-representation, as viewed both intraracially and extraracially. The images, as shown in Edward Lewine's January New York Times review, were arresting (I intend to look at them more carefully this upcoming week, when I hit the exhibit), but on first glance, I immediately thought of palimpsests; the underlying faces and heads were not exactly or completely erased or effaced, but rather transformed, revised and revisioned, with a futuristic edge. "DeLuxe" is conversant with Gallagher's prior work, and like it continues to mark out new spaces for (black) art of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Check out Ellen's show if you can. It runs till May 15, 2005.
***
Today, on Bejata.com, guest contributor Mark Tuggle details another life cut short, that of 52-year-old black sgl Bronx-resident Marvin Page, who was horifically murdered in his apartment, right across the street from a police precinct. The police apparently have no leads, and as Tuggle points out, the local media are resorting to their usual dismissive rhetoric, which in essence says, "Black, gay men's behavior is the problem" and "Black and gay people have little to zero value."
On Keith Boykin's Website, he notes the death of Washington, DC LGBT activist Wanda Alston, who was found slain in her home. Last fall, Mayor Anthony Williams had appointed her to head the capital's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Affairs office, and Keith also notes that she had previously served as the mayor's special assistant to the District's gay community, as a DC delegate to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and as a former board member of the National Organization for Women (NOW). A friend from DC, who knew her, is as shocked by the killing as Keith is. Though I didn't know either Marvin Page or Wanda Alston, my heart goes out to both their families and friends, to all who knew them. With each bit of news like this, amidst all the other grave problems our society and world are facing, I feel ever more steeled to pose and answer the question, "What can we do to turn things around?"
A smaller and more immediate gesture: write these names down and say them aloud, repeat them, at some point in the future, to ensure they're not forgotten, as an act of memory, and resistance, and love.
Last fall the prestigious Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan held a solo show of Ellen's work, and just a few months ago, an exhibit of her recent work, "DeLuxe," opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in Manhattan. The specially created photogravures in "DeLuxe" rework imagery taken from black magazines, focusing on hair: she has painted over wigs in ads she's collected, from the late 1930s through the 1970s, geared to black women, with variously colored plasticene bouffants and bobs, while covering, framing, masking and otherwise transforming the figures' faces. She has grouped some of these images into larger grids that, like her earlier work, don't immediately disclose their complexity, careful draftspersonship, or profundity.
"Deluxe," from what I can tell, is chatting over the fence in terms of familial resemblance with Adrian Piper, in its deployment of grids, its mingling of media, its movement between conceptual abstraction and ontological critique, its utilization of process, its historical consciousness. It defies, unlike the work of some other contemporary artists, easy ideological analysis. Like some of Nayland Blake's works, it avoids a reductive reversal of (racial or sexual) stereotypes.
Like both Piper and Blake, Gallagher is playing on a sometimes fraught black cultural aesthetic and prosthetic--here hair, and in specific, the wig and black female imaginary, and more specifically self-representation, as viewed both intraracially and extraracially. The images, as shown in Edward Lewine's January New York Times review, were arresting (I intend to look at them more carefully this upcoming week, when I hit the exhibit), but on first glance, I immediately thought of palimpsests; the underlying faces and heads were not exactly or completely erased or effaced, but rather transformed, revised and revisioned, with a futuristic edge. "DeLuxe" is conversant with Gallagher's prior work, and like it continues to mark out new spaces for (black) art of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.Check out Ellen's show if you can. It runs till May 15, 2005.
***
Today, on Bejata.com, guest contributor Mark Tuggle details another life cut short, that of 52-year-old black sgl Bronx-resident Marvin Page, who was horifically murdered in his apartment, right across the street from a police precinct. The police apparently have no leads, and as Tuggle points out, the local media are resorting to their usual dismissive rhetoric, which in essence says, "Black, gay men's behavior is the problem" and "Black and gay people have little to zero value."
On Keith Boykin's Website, he notes the death of Washington, DC LGBT activist Wanda Alston, who was found slain in her home. Last fall, Mayor Anthony Williams had appointed her to head the capital's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Affairs office, and Keith also notes that she had previously served as the mayor's special assistant to the District's gay community, as a DC delegate to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and as a former board member of the National Organization for Women (NOW). A friend from DC, who knew her, is as shocked by the killing as Keith is. Though I didn't know either Marvin Page or Wanda Alston, my heart goes out to both their families and friends, to all who knew them. With each bit of news like this, amidst all the other grave problems our society and world are facing, I feel ever more steeled to pose and answer the question, "What can we do to turn things around?"
A smaller and more immediate gesture: write these names down and say them aloud, repeat them, at some point in the future, to ensure they're not forgotten, as an act of memory, and resistance, and love.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Naxos.com: Still and Ohzawa
Though I've been loathe to post anything that would take a reader of this web log directly to any commercial sites, I'm going to do so today to call attention to two and worthwhile recent music releases. Naxos.com is one of the largest and most active publishers of budget CDs and DVDs, with an astounding catalogue of Euro-American classical, contemporary and jazz recordings. Despite the low cost (well below CDs at most record stores), the quality of the recordings is often second to none. They repeatedly manage to get second or third-tier US and European orchestras to turn in recorded peformances of a lifetime, such that you might actually find a better recording of even some works in the traditional repertoire on a Naxos disk than by one of the major orchestras (I'm not kidding!).
The recordings range from re-releases and remasters to original recordings of rarely heard work, so much of it very good. For example, Ned Rorem (1923-), one of this country's leading and most belauded composers, best known for his songs (my favorite recording is Susan Graham's version of them, accompanied by pianist Malcolm Martineau and the Ensemble Oriol), wrote three symphonies in the 1950s, each of them distinctive and worth hearing, but they're rarely performed by American orchestras, and shockingly, Naxos's 1993 recordings were the first ever for numbers 1 and 2. But Rorem's not alone; Naxos has done a herculean job in putting on disk quite a bit of neglected classical fare, both American and not, including work by Ives, Carpenter, MacDowell and others. What's especially great about the site is that if you register, you can hear 25% of any recording (like iTunes), and for about $20 a year, you can stream the Windows Media files directly to your computer and listen to almost everything they've got. If you like to (or have to) pinch pennies like I do, this is a great way to go--and it's also a great entré into classical music in general, especially if you want to branch out beyond the German-Austrian Bach-Handel-Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven-Schubert-Schumann-Brahms circuit you're likely to hear if you go to any major metropolitan symphony orchestra, especially the larger ones (cf. New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, etc.).
Which brings me to William Grant Still (1895-1978) and Hisato Ohzawa (1907-1953). Still is often considered the dean of African-American classical composers, and one of the greatest; his orchestral and choral work is highly regarded, and both smaller and some of the larger American symphony orchestras do occasionally perform his highly tonal, lilting, vernacular-infused, neo-romantic pieces, though not enough in my opinion. (The underperformance of almost all the major African-American classical, neo-classical, art, and jazz composers, from Still and R. Nathaniel Dett to living ones like Braxton, Newton, Davis, Hale Smith, Anderson, etc., might be the subject of another post.). The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, in fact, has recorded both his first and second symphonies, the first of which secured his reputation and fame.
Among Naxos.com's most recent offerings, under its "American Classics Series" is a recording (8.559174) of Still's "In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy," his symphonic poem "Africa," and his "Symphony No. 1, Afro-American," performed by the Fort Smith Orchestra, with John Jeter conducting. Although I don't have the scores in front of me, I will dare to assert that the orchestra and conductor beautifully render the Symphony, which I have on several different recordings; and both the "In Memoriam" and "Africa," which he'd withdrawn from performance and kept unpublished, each possessing his distinctive blues-and-jazz threaded lyrical idiom, were revelations as well.
A composer I had never heard of, but whom I listened to on Naxos.com and whose CD I intend to purchase, is Hisato Ohzawa. The Naxos CD contains the premiere recordings of his sparkling "Piano Concerto No. 3, Kamikaze" and his "Symphony No. 3: Symphony of the Founding of Japan," both written after he returned from years of study in the United States (in Boston, with Converse, Ruggles and for a short time with Schoenberg) and France (in Paris, of course, obligatorily, as for so many composers, with Boulanger, and briefly with Dukas). Dmitry Yablonsky adroitly conducts the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, with Ekaterina Saranceva on piano, to bring the dazzle of this forgotten artist's music to life. I personally liked the concerto a little more, especially the jazzy, fugitive second movement, which succeeds in combining Japanese pentatonic scales and the blues. But both the concerto (whose opening themes is redolent of a repeating melodic motif in the first movement of Rorem's "Third Symphony") and symphony are enjoyable, and their availability, both for sampling and for purchase, underline why Naxos is such a great site (and music company).
I urge all readers of this blog to audition both the Still and Ohzawa recordings; on the Naxos site there are many more treasures to be found.
*****
To those of you with a little Irish ancestry like me or none at all, a Happy St. Patrick's Day!
The recordings range from re-releases and remasters to original recordings of rarely heard work, so much of it very good. For example, Ned Rorem (1923-), one of this country's leading and most belauded composers, best known for his songs (my favorite recording is Susan Graham's version of them, accompanied by pianist Malcolm Martineau and the Ensemble Oriol), wrote three symphonies in the 1950s, each of them distinctive and worth hearing, but they're rarely performed by American orchestras, and shockingly, Naxos's 1993 recordings were the first ever for numbers 1 and 2. But Rorem's not alone; Naxos has done a herculean job in putting on disk quite a bit of neglected classical fare, both American and not, including work by Ives, Carpenter, MacDowell and others. What's especially great about the site is that if you register, you can hear 25% of any recording (like iTunes), and for about $20 a year, you can stream the Windows Media files directly to your computer and listen to almost everything they've got. If you like to (or have to) pinch pennies like I do, this is a great way to go--and it's also a great entré into classical music in general, especially if you want to branch out beyond the German-Austrian Bach-Handel-Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven-Schubert-Schumann-Brahms circuit you're likely to hear if you go to any major metropolitan symphony orchestra, especially the larger ones (cf. New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, etc.).
Which brings me to William Grant Still (1895-1978) and Hisato Ohzawa (1907-1953). Still is often considered the dean of African-American classical composers, and one of the greatest; his orchestral and choral work is highly regarded, and both smaller and some of the larger American symphony orchestras do occasionally perform his highly tonal, lilting, vernacular-infused, neo-romantic pieces, though not enough in my opinion. (The underperformance of almost all the major African-American classical, neo-classical, art, and jazz composers, from Still and R. Nathaniel Dett to living ones like Braxton, Newton, Davis, Hale Smith, Anderson, etc., might be the subject of another post.). The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, in fact, has recorded both his first and second symphonies, the first of which secured his reputation and fame.
Among Naxos.com's most recent offerings, under its "American Classics Series" is a recording (8.559174) of Still's "In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy," his symphonic poem "Africa," and his "Symphony No. 1, Afro-American," performed by the Fort Smith Orchestra, with John Jeter conducting. Although I don't have the scores in front of me, I will dare to assert that the orchestra and conductor beautifully render the Symphony, which I have on several different recordings; and both the "In Memoriam" and "Africa," which he'd withdrawn from performance and kept unpublished, each possessing his distinctive blues-and-jazz threaded lyrical idiom, were revelations as well.
A composer I had never heard of, but whom I listened to on Naxos.com and whose CD I intend to purchase, is Hisato Ohzawa. The Naxos CD contains the premiere recordings of his sparkling "Piano Concerto No. 3, Kamikaze" and his "Symphony No. 3: Symphony of the Founding of Japan," both written after he returned from years of study in the United States (in Boston, with Converse, Ruggles and for a short time with Schoenberg) and France (in Paris, of course, obligatorily, as for so many composers, with Boulanger, and briefly with Dukas). Dmitry Yablonsky adroitly conducts the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, with Ekaterina Saranceva on piano, to bring the dazzle of this forgotten artist's music to life. I personally liked the concerto a little more, especially the jazzy, fugitive second movement, which succeeds in combining Japanese pentatonic scales and the blues. But both the concerto (whose opening themes is redolent of a repeating melodic motif in the first movement of Rorem's "Third Symphony") and symphony are enjoyable, and their availability, both for sampling and for purchase, underline why Naxos is such a great site (and music company).I urge all readers of this blog to audition both the Still and Ohzawa recordings; on the Naxos site there are many more treasures to be found.
*****
To those of you with a little Irish ancestry like me or none at all, a Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
MLB 2005: A Gibson Poem
The 2005 Major League Baseball season begins later this month under clouds of suspicion, recriminations and uncertainty. Because of the ongoing Balco trial, recent allegations by former longball hitter José Canseco, and revelations over the past few years about players such as the late Ken Caminiti, the public now knows considerably more about the prevalence of steroid use among major leaguers. Some of baseball's biggest past and current stars--Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire, Ivan Rodríguez, Juan González--find themselves tagged as steroid users or "cheaters," their accomplishments supposedly tainted, though questions about more players have arisen. How widespread was and is steroid use? Whose achievements were aided by or are being boosted by chemical enhancements, some of which were not always illegal? How should we view players who were, in many cases, merely attempting to advance and ensure their careers, benefiting not only themselves but also Major League Baseball itself, which refused to take the steroid issue seriously until it had to? 
How many millions did it gain by looking away?
Fans thrilled to St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire's 1998 home run race against Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa, which the Popeye-looking Redbird first baseman won 70-66, breaking former Yankee and Cardinal Roger Maris's unfairly asterisked 1961 mark of 61 home runs. Barry Bonds's 2001 shattering of McGwire's record with 73 home runs also brought cheers and praise, even to a player most of the media, and many fans, detest. But didn't some of us--more than a few us--suspect those 70 or 73 (or even Sosa's 66) might not have been possible without some "help"? And even if we suspected it, did we really have a problem with it? Did we say anything, voice our doubts or concerns? Didn't we want to see Maris's and then McGwire's records broken? Now Bonds approaches Hank Aaron's all-time home run record of 714 total, and I, like many, have to ask, what will the value of his new record be if he passes Aaron? Is it even possible to judge it against the accomplishments of a pre-steroid era (PSE) batter like Aaron, who also played at a time of far more overt racial hostility?
I offer up this preamble to say that although I root for the batters (roided up or not), I have always been more of a pitching enthusiast. While many baseball fans' eyes automatically beam on the box scores' HR and AVG columns, I always look at the pitching lines; a Randy Johnson no-hitter or Pedro Martínez shutout or Dwight Gooden 15-strikeout performance or Greg Maddux 90-pitch game, with no walks, are all more amazing to me than a multi-homer game (that is, unless Albert Pujols is hitting them). My favorite PSE pitcher of all is Bob Gibson, the Hall of Fame St. Louis Cardinal who played from 1959-1975, amassed 251 wins, a 2.91 lifetime ERA and two Cy Young awards. His greatest year was 1968, when he went 22-9, with an ERA of 1.12, posted the best single-season earned run average in the live ball era, and registered an astonishing thirteen shutouts. For the third time in five years, he led his team to the World Series (which they unfortunately lost to Detroit). He was one of a constellation of stars on the great Cardinals teams of the 1960s. Among the others were Stan Musial (who retired just before I was born), Hall of Famer Lou Brock (inventor of the Brockabrella), Mike Shannon, Curt Flood (whose courage helped to enrich subsequent generations of players), Orlando Cepeda, future Hall of Famer Steve Carlton, Maris, awful announcer Tim McCarver, and manager Red Schoendienst. I even got to see Gibson pitch when I was very small, in the twilight of his career, though I don't really remember much beyond being taken to Busch Stadium, noticing the Clydesdales circling the field, and eating popcorn. I do remember, however, the stories about his ferociousness on the mound, his stint as a Harlem Globetrotter, his keen mind, his racial pride. Opposing players feared Gibson, and they respected him.
For years I tried to write a poem about Gibson, but couldn't. Too much emotion surged up every time I started writing or typing. Then about a year ago, I was able to do it. Maybe it was maturity, clarity, a better sense (from reading and teaching) of how to frame my admiration. So here it is:
1.18 (GIBSON, 1968)
Is there a mountain
as high as the mound
when he graces it?
Batters pace the circle,
step in the box, then watch
as each pitch disappears
as it nears them, praying
he's not aiming to clean
the plate, claim their noses
or breastbones as souvenirs. What
kinda mojo he putting
on them fastballs?
Years ago, the balls
were whatever he scavenged
on Omaha's streets,
his ferocity already evident
in his sandlot victories over sweet-spot
hitters and the mean realities
of daily life as a Negro.
Whatever you do, don't let the fear show.
Whatever you do, let the enemy know
you ain't playing. Every fourth game,
he faces down the opposing battery,
stare cool and deadly as a fighter pilot's,
arm cocked and spinning, drawing
beads of worry even on the cool brows of Mays,
Aaron, Robinson, Clemente, McCovey.
He froze the Yankee lineup in the '64 Series.
Leg mended, he singlehandedly took the '67 trophy from Boston.
Now, against Detroit, all of St. Louis awaits
his October magic display, wondering how many
talented Tigers he'll dispatch to the bench
puzzling how they ever made it to the majors.
Whatever he throws, he won't let the fear show.
Win or lose, his teammates and opponents know
his stakes are the highest they've ever played for.
--John Keene (c) 2005
In just a few weeks, we'll all be able to say play ball!
How many millions did it gain by looking away?Fans thrilled to St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire's 1998 home run race against Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa, which the Popeye-looking Redbird first baseman won 70-66, breaking former Yankee and Cardinal Roger Maris's unfairly asterisked 1961 mark of 61 home runs. Barry Bonds's 2001 shattering of McGwire's record with 73 home runs also brought cheers and praise, even to a player most of the media, and many fans, detest. But didn't some of us--more than a few us--suspect those 70 or 73 (or even Sosa's 66) might not have been possible without some "help"? And even if we suspected it, did we really have a problem with it? Did we say anything, voice our doubts or concerns? Didn't we want to see Maris's and then McGwire's records broken? Now Bonds approaches Hank Aaron's all-time home run record of 714 total, and I, like many, have to ask, what will the value of his new record be if he passes Aaron? Is it even possible to judge it against the accomplishments of a pre-steroid era (PSE) batter like Aaron, who also played at a time of far more overt racial hostility?
I offer up this preamble to say that although I root for the batters (roided up or not), I have always been more of a pitching enthusiast. While many baseball fans' eyes automatically beam on the box scores' HR and AVG columns, I always look at the pitching lines; a Randy Johnson no-hitter or Pedro Martínez shutout or Dwight Gooden 15-strikeout performance or Greg Maddux 90-pitch game, with no walks, are all more amazing to me than a multi-homer game (that is, unless Albert Pujols is hitting them). My favorite PSE pitcher of all is Bob Gibson, the Hall of Fame St. Louis Cardinal who played from 1959-1975, amassed 251 wins, a 2.91 lifetime ERA and two Cy Young awards. His greatest year was 1968, when he went 22-9, with an ERA of 1.12, posted the best single-season earned run average in the live ball era, and registered an astonishing thirteen shutouts. For the third time in five years, he led his team to the World Series (which they unfortunately lost to Detroit). He was one of a constellation of stars on the great Cardinals teams of the 1960s. Among the others were Stan Musial (who retired just before I was born), Hall of Famer Lou Brock (inventor of the Brockabrella), Mike Shannon, Curt Flood (whose courage helped to enrich subsequent generations of players), Orlando Cepeda, future Hall of Famer Steve Carlton, Maris, awful announcer Tim McCarver, and manager Red Schoendienst. I even got to see Gibson pitch when I was very small, in the twilight of his career, though I don't really remember much beyond being taken to Busch Stadium, noticing the Clydesdales circling the field, and eating popcorn. I do remember, however, the stories about his ferociousness on the mound, his stint as a Harlem Globetrotter, his keen mind, his racial pride. Opposing players feared Gibson, and they respected him.
For years I tried to write a poem about Gibson, but couldn't. Too much emotion surged up every time I started writing or typing. Then about a year ago, I was able to do it. Maybe it was maturity, clarity, a better sense (from reading and teaching) of how to frame my admiration. So here it is:
1.18 (GIBSON, 1968)
Is there a mountain
as high as the mound
when he graces it?
Batters pace the circle,
step in the box, then watch
as each pitch disappears
as it nears them, praying
he's not aiming to clean
the plate, claim their noses
or breastbones as souvenirs. What
kinda mojo he putting
on them fastballs?
Years ago, the balls
were whatever he scavenged
on Omaha's streets,
his ferocity already evident
in his sandlot victories over sweet-spot
hitters and the mean realities
of daily life as a Negro.
Whatever you do, don't let the fear show.
Whatever you do, let the enemy know
you ain't playing. Every fourth game,
he faces down the opposing battery,
stare cool and deadly as a fighter pilot's,
arm cocked and spinning, drawing
beads of worry even on the cool brows of Mays,
Aaron, Robinson, Clemente, McCovey.
He froze the Yankee lineup in the '64 Series.
Leg mended, he singlehandedly took the '67 trophy from Boston.
Now, against Detroit, all of St. Louis awaits
his October magic display, wondering how many
talented Tigers he'll dispatch to the bench
puzzling how they ever made it to the majors.
Whatever he throws, he won't let the fear show.
Win or lose, his teammates and opponents know
his stakes are the highest they've ever played for.
--John Keene (c) 2005
In just a few weeks, we'll all be able to say play ball!
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
The BusBoys
Does anyone else remember this group? I first heard them when I was in high school, in the early 1980s, and used to go to the dances hosted by the Black students at several of St. Louis's premiere Roman Catholic girls' schools (Nerinx Hall and Rosati-Kain). (Did they do this in any other city?) Black folks from the county and city would show up to hang out, be seen ("feature") and dance. There were few fights or violence, and the prep style was in. The DJs would play both contemporary and classic R&B and soul (Chic, Cameo, Kool & the Gang, Earth Wind & Fire, the Commodores, Stacy Lattisaw, etc.), New Wave and post-punk music (Devo's "Whip It" and the B52s' "Rock Lobster" would always draw everyone to the dancefloor, as would Blondie), and they'd occasionally throw down tracks people considered "out there" but loved to hear, like Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express." This was the era when hiphop was just catching on, so you'd only really hear Sugar Hill & the Gang, Kurtis Blow, Afrika Bambataa, and a few other rappers, if any. 
One of my favorite songs that I always waited for at these parties was the BusBoys' "Did You See Me": opening with a bouncy, infectious hook, a repetitive little ditty hovering between New Wave, punk, funk, and R&B, with a beat that made you want to not only dance, but bop till you almost started hopping, I would sing the words without thinking:
"Did you see me
I saw you
did you see me, oh yeah
I saw-aw-aw-aw you...."
This was one of those songs that I, even though a total nerd--as these posts surely make clear--had to dance to, and so I'd either ask my cousin or later, when I got my own jalopy, my female running buddy, to dance to, or in the event that some man had already snapped them up, I'd beg some poor girl to join me on the floor, or worst come to worst, I'd dance all by myself (I hadn't yet heard about the Warehouse or the Garage, where people danced by themselves all night long). And though I'm a total klutz, I knew how to dance and love to do so, especially to songs like this. Part of it was the beat, part of it the lyrics, and for whatever reason, I always perceived an x-ray aspect to the song's refrain--it was as if the Busboys' lead singer were singing directly to me, telling me that despite the fact that I felt and was totally invisible (I didn't have on the freshest clothes and kicks, especially nothing with labels, had no social graces, wasn't particularly handsome, didn't have a flashy car, wasn't rich or the son of someone famous--all the things everyone else seemed to value--and above all, I was deeply in the closet, and felt utterly like a phony, since not one of those beautiful girls, and St. Louis had many, sparked even the smallest flame), he--or someone--saw me. Talk about wishful thinking! But that's what the song communicated to me.
I also liked that their album was called Minimum Wage Rock & Roll, with songs like "Johnny Soul'd Out" and "KKK," which carried an air and aura of social consciousness. But its irony and humor and boldness also distinguished them because this was the era (the Reagan era, to be specific) when Black folks were being written out of rock & roll history, and to be into Black and into rock & roll might get you called "weird" or "not black" or something else kind of ridiculous. (Fishbone and In Living Color were just around the corner.) Yet the BusBoys were remaking it. Hell, tell me again, what musical form did Chuck Berry, Ruth Brown, Little Richard, Fats Domino and other similar musicians pioneer? Thank you: rock & roll. The BusBoy's music even paid direct homage to this era. In a bit of reverse snobbery, I felt cool--like a "connaisseur," as we'd say--liking them and knowing they weren't a group everyone was into. When I caught them in the fall of my sophomore year of high school on Fridays, that hilarious, bizarre comedy sketch show starring Michael Richards and other comics that came on for three seasons in the early 1980s, I nearly flew up to the moon! The BusBoys performed "Minimum Wage," "KKK" and a third song I can't recall, though it wasn't "Did You See Me." This temporarily elevated Fridays far above Saturday Night Live in my eyes.
They really blew up when one of their songs appeared on the "Ghostbusters" soundtrack, then they appeared in "48 Hours." According to their site, they are still recording and touring, and performed at a New Year's Day Bowl on ABC. Brian O'Neal, the lead singer, was involved with Eddie Murphy's recent film "Haunted Mansion." A new BusBoy's album/CD is coming next year.
Anyways, even now when I think of this song, when it runs, as it does occasionally through my head, I think of those parties, and smile, and want to get up and dance: "I saw-aw-aw-aw you...."
One of my favorite songs that I always waited for at these parties was the BusBoys' "Did You See Me": opening with a bouncy, infectious hook, a repetitive little ditty hovering between New Wave, punk, funk, and R&B, with a beat that made you want to not only dance, but bop till you almost started hopping, I would sing the words without thinking:
"Did you see me
I saw you
did you see me, oh yeah
I saw-aw-aw-aw you...."
This was one of those songs that I, even though a total nerd--as these posts surely make clear--had to dance to, and so I'd either ask my cousin or later, when I got my own jalopy, my female running buddy, to dance to, or in the event that some man had already snapped them up, I'd beg some poor girl to join me on the floor, or worst come to worst, I'd dance all by myself (I hadn't yet heard about the Warehouse or the Garage, where people danced by themselves all night long). And though I'm a total klutz, I knew how to dance and love to do so, especially to songs like this. Part of it was the beat, part of it the lyrics, and for whatever reason, I always perceived an x-ray aspect to the song's refrain--it was as if the Busboys' lead singer were singing directly to me, telling me that despite the fact that I felt and was totally invisible (I didn't have on the freshest clothes and kicks, especially nothing with labels, had no social graces, wasn't particularly handsome, didn't have a flashy car, wasn't rich or the son of someone famous--all the things everyone else seemed to value--and above all, I was deeply in the closet, and felt utterly like a phony, since not one of those beautiful girls, and St. Louis had many, sparked even the smallest flame), he--or someone--saw me. Talk about wishful thinking! But that's what the song communicated to me.
I also liked that their album was called Minimum Wage Rock & Roll, with songs like "Johnny Soul'd Out" and "KKK," which carried an air and aura of social consciousness. But its irony and humor and boldness also distinguished them because this was the era (the Reagan era, to be specific) when Black folks were being written out of rock & roll history, and to be into Black and into rock & roll might get you called "weird" or "not black" or something else kind of ridiculous. (Fishbone and In Living Color were just around the corner.) Yet the BusBoys were remaking it. Hell, tell me again, what musical form did Chuck Berry, Ruth Brown, Little Richard, Fats Domino and other similar musicians pioneer? Thank you: rock & roll. The BusBoy's music even paid direct homage to this era. In a bit of reverse snobbery, I felt cool--like a "connaisseur," as we'd say--liking them and knowing they weren't a group everyone was into. When I caught them in the fall of my sophomore year of high school on Fridays, that hilarious, bizarre comedy sketch show starring Michael Richards and other comics that came on for three seasons in the early 1980s, I nearly flew up to the moon! The BusBoys performed "Minimum Wage," "KKK" and a third song I can't recall, though it wasn't "Did You See Me." This temporarily elevated Fridays far above Saturday Night Live in my eyes.
They really blew up when one of their songs appeared on the "Ghostbusters" soundtrack, then they appeared in "48 Hours." According to their site, they are still recording and touring, and performed at a New Year's Day Bowl on ABC. Brian O'Neal, the lead singer, was involved with Eddie Murphy's recent film "Haunted Mansion." A new BusBoy's album/CD is coming next year.
Anyways, even now when I think of this song, when it runs, as it does occasionally through my head, I think of those parties, and smile, and want to get up and dance: "I saw-aw-aw-aw you...."
Monday, March 14, 2005
William Pope.L
Another entry on the fly, since it's the last week of the quarter, exam time, meaning I have papers and stories to read and grade for days.
To bide my mind, I imagine a dialogue between Jn.Ulrick Désert, Adrian Piper and William Pope.L. Can you hear it? I almost can....
To capture that phantom frequency, we have to tune to the proper signals. Let's try:
Here (Art images)
Here (On Research Channel TV)
Here (Underground Railroad Crawl in Maine)
Here (The Friendliest Black Artist in America)
Here (The Black Factory)
Here (The Black Factory v. 2)
Here (The Africana Q&A)
Seems "some things you can do with blackness."
Let me know what you hear(d).
To bide my mind, I imagine a dialogue between Jn.Ulrick Désert, Adrian Piper and William Pope.L. Can you hear it? I almost can....
To capture that phantom frequency, we have to tune to the proper signals. Let's try:
Here (Art images)
Here (On Research Channel TV)
Here (Underground Railroad Crawl in Maine)
Here (The Friendliest Black Artist in America)
Here (The Black Factory)
Here (The Black Factory v. 2)
Here (The Africana Q&A)
Seems "some things you can do with blackness."
Let me know what you hear(d).
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Sunday Quote: Hélène Cixous
"I have talked about these authors who are dear to me. Why do I feel a certain joyful love for them? Because they all inspire me with a feeling that resembles Genet's love for his "Le Funambule": they inspire me with fear and admiration. I feel fear and confidence.... Because what they reveal is audaciousness, which consists in saying the worst, in writing the worst, making apparent, naming the worst. I am not talking about religious people; these are poets. It's not about confessing oneself. This fascinates me, because confession puts into play something which seems to me impossible and terrible: erasure. Are we supposed to be amnestied? Confession treats ritually what is absolutely untreatable."It so happens that these authors emerged wounded and enraged from a scene of confession. Because there is no God in their texts, even when there may be some in their hearts. That's another thing. There is no religion. There is the human."
--Hélène Cixous, "The School of the Dead," from Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Rashawn Brazell Update
Larry, Donald and many others have posted important commentary on Rashawn Brazell's murder, the Sakia Gunn memorial, and related issues. Bernie has provided a list of five excellent ways to make your voice heard. For those who can make it, there's a call to action on Blackfunk's site.
On Sunday, March 13th, 2pm-7pm, Black Funk will be the site of a community gathering and ritual to (re)member Rashawn, offer healing and comfort to the spirit of Rashawn given the violence of his transition and the desecration of his body, offer healing to each other as we acknowledge the pain this murder has caused in the community, pray for justice, and discuss community action.
Please contact us at Black Funk for more information via email at Information or via phone at (718)636-0345.
On Sunday, March 13th, 2pm-7pm, Black Funk will be the site of a community gathering and ritual to (re)member Rashawn, offer healing and comfort to the spirit of Rashawn given the violence of his transition and the desecration of his body, offer healing to each other as we acknowledge the pain this murder has caused in the community, pray for justice, and discuss community action.
Please contact us at Black Funk for more information via email at Information or via phone at (718)636-0345.
Bring candles (white, blue, and yellow), sage, jasmine and myrrh incense, music to sing, drums, florida water, A STONE (about palm-sized), flowers, and any other ritual item you feel appropriate for the purpose of the ritual (see above). Of course you may bring food and drink as well.
Diary of a Mad Black Woman: An Afro-Christian Bourgeois Fantasy
Last night I saw the new film that's garnering considerable attention--critical brickbats and popular acclaim--Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman. (I keep wanting to type Blackwomyn!) A lot of the discussion of this film so far has centered on its opening weekend take, which was over $30 million, and Perry's prior popularity (and success, to the tune $75 million in receipts for his plays) primarily among Black audiences. In America, capital is king, er, president. But Perry is a hugely successful playwright, and Diary's box-office success is noteworthy. Also, Perry deserves more attention in the wider media culture; any white artist drawing as many fans and banking as much loot would be roundly celebrated by now (cf. Thomas Kinkade). To that end, he has now appeared on "Oprah" touting the movie, and I imagine it's only a matter of time before more of his plays and screenplays hit the big screen, with Hollywood's backing.
So what did I think? Well, let's start with the good. Perry's humorous portrayal of Madea (M'Dear), a quasi-archetypal, quasi-stereotypical Black Southern grandmother, made me laugh out loud more than once. Perry-Madea, in fact, carries the movie, and when s/he's on screen it's 100 times more interesting than when she's not. She packs a gun, cusses up a storm, cuts off her ankle-tracking bracelet, chainsaws her philandering grandson-in-law's furniture...I often found myself wanting a remote to fast-forward through the...well, I get to that soon...to the scenes featuring Madea. In fact, I realized half-way through the film that I wished Perry had completely structured the film around Madea, sort of like Martin Lawrence's Big Momma's House,
whose traces lay all over this film, though Perry appears far more comfortable in his role and drag than Lawrence did: he is Madea, and I say this with praise. (He even appeared more at home as Madea than he did as the straight, devout grandson character.) Moreover, Madea's character served as a counterweight to the moralism of the rest of the film. In fact, she openly mocked the Bible and couldn't make it to church, a marvelous little touch of subversion I wish Perry had explored more. I hope a bona-fide Madea: The Movie (not just the videos he's already issued) is coming soon, and that in it Perry really lets loose.
Then, there was the performance of actress Kimberly Elise, in the lead role of Helen. She thoroughly worked what little she was given, managing to create a real and affecting character out of something far more stock and romance-novelish. I haven't seen a Black actress so lovingly and beautifully captured--and here I mean in sheer visual terms--on film in some time. Watching Kimberly Elise move through this role made me wish that there were more vehicles for the talented Black actresses (and other actresses of color) out there. Plus, Shemar Moore, with his beard and (fake?) cornrows, certainly looked delectable, and I'm not a big Moore fan. But he looked good and pressed his acting talents to their limits, which counts for something.
Now, for the bad: The movie was a tissue of clichés, with a hole-riddled plot which featured a number of implausibilities. (The court-shooting scene, however, was scarily prescient given the events of the last few days.) Maybe there are smart, attractive Black women who feel incapable of doing anything, but I have yet to meet one, so I totally could not buy this aspect of the Helen character's predicament. The script was often treacly (though some of the actors worked hard to overcome it), sentimental and melodramatic, bubblegummed up with trite dialogue. At times Diary, rather than echoing or riffing on other films, felt like like a bad patchwork quilt of them (The Nutty Professor, Misery [which was actually mentioned--as if we wouldn't get it...], Big Momma's House, etc.), and it didn't seem sure as to what sort of film it wanted to be. Many of its characterizations (the crazy old uncle, the drug dealer, the crackhead prodigal wife/daughter, etc.) verged on or were stereotypical--and not merely archetypal--to the point of approaching minstrelsy. On the other hand, the portrayals of reality were utterly fantastical (that was the cleanest "hood" outside of Los Angeles that I've ever laid eyes on!). On top of all this, it was annoyingly moralistic and evangelical--to the point of including a song that backslapped Buddhism and Islam, mind you!--and preachy. At more than one point, it was clear that although a even semi-sentient being could have grasped that it aimed to be a kind of Christian fairy tale (yep, irony alert), the scriptwriters still felt the need to have the characters actually mention the words "fairy tale" more than once. Thank you, we're all that stupid, come again.
More on the moralism. Now, I did spend a good part of my youth in Christian churches (Roman Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, etc.), so I'm quite familiar with the Bible and Holy Scripture, and I would imagine many of Perry's fans are too. So why was it necessary to hammer the viewer over the head with doctrine, to have characters uttering such obviously banal and dogmatic lines? At times, I couldn't help but laugh when these Sunday School moments came up, though the moment when Kimberly Elise's character noted in her diary that her "good Christian" proletariat (hmm....) rescuer, Orlando (Moore), gave her something better than lovemaking, he gave her "intimacy," pricked my ears: this expansive view of "intimacy" and tenderness struck me as one of the most interesting, non-Madea moments on screen. Because in fact what does "intimacy" really mean, even outside a Christian framework? What sorts of deep, spiritual, affectionate yet non-copulative, non-genital relations are possible between people, and why is it so difficult for our society, at least the adults among us, to address this topic without moralism? I don't think Perry was going there, but it fascinated me.
In truth, I admit to being ambivalent this movie. Why? Because although I could connect with it to a great degree based on my background and past experiences (or as Bourdieu might say, my shared habitus noir with its target audience), it felt at times almost like watching a foreign film. The hypercommercialism and bourgeois values at its heart; the moralism and prudery; the fantastic aspect of the romance; its redemptive trajectory and sappy happy ending--all of these elements felt alien to me and my life today. Well, not exactly alien, but I can't approach them uncritically, especially not in post-9/11, post-November 4, 2004 African-America. Though I know where the film is coming from and what it aims to do, Diary offers almost no intellectual or aesthetic challenges, especially at this moment of societal crisis, and Lord knows, right now we need some. It was, really, an intermittently funny, sometimes tedious, usually soap-operaish, but beautifully filmed Afro-Christian bourgeois fantasy. Thing is, this is definitely not my thing.
I cannot help but think of this film in light of Charles Burnett's 1990 treasure, To Sleep with Anger, a lambent but sadly underappreciated film that dealt, in an unforgettable way, with the complexities of a Black family's relationships, faith and the spirit (including the supernatural). The comparison made me lament that there aren't more works of the level of Burnett's artistry (or at least striving for it) and so many of the Diary kind. I applaud Perry's success and yes, I know, sometimes it's important to give the people what they want (and I'm not such a snob that I can't enjoy comedy of the likes of Friday or Barbershop, whatever criticisms I have of them). Or as my friend and fellow poet Tony Medina once harshly wrote, "Do the people love it?" Sometimes the answer is an unambiguous "No," and that's not a bad thing either.
So what did I think? Well, let's start with the good. Perry's humorous portrayal of Madea (M'Dear), a quasi-archetypal, quasi-stereotypical Black Southern grandmother, made me laugh out loud more than once. Perry-Madea, in fact, carries the movie, and when s/he's on screen it's 100 times more interesting than when she's not. She packs a gun, cusses up a storm, cuts off her ankle-tracking bracelet, chainsaws her philandering grandson-in-law's furniture...I often found myself wanting a remote to fast-forward through the...well, I get to that soon...to the scenes featuring Madea. In fact, I realized half-way through the film that I wished Perry had completely structured the film around Madea, sort of like Martin Lawrence's Big Momma's House,
whose traces lay all over this film, though Perry appears far more comfortable in his role and drag than Lawrence did: he is Madea, and I say this with praise. (He even appeared more at home as Madea than he did as the straight, devout grandson character.) Moreover, Madea's character served as a counterweight to the moralism of the rest of the film. In fact, she openly mocked the Bible and couldn't make it to church, a marvelous little touch of subversion I wish Perry had explored more. I hope a bona-fide Madea: The Movie (not just the videos he's already issued) is coming soon, and that in it Perry really lets loose.Then, there was the performance of actress Kimberly Elise, in the lead role of Helen. She thoroughly worked what little she was given, managing to create a real and affecting character out of something far more stock and romance-novelish. I haven't seen a Black actress so lovingly and beautifully captured--and here I mean in sheer visual terms--on film in some time. Watching Kimberly Elise move through this role made me wish that there were more vehicles for the talented Black actresses (and other actresses of color) out there. Plus, Shemar Moore, with his beard and (fake?) cornrows, certainly looked delectable, and I'm not a big Moore fan. But he looked good and pressed his acting talents to their limits, which counts for something.
Now, for the bad: The movie was a tissue of clichés, with a hole-riddled plot which featured a number of implausibilities. (The court-shooting scene, however, was scarily prescient given the events of the last few days.) Maybe there are smart, attractive Black women who feel incapable of doing anything, but I have yet to meet one, so I totally could not buy this aspect of the Helen character's predicament. The script was often treacly (though some of the actors worked hard to overcome it), sentimental and melodramatic, bubblegummed up with trite dialogue. At times Diary, rather than echoing or riffing on other films, felt like like a bad patchwork quilt of them (The Nutty Professor, Misery [which was actually mentioned--as if we wouldn't get it...], Big Momma's House, etc.), and it didn't seem sure as to what sort of film it wanted to be. Many of its characterizations (the crazy old uncle, the drug dealer, the crackhead prodigal wife/daughter, etc.) verged on or were stereotypical--and not merely archetypal--to the point of approaching minstrelsy. On the other hand, the portrayals of reality were utterly fantastical (that was the cleanest "hood" outside of Los Angeles that I've ever laid eyes on!). On top of all this, it was annoyingly moralistic and evangelical--to the point of including a song that backslapped Buddhism and Islam, mind you!--and preachy. At more than one point, it was clear that although a even semi-sentient being could have grasped that it aimed to be a kind of Christian fairy tale (yep, irony alert), the scriptwriters still felt the need to have the characters actually mention the words "fairy tale" more than once. Thank you, we're all that stupid, come again.
More on the moralism. Now, I did spend a good part of my youth in Christian churches (Roman Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, etc.), so I'm quite familiar with the Bible and Holy Scripture, and I would imagine many of Perry's fans are too. So why was it necessary to hammer the viewer over the head with doctrine, to have characters uttering such obviously banal and dogmatic lines? At times, I couldn't help but laugh when these Sunday School moments came up, though the moment when Kimberly Elise's character noted in her diary that her "good Christian" proletariat (hmm....) rescuer, Orlando (Moore), gave her something better than lovemaking, he gave her "intimacy," pricked my ears: this expansive view of "intimacy" and tenderness struck me as one of the most interesting, non-Madea moments on screen. Because in fact what does "intimacy" really mean, even outside a Christian framework? What sorts of deep, spiritual, affectionate yet non-copulative, non-genital relations are possible between people, and why is it so difficult for our society, at least the adults among us, to address this topic without moralism? I don't think Perry was going there, but it fascinated me.
In truth, I admit to being ambivalent this movie. Why? Because although I could connect with it to a great degree based on my background and past experiences (or as Bourdieu might say, my shared habitus noir with its target audience), it felt at times almost like watching a foreign film. The hypercommercialism and bourgeois values at its heart; the moralism and prudery; the fantastic aspect of the romance; its redemptive trajectory and sappy happy ending--all of these elements felt alien to me and my life today. Well, not exactly alien, but I can't approach them uncritically, especially not in post-9/11, post-November 4, 2004 African-America. Though I know where the film is coming from and what it aims to do, Diary offers almost no intellectual or aesthetic challenges, especially at this moment of societal crisis, and Lord knows, right now we need some. It was, really, an intermittently funny, sometimes tedious, usually soap-operaish, but beautifully filmed Afro-Christian bourgeois fantasy. Thing is, this is definitely not my thing.
I cannot help but think of this film in light of Charles Burnett's 1990 treasure, To Sleep with Anger, a lambent but sadly underappreciated film that dealt, in an unforgettable way, with the complexities of a Black family's relationships, faith and the spirit (including the supernatural). The comparison made me lament that there aren't more works of the level of Burnett's artistry (or at least striving for it) and so many of the Diary kind. I applaud Perry's success and yes, I know, sometimes it's important to give the people what they want (and I'm not such a snob that I can't enjoy comedy of the likes of Friday or Barbershop, whatever criticisms I have of them). Or as my friend and fellow poet Tony Medina once harshly wrote, "Do the people love it?" Sometimes the answer is an unambiguous "No," and that's not a bad thing either.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Jn.Ulrick Désert
Back to conceptualism on a snowy Friday, a brotha's take: Jn.Ulrick Désert
Patriotic burqas, chocolate stigmataed babies' hands, "phat lips," teacups and saucers featuring enslaved women staring back at you, uncut German male genitalia. Get ready a bit of cognitive dissonance, or turbulence, as you will.
Or as he says on his Website:
"Jn.Ulrick Désert is a visual artist living and working between USA and Europe.
His conceptually based projects vary from Sculpture, Photography, Video, Prints, Performance and deal with shifts in perception and the fluidity of meanings."
Check it out. What do you think?
---
3.11.2004 / 3.11.2005 (Don't forget)
Patriotic burqas, chocolate stigmataed babies' hands, "phat lips," teacups and saucers featuring enslaved women staring back at you, uncut German male genitalia. Get ready a bit of cognitive dissonance, or turbulence, as you will.Or as he says on his Website:
"Jn.Ulrick Désert is a visual artist living and working between USA and Europe.
His conceptually based projects vary from Sculpture, Photography, Video, Prints, Performance and deal with shifts in perception and the fluidity of meanings."
Check it out. What do you think?
---
3.11.2004 / 3.11.2005 (Don't forget)
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Sake pase nan Ayiti?
What's happening in Haiti?
A little reminder: last year, 2004, was the 200th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution, which created the first Black free state--and the second free nation after the USA--in the Americas. Haiti's remarkable self-liberation unleashed a chain of history-changing events. Among other things, it freed hundreds of thousands of enslaved people on the island of Hispaniola (which includes what is now the Dominican Republic);
it directly contributed to the eventual decolonization of Latin American (Simón Bolívar received arms, supplies and fighters for his campaign to liberate what became Grán Colombia) and the rest of the Caribbean; and its presence pressured the European powers themselves to end slavery (Britain would emancipate slaves in its colonies two decades later). Haiti, both literally and figuratively, was to enslaved blacks across the Americas a beacon of possibility and promise.
Fast forward to 2004, which was to have been a year of celebration and commemoration, like the US's Bicentennial in 1976 (I was "John Henry" in a play that year). Haiti's democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had previously been overthrown in the early 1990s by a cabal backed by the US, then restored to power by President Clinton, was again overthrown by rebels who very likely had US backing. In fact the US and France, Haiti's historical nemesis and former colonizer, flew Aristide out of the country, and placed a puppet in control, as Aristide's supporters were gunned down and the rebel leaders, who included several known human rights violators, triumphantly rode and strode through the streets of Haiti's first capital. Aristide claimed he'd been deposed, the US denied it. Ignore him, we were told, this was the start a new day in Haiti; the intransigent opposition, which had claimed Aristide was dictatorial (though he was freely elected, mind you), was going to work with the new leadership, and everything was going to turn out well.
Only it hasn't. It's March 2005, and the U.S. media barely utters a word about Haiti, which remains in dire shape, unless there's a slaughter or hurricane damage; in fact, despite the presence of US troops and UN peacekeeping forces, the rebel leaders and forces remain armed and powerful. Aristide's supporters also are armed, and are demanding that he be allowed to return from his exile in South Africa. A vacuum exists in the country's executive branch, while its legislature is still at loggerheads, and its police force is ineffectual. Despite all the talk of "democracy" flowering in the Middle East, it has yet to be resown in Haiti, which in the meantime has been devastated by floods and the grinding poverty that withheld international loans and foreign aid over the last few years have only exacerbated. In short, the situation in Haiti, that beacon, remains grave, and the current administration is showing no desire or will improve things. The new Secretary of State is busy mending fences (or burning them) with Canada and Mexico. Does she even realize the problems her boss has created in Haiti (let alone anywhere)?
One of these days (soon) I want to go to Haiti, particularly when the political situation is a bit more stable. I figured I'd get some learning on in advance with Kreyòl. Actually, my amazing friend, polymath Ella T., who's the editor of Revolution/Revolisyon/Révolution: 1804-2004: An Artistic Commemoration of the Haitian Revolution (Liv Lakay, 2004), suggested I do so a few years ago. In fact, I even know some writers who write in Kreyòl, like Patrick Sylvain--and Haiti has produced some of the best writers (and visual artists) in this hemisphere. For a while I could only say about two phrases, "Sak(e) pase?" (Whassup?) and "Mesi [anpil]," (Thanks [a lot]). Then it was "M ap aprann kreyol."
Men kounye-a m kapab pale ak ekri piti kreyol. M kompran plis men vokabilè-mwen se piti. Premyèman m panse toujou mo franse yo! M konnen ki chemen sa a se lon ak gen anpil pou m aprann. Men ki chemen pa se lon? Lon oubyen brèf, plezi a se pam.
In the meantime, you can write your Senators and Congresspersons about Haiti and ask, "What are you doing to help the situation there?" Nou vle lapè men san plis san. [We want peace, but without more bloodshed.]
A little reminder: last year, 2004, was the 200th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution, which created the first Black free state--and the second free nation after the USA--in the Americas. Haiti's remarkable self-liberation unleashed a chain of history-changing events. Among other things, it freed hundreds of thousands of enslaved people on the island of Hispaniola (which includes what is now the Dominican Republic);
it directly contributed to the eventual decolonization of Latin American (Simón Bolívar received arms, supplies and fighters for his campaign to liberate what became Grán Colombia) and the rest of the Caribbean; and its presence pressured the European powers themselves to end slavery (Britain would emancipate slaves in its colonies two decades later). Haiti, both literally and figuratively, was to enslaved blacks across the Americas a beacon of possibility and promise.Fast forward to 2004, which was to have been a year of celebration and commemoration, like the US's Bicentennial in 1976 (I was "John Henry" in a play that year). Haiti's democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had previously been overthrown in the early 1990s by a cabal backed by the US, then restored to power by President Clinton, was again overthrown by rebels who very likely had US backing. In fact the US and France, Haiti's historical nemesis and former colonizer, flew Aristide out of the country, and placed a puppet in control, as Aristide's supporters were gunned down and the rebel leaders, who included several known human rights violators, triumphantly rode and strode through the streets of Haiti's first capital. Aristide claimed he'd been deposed, the US denied it. Ignore him, we were told, this was the start a new day in Haiti; the intransigent opposition, which had claimed Aristide was dictatorial (though he was freely elected, mind you), was going to work with the new leadership, and everything was going to turn out well.
Only it hasn't. It's March 2005, and the U.S. media barely utters a word about Haiti, which remains in dire shape, unless there's a slaughter or hurricane damage; in fact, despite the presence of US troops and UN peacekeeping forces, the rebel leaders and forces remain armed and powerful. Aristide's supporters also are armed, and are demanding that he be allowed to return from his exile in South Africa. A vacuum exists in the country's executive branch, while its legislature is still at loggerheads, and its police force is ineffectual. Despite all the talk of "democracy" flowering in the Middle East, it has yet to be resown in Haiti, which in the meantime has been devastated by floods and the grinding poverty that withheld international loans and foreign aid over the last few years have only exacerbated. In short, the situation in Haiti, that beacon, remains grave, and the current administration is showing no desire or will improve things. The new Secretary of State is busy mending fences (or burning them) with Canada and Mexico. Does she even realize the problems her boss has created in Haiti (let alone anywhere)?
One of these days (soon) I want to go to Haiti, particularly when the political situation is a bit more stable. I figured I'd get some learning on in advance with Kreyòl. Actually, my amazing friend, polymath Ella T., who's the editor of Revolution/Revolisyon/Révolution: 1804-2004: An Artistic Commemoration of the Haitian Revolution (Liv Lakay, 2004), suggested I do so a few years ago. In fact, I even know some writers who write in Kreyòl, like Patrick Sylvain--and Haiti has produced some of the best writers (and visual artists) in this hemisphere. For a while I could only say about two phrases, "Sak(e) pase?" (Whassup?) and "Mesi [anpil]," (Thanks [a lot]). Then it was "M ap aprann kreyol."
Men kounye-a m kapab pale ak ekri piti kreyol. M kompran plis men vokabilè-mwen se piti. Premyèman m panse toujou mo franse yo! M konnen ki chemen sa a se lon ak gen anpil pou m aprann. Men ki chemen pa se lon? Lon oubyen brèf, plezi a se pam.
In the meantime, you can write your Senators and Congresspersons about Haiti and ask, "What are you doing to help the situation there?" Nou vle lapè men san plis san. [We want peace, but without more bloodshed.]
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Wednesday Quote: Samuel R. Delany
"But there are social forces aplenty--and often the same forces that would take away the freedom of speech we vouchsafe for the arts--that, as they would deny that freedom to the arts, would redistribute it to religion and reportage--genres whose relation to that troublesome concept 'truth' I, at any rate, am fairly glad to see a bit more heavily scrutinized at the more respectable levels than, certainly, they are on the lowest and least sophisticated planes. It is not only the freedom to suppress what others say that is wanted, but the freedom to lie as well when necessary--because such lies are assumed somehow to be for 'everyone's good.'
"Art seems the best genre-set in which to allow total freedom of expressionn (the full range, as Kenneth Koch put it, of 'wishes, lies, and dreams') because that genre-set is the symbol-making engine for the culture."
--Samuel R. Delany, "Pornography and Censorship," from Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts and the Politics of the Paraliterary (Wesleyan, 1999).
"Art seems the best genre-set in which to allow total freedom of expressionn (the full range, as Kenneth Koch put it, of 'wishes, lies, and dreams') because that genre-set is the symbol-making engine for the culture."
--Samuel R. Delany, "Pornography and Censorship," from Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts and the Politics of the Paraliterary (Wesleyan, 1999).
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Adrian Piper's Out of Order, Out of Sight
This past weekend, I went on one of my now increasingly rare book-browsing excursions in Chicago. (Abe.com and similar sites have gradually replaced those gas-burning, hour-devouring jaunts.) At one of my favorite bookstores, a short walk from Wrigley Field, I came across a book that my friend Jerry W. had mentioned to me right around the time it was under preparation, the philosopher and artist Adrian M. S. Piper's Out of Order, Out of Sight, Vol 1: Selected Writings in Meta-Art, 1968-1992 (MIT Press, 1996). Like a kid spotting choice candy beneath a freshly burst piñata, as soon as I eyed it I raced over and snatched it up. No one else was leaving the store with this book, at least not without my arm attached!
Piper is one of the artists I most revere, and it was a delight to find this book, which I'd wanted so badly but couldn't afford back when I caught a retrospective of her work at New York's New Museum of Contemporary Art back in 2000, I believe, with my friend Reggie H. Who is Adrian Piper, you might be asking? One of the most important artists of the last 40 years.
After studying painting, she began her art career in the late 1960s as a rigorous abstract conceptualist before pushing her work in a range of different, though linked, directions: performance, drawing and collage, installation, videos, photography, sound art, cross-genre works, and many other forms. Since the mid-1970s, much of her work has turned on the themes of gender, race, racism, xenophobia, and ethics, to varying degrees, and has also drawn heavily on Piper's autobiography and personal experiences, though central to all of her artwork is her exploration of concepts and ideas.
Around the time that she began her conceptual art practices, she undertook the formal study of philosophy, and in due time received an undergraduate and doctorate in this field, her thesis focusing on rationality. She has gone on two maintain multiples careers, as an artist and art critic, and as an academic philosopher, specializing in ethics and metaethics, with particular emphasis on Kant (one of my favorite philosophers). She also started studying yoga while still in her teens, and is an authority on that vast subject as well. The stress of juggling so many careers, as well as the hostility she has encountered, for numerous reasons, has taken an extraordinary toll, and in recent years Piper has been quite ill.
In describing Piper thus far, I have attempted to talk about her in a way she might (or might not) find acceptable, which is to say without emphasizing two key facts about her, one of which is by now quite evident: that she is a woman; the other is that she's an African American. In fact, Piper is one the key female figures in 1970s conceptual art, and the first African-American to gain recognition (and lose it, for a while) for her work in this area. She also was, I believe, the first black woman to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard, and later, the first tenured black woman at the institution where she still teaches, Wellesley College (that experience, however, has been nightmarish for Piper, as she makes clear on her Website).
She is also one of the few African-American female academic philosophers, and one of the most distinguished. And yet, while Piper has repeatedly and enthusiastically articulated her recognition of these facts, she has also been very wary of labels, in part of their arbitrary and oppressive nature, particularly with regard to racial minorities. In fact, she could (and can) pass, and in fact has utilized this attribute (of physiognomy and external, social perception) as the ground (tropos) of a number of her artworks. (She also joined a Puerto Rican gang in her youth. I am wondering now how another artist or theorist might use some of Piper's practice to explore identity--particularly that of latinos, particularly afrolatinos, and other mixed peoples in the U.S.--more deeply.)
Her artistic practice has, in fact, grappled with the concepts of language and naming, identity and identification, marginality, and the socialization and social formation of perception, not simply from the female and black perspectives, but within the broader frameworks of ethics as they bear upon gender and feminism, and racism and racialization, which she has powerfully and relentlessly critiqued. (Subsequent artists, such as Glenn Ligon, for example, have riffed on some of her artworks, such as her "Drawing Exaggerating My Negroid Features.")
Her famous cards from the 1980s are indicative, to some degree, of her work: when she would overhear white people making racist remarks in her presence without realizing she was black (and she didn't follow one of several detailed strategies, such as reprimanding without "racing" herself; announcing she was black; announcing in advance that she was black; etc.), she would had them calling cards that read:
Piper is one of the artists I most revere, and it was a delight to find this book, which I'd wanted so badly but couldn't afford back when I caught a retrospective of her work at New York's New Museum of Contemporary Art back in 2000, I believe, with my friend Reggie H. Who is Adrian Piper, you might be asking? One of the most important artists of the last 40 years.
After studying painting, she began her art career in the late 1960s as a rigorous abstract conceptualist before pushing her work in a range of different, though linked, directions: performance, drawing and collage, installation, videos, photography, sound art, cross-genre works, and many other forms. Since the mid-1970s, much of her work has turned on the themes of gender, race, racism, xenophobia, and ethics, to varying degrees, and has also drawn heavily on Piper's autobiography and personal experiences, though central to all of her artwork is her exploration of concepts and ideas.Around the time that she began her conceptual art practices, she undertook the formal study of philosophy, and in due time received an undergraduate and doctorate in this field, her thesis focusing on rationality. She has gone on two maintain multiples careers, as an artist and art critic, and as an academic philosopher, specializing in ethics and metaethics, with particular emphasis on Kant (one of my favorite philosophers). She also started studying yoga while still in her teens, and is an authority on that vast subject as well. The stress of juggling so many careers, as well as the hostility she has encountered, for numerous reasons, has taken an extraordinary toll, and in recent years Piper has been quite ill.
In describing Piper thus far, I have attempted to talk about her in a way she might (or might not) find acceptable, which is to say without emphasizing two key facts about her, one of which is by now quite evident: that she is a woman; the other is that she's an African American. In fact, Piper is one the key female figures in 1970s conceptual art, and the first African-American to gain recognition (and lose it, for a while) for her work in this area. She also was, I believe, the first black woman to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard, and later, the first tenured black woman at the institution where she still teaches, Wellesley College (that experience, however, has been nightmarish for Piper, as she makes clear on her Website).
She is also one of the few African-American female academic philosophers, and one of the most distinguished. And yet, while Piper has repeatedly and enthusiastically articulated her recognition of these facts, she has also been very wary of labels, in part of their arbitrary and oppressive nature, particularly with regard to racial minorities. In fact, she could (and can) pass, and in fact has utilized this attribute (of physiognomy and external, social perception) as the ground (tropos) of a number of her artworks. (She also joined a Puerto Rican gang in her youth. I am wondering now how another artist or theorist might use some of Piper's practice to explore identity--particularly that of latinos, particularly afrolatinos, and other mixed peoples in the U.S.--more deeply.) Her artistic practice has, in fact, grappled with the concepts of language and naming, identity and identification, marginality, and the socialization and social formation of perception, not simply from the female and black perspectives, but within the broader frameworks of ethics as they bear upon gender and feminism, and racism and racialization, which she has powerfully and relentlessly critiqued. (Subsequent artists, such as Glenn Ligon, for example, have riffed on some of her artworks, such as her "Drawing Exaggerating My Negroid Features.")
Her famous cards from the 1980s are indicative, to some degree, of her work: when she would overhear white people making racist remarks in her presence without realizing she was black (and she didn't follow one of several detailed strategies, such as reprimanding without "racing" herself; announcing she was black; announcing in advance that she was black; etc.), she would had them calling cards that read:
Dear Friend,Just imagine the response! I look forward to exploring this book, and urge all to explore Piper's artwork (and if you have philosophical training, her difficult but revelatory texts on ethics) if and when you can. Now, I have to find Volume 2, which features her art criticism.
I am black.
I am sure you did not realize this when you made/laughed at/agreed with that racist remark. In the past, I have attempted to alert white people to my racial identity in advance. Unfortunately, this invariably causes them to react to me as pushy, manipulative, or socially in appropriate. Therefore, my policy is to assume that white people do not make these remarks, even when they believe that there are no black people present, and to distribute this card when they do.
I regret any discomfort my presence is causing you, just as I am sure you regret the discomfort your racism is causing me.
Sincerely yours,
Adrian Margaret Smith Piper.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Rashawn Brazell
A different sort of post than the previous ones here: on February 17, 2005, New York City transit workers discovered the body parts of a beautiful 19-year-old Bushwick native, Rashawn Brazell, in a subway tunnel in Brooklyn. In subsequent weeks police investigators found more evidence of Brazell's grisly murder, and now are supposedly engaged in an active investigation. (The print and TV media, according to at least one news source, has stopped focusing on Brazell's death.) I was back at home in the New York area with my partner C. the night the news about Rashawn Brazell's murder initially broke, and I felt an immediate sense of grief and loss that lingers on. 
Other bloggers, including destiny's bastard, anzidesign, and stevengfullwood have posted moving statements about him, and about their own feelings of anger, sorrow, loss. He has been discussed as if he were a piece of...meat. One news account, on a gay Website, has screwed up the date he disappeared. His mother has stated that "he had girlfriends" in response to the news that he had a boyfriend--that he loved men. And I worry that the police inquiry into his death might wane or dwindle or not be taken as seriously as if a white or straight (or straight white) person were found under similar circumstances. This post, then, is an additional memorial, and memento mori, and little beacon, on his behalf. I pray that they find his killer swiftly, before another person, another brother, another gay person (cf. Nubian Knight, a black member of the NY-area leather community also brutally slain in Brooklyn, about whom planetblack posted a year ago, or Sakia Gunn, stabbed to death in Newark when she refused the advances of a straight man), suffers this fate, of literal and symbolic dis-memberment. I also want to re-member this young man I never met, and again say the name the media is already forgetting, his name, y/our name: Rashawn Brazell.
Other bloggers, including destiny's bastard, anzidesign, and stevengfullwood have posted moving statements about him, and about their own feelings of anger, sorrow, loss. He has been discussed as if he were a piece of...meat. One news account, on a gay Website, has screwed up the date he disappeared. His mother has stated that "he had girlfriends" in response to the news that he had a boyfriend--that he loved men. And I worry that the police inquiry into his death might wane or dwindle or not be taken as seriously as if a white or straight (or straight white) person were found under similar circumstances. This post, then, is an additional memorial, and memento mori, and little beacon, on his behalf. I pray that they find his killer swiftly, before another person, another brother, another gay person (cf. Nubian Knight, a black member of the NY-area leather community also brutally slain in Brooklyn, about whom planetblack posted a year ago, or Sakia Gunn, stabbed to death in Newark when she refused the advances of a straight man), suffers this fate, of literal and symbolic dis-memberment. I also want to re-member this young man I never met, and again say the name the media is already forgetting, his name, y/our name: Rashawn Brazell.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Sunday Quote: Henry James
"We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art."
--Dencombe, in Henry James's The Middle Years
--Dencombe, in Henry James's The Middle Years
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Ralph Lemon: Come home Charley Patton
Tonight I was fortunate enough to see one of the final performances of the third part of Ralph Lemon's dance theater Geography Trilogy: Come home Charley Patton. I saw it thanks to wonderful colleague who's a major scholar of dance and who participated in several events surrounding the show. She was able to get me a comp ticket, so I drove down to Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art to experience Lemon and his troupe performing.
Come home Charley Patton is an emotionally provocative, wrenching and uncanny show. Wrenching and provocative because of the many tragic thematic threads (racism, lynching, suicide, the Civil Rights movement, etc.) than run through it, for two solid hours. Uncanny, because Lemon, in this work, enters into dialogue with the past, with the ancestors, with the spirits and the Spirit, with (our) ghosts, and he embodies these home-y and yet defamiliarizing conversations in the dances themselves, in the show's multiple screens (one showing a cartoon James Baldwin, the other scenes of Lemon in Duluth, where the lynching the show focuses on took place, but also in parts of the South), in the doublings and pairings and moves far beyond naturalism or the commonplaces of 20th century avant-garde dance practice--there's a moving mic stand, two (hidden) ladders (Nardi Ward's, but also the Jacob's, Puryear's, Cixous'?), two video panels, a table that horses itself forward....
Charley Patton is a collage, layers upon layers, a densely tissued dance-text brimming with parallels, correspondences, fractures: It begins and ends with Baldwin's speaking figure, which frames two scenes (in part) with water: the first is a screened video of Lemon "wading in the water," in a bayou-like setting, as he carries a teacup and tries to read a short story by Arna Bontemps, of a suicidal black couple who've lost five children (to the Great Migration?), while the second is a startling moment in which Lemon literally dances, struggles to, falls down, while being jetted by a (Southern) fire hose.
In between Baldwin and Baldwin, the wading and the waterhose, we get snippets of narratives, from which Lemon migrates through motifs that become the ground for individual and group dances: holding up (a wall), blues jigs, buck(s) dancing, whistling, circus performances, falling down. The Bontemps narrative shades into one about a man, Elias Clayton, who was lynched in Duluth, Minnesota. Lemon, on video, visits the spot where the tree stood, where a monument stands. He dances in commemoration, in echo, on screen. The quintet of dancers mirror his performance--hanging, leaning, lying down--and deconstruct it on stage. A counter-memorial. Woven into these fragment-currents are stories from Lemon's research travels, his encounters with aging blues musicians and their families, his grandmother's gun-loving boyfriend who mirrors a character in one of the stories, various songs (the Smiths, Rogers & Hart, Dumaine's Jazzola Eight, Giuseppi Verdi):
The screens, one high above on stage right, the other larger and moving from center stage to the wings, evoke documentary, spectacle, the media, the panopticon of history, law, society--what is being seen, televised, viewed (can I get a witness?) and what has been and is being lost, except to memory, mourning, re-membering, revival. The performance, as a show, as a series of dances is not only embodiment--in the strikingly beautiful figures of satin-shirted Ralph Lemon and his five fellow brightly clad dancers, two women (Gesel Mason, Okwui Okpokwasili) and three men (Djédjé Djédjé Gervais, Darrell Jones, David Thomson), but also disembodiment--the videos, Baldwin's animation (by Lemon), his and other voices from offstage, whispers, lip-synching, hidden sets (visible only to parts of the audience). The simulation (video) becomes the real (the space/place of the performance and our experience of it). Ephemerality--no performance of Come home Charley Patton can ever be the same, no experience of our pasts, are ever fully isotopic with another, and yet the echoes, the traces, of our run through all we do. The spirit(s)=the thread=the dance(rs). What is communicated, translated, transferred, lost. Literally body moving. After Chicago, the troupe goes to Pittsburgh on March 19, to the African American Cultural Center there, and then this third part, and the entire trilogy, end.
Lemon conjures spirits, lets them stir and dance among the dancers, in them--Baldwin, Bontemps, Clayton, the couple, Aunt Tempe and Uncle William, Nina Simone, Janis Joplin, Jacques Brel, and so on--but plays with impersonation as well--Okpokwasili plays him, sings Nina, Roland Hayes "Liedering." Unfolding, unpacking, decomposing--the motifs, linguistic and performative, become the starting point of improvisation, repetition, revision, decomposition. The dancers literally fold, unfold, battle themselves, among themselves, before they can reunite as one. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. At times they are mirroring each other; at others, they are slamming body against body, falling (to the floor). Blacks and blues, bruises. Circles, patterns. Ladders--there are two, and no one can stay on them. The chair collapses: the trapdoor=hanged. The hoop becomes a skirt, a noose--no basketball, but a body, p[ress]asses through it.
(And here in Chicago, another significance: in every whistle Emmett Till's smiling, and later mangled face, Mamie Till Mosley's anguished and courageous voice.)
There were moments of obscurity, passage of the hermeticism Lemon himself has decried in his earlier work. In parts, a difficult [language] game and system, as all artworks are, though I felt I was able to enter this one even with reading the extensive notes in the program. At least once during a slowly and steadily unfolding, repetitive sequence, which I later realized was an attempt to make the audience literally squirm, I glanced at my watch and thought, "Is this show going to go for all two hours?" Then the dancers broke apart, sped things up, and we arrived at the fire hose scene....
"Where Do We Come From? Who Are We? Where Are We Going?"--Gauguin's greatest painting, yes, but also the questions Lemon is asking--who are we as Americans spiritually, socially, politically, aesthetically, ontologically, in the 21st century? What is memory, and what does it mean to re-member, to memorialize? He's answering, in part, through dancing. Paraphrasing Clyde Taylor, how can we be post-modern when we are still grappling with modernity? But then, Baldwin says (the one thing I was able to write down) at the very end of the show, of the presence of Africa (in us), "The center of the world has shifted, and the definition of man has shifted with it."
If you're in Pittsburgh on March 19, don't miss this astonishing work. If not, let's hope it's issued, at the very least, along with the first and second parts of the trilogy on DVD.
***
Addendum: After the show, through the graces of my colleague, I got a chance to meet Lemon, had him autograph my copy of Geography: art/race/exile (Wesleyan UP, 2000),
and also speak to several of the dancers (Thomas, Mason, Gervais, Johnson). I have to say, Lemon and his fellow dancers--lean, lithe, bolt-upright--were as beautiful in person and presence as in their performance. The aesthetics of dancers: a topic for a future post.
Come home Charley Patton is an emotionally provocative, wrenching and uncanny show. Wrenching and provocative because of the many tragic thematic threads (racism, lynching, suicide, the Civil Rights movement, etc.) than run through it, for two solid hours. Uncanny, because Lemon, in this work, enters into dialogue with the past, with the ancestors, with the spirits and the Spirit, with (our) ghosts, and he embodies these home-y and yet defamiliarizing conversations in the dances themselves, in the show's multiple screens (one showing a cartoon James Baldwin, the other scenes of Lemon in Duluth, where the lynching the show focuses on took place, but also in parts of the South), in the doublings and pairings and moves far beyond naturalism or the commonplaces of 20th century avant-garde dance practice--there's a moving mic stand, two (hidden) ladders (Nardi Ward's, but also the Jacob's, Puryear's, Cixous'?), two video panels, a table that horses itself forward....
Charley Patton is a collage, layers upon layers, a densely tissued dance-text brimming with parallels, correspondences, fractures: It begins and ends with Baldwin's speaking figure, which frames two scenes (in part) with water: the first is a screened video of Lemon "wading in the water," in a bayou-like setting, as he carries a teacup and tries to read a short story by Arna Bontemps, of a suicidal black couple who've lost five children (to the Great Migration?), while the second is a startling moment in which Lemon literally dances, struggles to, falls down, while being jetted by a (Southern) fire hose.
In between Baldwin and Baldwin, the wading and the waterhose, we get snippets of narratives, from which Lemon migrates through motifs that become the ground for individual and group dances: holding up (a wall), blues jigs, buck(s) dancing, whistling, circus performances, falling down. The Bontemps narrative shades into one about a man, Elias Clayton, who was lynched in Duluth, Minnesota. Lemon, on video, visits the spot where the tree stood, where a monument stands. He dances in commemoration, in echo, on screen. The quintet of dancers mirror his performance--hanging, leaning, lying down--and deconstruct it on stage. A counter-memorial. Woven into these fragment-currents are stories from Lemon's research travels, his encounters with aging blues musicians and their families, his grandmother's gun-loving boyfriend who mirrors a character in one of the stories, various songs (the Smiths, Rogers & Hart, Dumaine's Jazzola Eight, Giuseppi Verdi):
The screens, one high above on stage right, the other larger and moving from center stage to the wings, evoke documentary, spectacle, the media, the panopticon of history, law, society--what is being seen, televised, viewed (can I get a witness?) and what has been and is being lost, except to memory, mourning, re-membering, revival. The performance, as a show, as a series of dances is not only embodiment--in the strikingly beautiful figures of satin-shirted Ralph Lemon and his five fellow brightly clad dancers, two women (Gesel Mason, Okwui Okpokwasili) and three men (Djédjé Djédjé Gervais, Darrell Jones, David Thomson), but also disembodiment--the videos, Baldwin's animation (by Lemon), his and other voices from offstage, whispers, lip-synching, hidden sets (visible only to parts of the audience). The simulation (video) becomes the real (the space/place of the performance and our experience of it). Ephemerality--no performance of Come home Charley Patton can ever be the same, no experience of our pasts, are ever fully isotopic with another, and yet the echoes, the traces, of our run through all we do. The spirit(s)=the thread=the dance(rs). What is communicated, translated, transferred, lost. Literally body moving. After Chicago, the troupe goes to Pittsburgh on March 19, to the African American Cultural Center there, and then this third part, and the entire trilogy, end.
Lemon conjures spirits, lets them stir and dance among the dancers, in them--Baldwin, Bontemps, Clayton, the couple, Aunt Tempe and Uncle William, Nina Simone, Janis Joplin, Jacques Brel, and so on--but plays with impersonation as well--Okpokwasili plays him, sings Nina, Roland Hayes "Liedering." Unfolding, unpacking, decomposing--the motifs, linguistic and performative, become the starting point of improvisation, repetition, revision, decomposition. The dancers literally fold, unfold, battle themselves, among themselves, before they can reunite as one. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. At times they are mirroring each other; at others, they are slamming body against body, falling (to the floor). Blacks and blues, bruises. Circles, patterns. Ladders--there are two, and no one can stay on them. The chair collapses: the trapdoor=hanged. The hoop becomes a skirt, a noose--no basketball, but a body, p[ress]asses through it.
(And here in Chicago, another significance: in every whistle Emmett Till's smiling, and later mangled face, Mamie Till Mosley's anguished and courageous voice.)
There were moments of obscurity, passage of the hermeticism Lemon himself has decried in his earlier work. In parts, a difficult [language] game and system, as all artworks are, though I felt I was able to enter this one even with reading the extensive notes in the program. At least once during a slowly and steadily unfolding, repetitive sequence, which I later realized was an attempt to make the audience literally squirm, I glanced at my watch and thought, "Is this show going to go for all two hours?" Then the dancers broke apart, sped things up, and we arrived at the fire hose scene....
"Where Do We Come From? Who Are We? Where Are We Going?"--Gauguin's greatest painting, yes, but also the questions Lemon is asking--who are we as Americans spiritually, socially, politically, aesthetically, ontologically, in the 21st century? What is memory, and what does it mean to re-member, to memorialize? He's answering, in part, through dancing. Paraphrasing Clyde Taylor, how can we be post-modern when we are still grappling with modernity? But then, Baldwin says (the one thing I was able to write down) at the very end of the show, of the presence of Africa (in us), "The center of the world has shifted, and the definition of man has shifted with it."
If you're in Pittsburgh on March 19, don't miss this astonishing work. If not, let's hope it's issued, at the very least, along with the first and second parts of the trilogy on DVD.
***
Addendum: After the show, through the graces of my colleague, I got a chance to meet Lemon, had him autograph my copy of Geography: art/race/exile (Wesleyan UP, 2000),
and also speak to several of the dancers (Thomas, Mason, Gervais, Johnson). I have to say, Lemon and his fellow dancers--lean, lithe, bolt-upright--were as beautiful in person and presence as in their performance. The aesthetics of dancers: a topic for a future post.Friday, March 04, 2005
Isaac Calderón's "Winterreise"
My former student, el baroquista Francisco M., introduced me via e-mail to a true daemon, the Valencia-based young wordslinger Isaac Calderón (1978-). In exchanging words and works, he sent me a copy of his (currently) unpublished manuscript, Menarchia del Ave Adolescente, or in English, Menarche of an Adolescent Bird.
Yes, the title is as fanciful and bizarre as it sounds, and the little collection, though brief, manages to do it justice: it is florid, fanciful, and freely ranging in its quotations and lyric exuberance, presenting an autolibretto of passionate surrealistic transformation that reaches, in its incantations (not to be sung, Calderón tells, us: no cantes) towards a sacred music beyond literal transparency as it desacralizes the poetic body. The "rot's dominion" of the winter journey below isn't an idle note.
Here then is one of the poems in the first section, "Música," which draws its title from the lyric song-cycle of Franz Schubert, followed by my translation. (As always, I greatly appreciate any suggestions for improving the translation!)
Winterreise: a journey for a winter Friday in Chicago.
***
El blanco es un silencio que de pronto puede comprenderse
Wassily Kandinsky
Escribo para que la muerte me encuentre vacío
Juan Ramón Jiménez
*Obra de Franz Schubert. Este poema encabeza la tesis doctoral de David Freudenthal
--Isaac Calderón, Copyright, 2005.
My translation:
White is a silence which suddenly can be understood
Wassily Kandinsky
I write so that death will find me empty
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Yes, the title is as fanciful and bizarre as it sounds, and the little collection, though brief, manages to do it justice: it is florid, fanciful, and freely ranging in its quotations and lyric exuberance, presenting an autolibretto of passionate surrealistic transformation that reaches, in its incantations (not to be sung, Calderón tells, us: no cantes) towards a sacred music beyond literal transparency as it desacralizes the poetic body. The "rot's dominion" of the winter journey below isn't an idle note.
Here then is one of the poems in the first section, "Música," which draws its title from the lyric song-cycle of Franz Schubert, followed by my translation. (As always, I greatly appreciate any suggestions for improving the translation!)
Winterreise: a journey for a winter Friday in Chicago.
***
El blanco es un silencio que de pronto puede comprenderse
Wassily Kandinsky
Escribo para que la muerte me encuentre vacío
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Winterreise*
Alma, me vacío: invierno la palabra invierno la palabra invierno
la palabra florece y el invierno es azar que la cercena es una virgen prócida el invierno
sagrado enterramiento de lo que es sagrado y aún refulge
yo vivo en el invierno de navíos nervados que se vierten
en la orilla del blanco del silencio blanco del silencio blanco
vivo en el navío del invierno
cuando la muerte hable desde la adolescencia de los árboles desnudos que aún duermen
-su cabello es el bosque, yo crezco en sus raíces- encontrará su eco,
porque flores futuras son las que yo espero, y flores dejaré sobre la tierra
cuyo latido sea contra el dominio de la podredumbre,
y el viento no será tan viento para poder arrebatarlas
y el hombre no será tan ángel para poder ajarlas
cuando la muerte cante dentro de mi invierno
me encontrará vacío como un silencio blanco
ondeado por la mariposa de los días
Alma, me vacío: invierno la palabra invierno la palabra invierno
la palabra florece y el invierno es azar que la cercena es una virgen prócida el invierno
sagrado enterramiento de lo que es sagrado y aún refulge
yo vivo en el invierno de navíos nervados que se vierten
en la orilla del blanco del silencio blanco del silencio blanco
vivo en el navío del invierno
cuando la muerte hable desde la adolescencia de los árboles desnudos que aún duermen
-su cabello es el bosque, yo crezco en sus raíces- encontrará su eco,
porque flores futuras son las que yo espero, y flores dejaré sobre la tierra
cuyo latido sea contra el dominio de la podredumbre,
y el viento no será tan viento para poder arrebatarlas
y el hombre no será tan ángel para poder ajarlas
cuando la muerte cante dentro de mi invierno
me encontrará vacío como un silencio blanco
ondeado por la mariposa de los días
*Obra de Franz Schubert. Este poema encabeza la tesis doctoral de David Freudenthal
--Isaac Calderón, Copyright, 2005.
My translation:
White is a silence which suddenly can be understood
Wassily Kandinsky
I write so that death will find me empty
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Winterreise*
Soul, I empty myself out: winter the word winter the word winter
the word blooms and winter is the chance that the trimming is a death-seeking virgin winter
sacred burial of what is sacred and still glitters
I live in the winter of ribbed ships that are spilling
in the border of the white of the white silence of the white silence
I live in the ship of winter
when death speaks from the adolescence of the stripped trees which still sleep
--its hair is the forest, in its roots I grow—it will meet with its echo
because future flowers are what I wait for, and I will leave flowers all over the earth
whose beat stands against rot's dominion
and the wind will not be such a wind that it can weed them
and man will not be such an angel that he can stir them
when death sings within my winter
it will find me empty as a white silence
waved by the days' butterfly
Soul, I empty myself out: winter the word winter the word winter
the word blooms and winter is the chance that the trimming is a death-seeking virgin winter
sacred burial of what is sacred and still glitters
I live in the winter of ribbed ships that are spilling
in the border of the white of the white silence of the white silence
I live in the ship of winter
when death speaks from the adolescence of the stripped trees which still sleep
--its hair is the forest, in its roots I grow—it will meet with its echo
because future flowers are what I wait for, and I will leave flowers all over the earth
whose beat stands against rot's dominion
and the wind will not be such a wind that it can weed them
and man will not be such an angel that he can stir them
when death sings within my winter
it will find me empty as a white silence
waved by the days' butterfly
*Work by Franz Schubert. This poem heads the doctoral thesis of David Freudenthal.
--Translation by John Keene, Copyright 2005.
--Translation by John Keene, Copyright 2005.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
The Sontag Blogwagon + Some Books
I hope to write something longer in the future about Susan Sontag's work, particularly the relationship between her criticism on fiction and her own prose fiction texts, but for now I'll defer to Michael Bronski's well considered article, "Notes on Susan," on The Gully, 
about the choices she made in terms of her public (sexual) identity.
(I know, I know, many blogs and critics have already flogged this point extensively, but as I say in my headline, it's a "bandwagon" I just had to get on since Sontag was and is one of my intellectual and political heroes.) Plus, I have long admired Bronski's critiques, so why not feature him in J's Theater when the opportunity arises?
I've amended this entry to add a link suggested by Reggie H.: Arthur C. Danto's loving tribute in Artforum. He calls Sontag an "aesthetician hero" (though shouldn't this be "aesthetician-hero?"). One interesting point I'd note is that two key figures in Sontag's thought that he doesn't mention, two "lovers," would have to be Friederich Nietzsche (especially the Nietzsche of The Death of Tragedy), and Walter Pater (of the famous "Conclusion" to Studies in the Renaissance). Nietzsche attempts to overthrow the tyranny of rationality, of cold Apollonian order, the "system" that goes all the way back to Plato and which Hegel codifies, for something more synthetic, dangerous, alive, that captures those dark and illimitable spaces in human experience and existence, and Sontag's criticism and fiction are many things but not systematic; while Pater urges us to live utterly in the moment, to capture each precious sensation, to make, as Wilde would formulate in another way, the life as the work of art, which Sontag definitely did. (Gertrude Stein, Marcel Duchamp, Meret Oppenheim, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Guy Debord, Andy Warhol, Yves Klein, Joseph Beuys, Vito Acconci, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Adrian Piper, William Pope.L, etc., are other figures who've shown ways this might or might not work.) Sontag took both Nietzsche and Pater increasingly to heart, as I suggested to Reggie H., especially in her notion of "an erotics of art," especially as she grew older. An aesthetician-hero, and heroic figure, indeed.
***
A few books I've been looking at (not counting course texts) of late:
about the choices she made in terms of her public (sexual) identity.(I know, I know, many blogs and critics have already flogged this point extensively, but as I say in my headline, it's a "bandwagon" I just had to get on since Sontag was and is one of my intellectual and political heroes.) Plus, I have long admired Bronski's critiques, so why not feature him in J's Theater when the opportunity arises?
I've amended this entry to add a link suggested by Reggie H.: Arthur C. Danto's loving tribute in Artforum. He calls Sontag an "aesthetician hero" (though shouldn't this be "aesthetician-hero?"). One interesting point I'd note is that two key figures in Sontag's thought that he doesn't mention, two "lovers," would have to be Friederich Nietzsche (especially the Nietzsche of The Death of Tragedy), and Walter Pater (of the famous "Conclusion" to Studies in the Renaissance). Nietzsche attempts to overthrow the tyranny of rationality, of cold Apollonian order, the "system" that goes all the way back to Plato and which Hegel codifies, for something more synthetic, dangerous, alive, that captures those dark and illimitable spaces in human experience and existence, and Sontag's criticism and fiction are many things but not systematic; while Pater urges us to live utterly in the moment, to capture each precious sensation, to make, as Wilde would formulate in another way, the life as the work of art, which Sontag definitely did. (Gertrude Stein, Marcel Duchamp, Meret Oppenheim, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Guy Debord, Andy Warhol, Yves Klein, Joseph Beuys, Vito Acconci, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Adrian Piper, William Pope.L, etc., are other figures who've shown ways this might or might not work.) Sontag took both Nietzsche and Pater increasingly to heart, as I suggested to Reggie H., especially in her notion of "an erotics of art," especially as she grew older. An aesthetician-hero, and heroic figure, indeed.
***
A few books I've been looking at (not counting course texts) of late:
- The Rest of Love by Carl Phillips
- Neue Geschichten. Hefte 1-18 by Alexander Kluge (literally looking, as my German isn't sharp enough to read these narratives other than glacially, especially during a teaching quarter; New Directions has just published a selection of stories from his collection Die Lücke, die der Teufel läßt [The Devil's Blind Spot], which I also will write about soon.)
- Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, ed. B. H. Friedman
- The Last Will and Testament of Señor Da Silva by Germano de Almeida
- Silence by John Cage (I return to this and several of Cage's other texts about once every few years)
- Polysexuality (Semiotext[e] #10), ed. Jim Fleming and Sylvère Lotringer (this one was sitting on my bookshelf, and several commentaries by Charles S. on his now-wiped blog (!) led me to retrieve it after having not opened it for almost a decade)
- The World Republic of Letters by Pascale Casanova (All it took was a stellar review in The Nation to get me to rush out and buy this book, which I cannot put down, and actually assigned at the last minute to one of my classes)
- Fourteen Female Voices from Brazil, selected and edited by Elzbieta Szoka, with an introduction by Jean Franco
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Duelo/Duel by Edimilson de Almeida Pereira
Some beauty for a Wednesday: Here is my newest attempt at translating a poem by a Brazilian poet whose work I admire greatly and whom I've translated before, Edimilson de Almeida Pereira (1963-). The poem, "Duelo," comes from his collection Lugares Ares: obra poética 2 (Belo Horizonte: Mazza Edições Ltd., 2003). A native of the university city of Juiz de Fora (Minas Gerais, Brazil), where he's a professor, Pereira is one of the most prolific and important Afro/Brazilian poets writing today. He's also a great correspondent. I chose this poem not only because it's so resonant in its simplicity, but also for my friend and fellow poet Reggie H., who is writing a wonderful series of poems on boxers and boxing.
__________
DUELO
Circulo o corpo
sem nome.
Os vidros brilham,
nada sei, nada capto.
Mas é silêncio,
oferecido, o ringue.
--Edimilson de Almeida Pereira, Copyright, 2003-2005.
DUEL
I circle the nameless
body.
Glasses are shining,
I know nothing, catch nothing.
But it is silence,
offered up, the ring.
--Translation by John Keene (2005)
_____
Any suggestions on improving the translation are welcome!
__________
DUELO
Circulo o corpo
sem nome.
Os vidros brilham,
nada sei, nada capto.
Mas é silêncio,
oferecido, o ringue.
--Edimilson de Almeida Pereira, Copyright, 2003-2005.
DUEL
I circle the nameless
body.
Glasses are shining,
I know nothing, catch nothing.
But it is silence,
offered up, the ring.
--Translation by John Keene (2005)
_____
Any suggestions on improving the translation are welcome!
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Interview with Marcelo Cerqueira of GGB
This past fall, I published this interview with Marcelo Cerqueira, the President of Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB), the oldest LGBT and human rights organization in Brazil, in Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide (Vol. XI, No. 6). It appeared in G&LR Worldwide's International Spectrum Department, in slightly truncated form, under the title "Brazil: Organizing for Gay Rights in Bahia." Since the interview was not posted online (do subscribe to G&LR Worldwide, a wonderful journal, if you can), I thought I'd post it here.
***
"DIALOGUE AND LEADERSHIP": AN INTERVIEW WITH MARCELO CERQUEIRA OF GRUPO GAY DA BAHIA (GGB), BRAZIL
Introduction
Salvador da Bahia is perhaps best known to tourists as the most "African" city in Brazil. The administrative center of Bahia State, the third-largest Brazilian city (with about 2.4 million people) and the country's first capital (1549-1763), Salvador's people and culture embody the abiding influence of the African slaves who were brought there for over 300 years, beginning in the early 16th century. Travelers from across the world and Brazil flock to Salvador to hear Bahian native musicians like Caetano Veloso, Olodum and Ilê Aiyê; learn its martial arts tradition of capoeira; witness and participate in the Yoruba-derived rites of Candomblé; and enjoy one the country's three major and most singular Carnival celebrations.
But Salvador has also been home to one of Brazil's most dynamic and oldest LGBT and human rights groups, Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB). Established in 1980 by visionary scholar and activist Dr. Luiz R. B. Mott, GGB has been a pioneer in advancing human rights and passing anti-discrimination laws, both inside and outside Bahia; in battling HIV and AIDS transmission in Brazil; and in promoting public acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. One area in which GGB has been especially vigilant has been anti-LGBT violence, an ongoing problem in Brazil, especially in the socially conservative northeast region.
During the summer of 2003, I conducted an informal discussion with Marcelo Cerqueira, the President of GGB. (He's also the Co-Coordinator of Quimbanda Dudu, the Black Gay Group of Bahia.) We spoke specifically about his personal activism, GGB's role in Salvador, its efforts to advance gay rights and human rights, and the specific role of black culture among Bahia's homosexuals, among other topics. Since then, LGBT activism has increased across Bahia, and Marcelo has continued to engage in a dialogue with other LGBT groups throughout Brazil, as well as with the Brazilian federal government, now headed by Worker's Party member Luiz Inácio "Lula" Da Silva.
(For more information on GGB, you may visit their Website. They offer basic information in English.)
THE CONVERSATION
John: Hi Marcelo. Why don't you start by telling me something about yourself?
Marcelo: I'm 34 years old. I was born in Salvador and teach history. After I entered college, I began to get involved in student activism and dedicated myself to GGB. For more than 10 years I've been an activist in the movement for the defense of homosexuals' human rights in Brazil. I also am the communications secretary for the Brazilian Association of Gays, Lesbians and Transsexuals (BLGTA).
J: What do you do at Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB)?
M: In addition to serving as President of the organization, I'm currently dedicating all my time to the homosexual movement in Brazil, and at the same time, I'm writing for Websites, like Farofadigital.com, and newspapers.
J: Not long ago, in early 2003, you ran for public office. What led to your candidacy, and what were your priorities for the LGBT community and for Bahia?
M: I was a candidate to be a state deputy for the Green Party of Brazil, and our campaign goal was to guarantee representation for homosexuals in the country's decision-making centers. GGB has always been an enthusiastic proponent of including homosexuals in politics. That's because we're certain that homophobia in the various decision-making centers has been greatly enhanced by a rise in organized action by evangelical groups. I wasn't elected, but I got 5,445 votes, from those who shared my consciousness and desired a change.
[Marcelo once again was a candidate in 2004 and has been involved in an effort called "Desire and Power" ("Desejo e Poder") to elect gay candidates in the major cities of northeastern Brazil.]
J: Returning to GGB, how does the organization serve the local gay communities?
M: GGB offers space for the promotion of health, of rights and homosexual citizenship. We offer health services, as well as specific items like condoms and lubricants, and we serve as an advocate for those who experience prejudice and need rapid action. But our work is especially aimed at forming a favorable opinion in [Brazilian] society on homosexual questions. GGB offers the opportunity for dialogue, but above all we assume leadership in a society that does not know how to live with differences.
J: What is GGB's relation to the other Brazilian LGBT and human rights groups?
M: GGB has the distinction of being the oldest functioning group of its kind in Brazil. It has existed for more than 22 years [Editor's note: now 25!], and we are a national clearinghouse in all kinds of areas, such as the promotion of rights, health, and homosexual citizenship.
J: Are there LGBT groups in the other large Bahian cities or in the smaller towns in the interior?
M: In addition to a community mobilization project and the creation of new leaders, we belong to Project Somos ("We Are"), a national and international organization that combats the spread of HIV/AIDS. In the various Bahian municipalities we are establishing gay groups and our goal is to launch these kinds of organizations in all the cities of Bahia.
J: What other cultural activities are you participating in?
M: The major event that we've achieved is the Bahian Gay Pride Parade. It's a really exciting event for GGB and for the city of Salvador.
[Bahia's 3rd Annual Gay Pride Parade and celebration, which took place in June 2004, drew its largest crowd ever, at over 80,000 attendees.]
J: How do you see LGBT life in Bahia today?
M: Here in Bahia it's very diverse. Young people here are sexually active very early, and that's good because it facilitates the process of coming out as gay. Also, many men here are bisexuals, so it's very difficult to be gay and have a fixed relationship, because many men are available for quick affairs and don't want any commitment.
J: In GGB's Webpages, I saw that the Gay Pride Parade in Salvador has a strong Afro-Brazilian cultural aspect. The parade even begins with a procession of Bahian women in traditional dress. How did that come to pass? What is the importance of Afro-Brazilian heritage for gay Bahians?
M: Salvador is the major black city outside of Africa. As a result, there's no need to state that black culture here is very strong. Candomblé is the religion of black Brazilians and it's also a very important religion for gays, who participate in great numbers, being priests, initiating others; it's marvelous. Sex is not a problem. It's a solution because it's part of the communion with the supernatural. In no way is [LGBT life] different for Afro-Bahians. The beachheads of music and black culture are very vibrant and everyone lives and experiences these aspects of our culture differently from sexual orientation.
J: In your view, how do Afro-Brazilian cultural and political groups relate to Afro-Brazilian gays?
M: With regard to cultural groups and institutionalized black groups, they do have some difficulty in inserting the discourse of the gay movement into their political practice. It doesn't occur on a daily basis because many blacks and mixed people relate themselves sexually with other men, be it for money or pleasure, without thinking about the gay aspect. Take soldiers for example; and I've even had diverse lovers, including some who are policemen. They don't assume that they are having affairs with a gay person. But military guys take part in fetish play and gay men give them what they want, they're even looking for this kind of hookup in the majority of cases.
J: One of the major issues black homosexuals (and African-American people in general) in the USA face is a rise in HIV/AIDS transmission levels. What is the principal issue for Afro-Brazilians? In Brazil and Bahia is AIDS a problem?
M: In Bahia there are around 5,800 people identified as living with AIDS. The profile of the PWA here is male, the majority are men. We don't have a breakdown by color or race. Condoms now have been absorbed into the practice of prevention. But among some people the myth exists that black men's penises are stronger, thicker and larger than whites'. Because of this they think that black men don't get infected by HIV; the majority of Bahians don't believe this, but the myth exists. GGB has already distributed more 2 million condoms.
J: Reading Brazilian Websites and books by Brazilian authors I see that so many aspects of Euro-American culture already are in Brazil: the "bear phenomenon," circuit parties, and now barebacking (sex without protection). What do you think about these issues? Are they the result of globalization or a new form of psychic colonization?
M: I think that the Brazilian gay movement is closely linked to the movement in the USA. And Brazilian gays are really turned on by our American brothers from the north. Sometimes everything is in English: parties (festas) here are called "Party," leaflets and fliers are called "Fly"; even the model of the "body beautiful," the "Barbie" [Brazilian muscle man], is an import. Gay men go to the USA and return crazed, including bringing back novelties like barebacking. It is the effect of gay globalization, of the Pride Parades, but outside the language issues and sex without protection, I don't see much that's bad in all of this.
J: Some Americans believe that Brazil is a country of greater openness and tolerance than the USA in terms of sexuality. But on the GGB site, you've documented many incidents of anti-LGBT violence. from attacks to murders. What is the reality in Brazil and in Bahia? What is the relation between class, homophobia, economics, inequality, and religion?
M: Brazil is a country that's learning pretty quickly to live with gays. Of course, inherent prejudices exist in poor countries. It's true that homosexuals are killed here. More are killed than in Mexico, more than in the USA, and it's a point of shame for us. Many gays are assassinated every year, the fruit of prejudice. It's very contradictory, because Brazilian men like to have sex with gays. Perhaps it's that they have a problem in acknowledging this posture; sometimes after the sex depression sets in. That happens in all places in the world. It's a question that requires ample reflection, an analysis of all the possibilities, including the question of poverty.
J: What are some other current objectives of GGB? What are your goals now?
M: The objectives of GGB consist of expanding the level of information in the general population about homosexuality and creating a culture of respect for differences. Our current goals are guaranteeing social space so that homosexual people can express themselves freely, equally placing the discussion about homosexuality on the political agenda and of human rights in Brazil.
J: Thanks so much, Marcelo, for your time.
M: You're welcome.
--John Keene (c) 2003-2005
***
"DIALOGUE AND LEADERSHIP": AN INTERVIEW WITH MARCELO CERQUEIRA OF GRUPO GAY DA BAHIA (GGB), BRAZIL
Introduction
Salvador da Bahia is perhaps best known to tourists as the most "African" city in Brazil. The administrative center of Bahia State, the third-largest Brazilian city (with about 2.4 million people) and the country's first capital (1549-1763), Salvador's people and culture embody the abiding influence of the African slaves who were brought there for over 300 years, beginning in the early 16th century. Travelers from across the world and Brazil flock to Salvador to hear Bahian native musicians like Caetano Veloso, Olodum and Ilê Aiyê; learn its martial arts tradition of capoeira; witness and participate in the Yoruba-derived rites of Candomblé; and enjoy one the country's three major and most singular Carnival celebrations.
But Salvador has also been home to one of Brazil's most dynamic and oldest LGBT and human rights groups, Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB). Established in 1980 by visionary scholar and activist Dr. Luiz R. B. Mott, GGB has been a pioneer in advancing human rights and passing anti-discrimination laws, both inside and outside Bahia; in battling HIV and AIDS transmission in Brazil; and in promoting public acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. One area in which GGB has been especially vigilant has been anti-LGBT violence, an ongoing problem in Brazil, especially in the socially conservative northeast region.
During the summer of 2003, I conducted an informal discussion with Marcelo Cerqueira, the President of GGB. (He's also the Co-Coordinator of Quimbanda Dudu, the Black Gay Group of Bahia.) We spoke specifically about his personal activism, GGB's role in Salvador, its efforts to advance gay rights and human rights, and the specific role of black culture among Bahia's homosexuals, among other topics. Since then, LGBT activism has increased across Bahia, and Marcelo has continued to engage in a dialogue with other LGBT groups throughout Brazil, as well as with the Brazilian federal government, now headed by Worker's Party member Luiz Inácio "Lula" Da Silva.
(For more information on GGB, you may visit their Website. They offer basic information in English.)
THE CONVERSATION
John: Hi Marcelo. Why don't you start by telling me something about yourself?
Marcelo: I'm 34 years old. I was born in Salvador and teach history. After I entered college, I began to get involved in student activism and dedicated myself to GGB. For more than 10 years I've been an activist in the movement for the defense of homosexuals' human rights in Brazil. I also am the communications secretary for the Brazilian Association of Gays, Lesbians and Transsexuals (BLGTA).J: What do you do at Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB)?
M: In addition to serving as President of the organization, I'm currently dedicating all my time to the homosexual movement in Brazil, and at the same time, I'm writing for Websites, like Farofadigital.com, and newspapers.
J: Not long ago, in early 2003, you ran for public office. What led to your candidacy, and what were your priorities for the LGBT community and for Bahia?
M: I was a candidate to be a state deputy for the Green Party of Brazil, and our campaign goal was to guarantee representation for homosexuals in the country's decision-making centers. GGB has always been an enthusiastic proponent of including homosexuals in politics. That's because we're certain that homophobia in the various decision-making centers has been greatly enhanced by a rise in organized action by evangelical groups. I wasn't elected, but I got 5,445 votes, from those who shared my consciousness and desired a change.
[Marcelo once again was a candidate in 2004 and has been involved in an effort called "Desire and Power" ("Desejo e Poder") to elect gay candidates in the major cities of northeastern Brazil.]J: Returning to GGB, how does the organization serve the local gay communities?
M: GGB offers space for the promotion of health, of rights and homosexual citizenship. We offer health services, as well as specific items like condoms and lubricants, and we serve as an advocate for those who experience prejudice and need rapid action. But our work is especially aimed at forming a favorable opinion in [Brazilian] society on homosexual questions. GGB offers the opportunity for dialogue, but above all we assume leadership in a society that does not know how to live with differences.
J: What is GGB's relation to the other Brazilian LGBT and human rights groups?
M: GGB has the distinction of being the oldest functioning group of its kind in Brazil. It has existed for more than 22 years [Editor's note: now 25!], and we are a national clearinghouse in all kinds of areas, such as the promotion of rights, health, and homosexual citizenship.
J: Are there LGBT groups in the other large Bahian cities or in the smaller towns in the interior?
M: In addition to a community mobilization project and the creation of new leaders, we belong to Project Somos ("We Are"), a national and international organization that combats the spread of HIV/AIDS. In the various Bahian municipalities we are establishing gay groups and our goal is to launch these kinds of organizations in all the cities of Bahia.
J: What other cultural activities are you participating in?
M: The major event that we've achieved is the Bahian Gay Pride Parade. It's a really exciting event for GGB and for the city of Salvador.
[Bahia's 3rd Annual Gay Pride Parade and celebration, which took place in June 2004, drew its largest crowd ever, at over 80,000 attendees.]
J: How do you see LGBT life in Bahia today?
M: Here in Bahia it's very diverse. Young people here are sexually active very early, and that's good because it facilitates the process of coming out as gay. Also, many men here are bisexuals, so it's very difficult to be gay and have a fixed relationship, because many men are available for quick affairs and don't want any commitment.
J: In GGB's Webpages, I saw that the Gay Pride Parade in Salvador has a strong Afro-Brazilian cultural aspect. The parade even begins with a procession of Bahian women in traditional dress. How did that come to pass? What is the importance of Afro-Brazilian heritage for gay Bahians?
M: Salvador is the major black city outside of Africa. As a result, there's no need to state that black culture here is very strong. Candomblé is the religion of black Brazilians and it's also a very important religion for gays, who participate in great numbers, being priests, initiating others; it's marvelous. Sex is not a problem. It's a solution because it's part of the communion with the supernatural. In no way is [LGBT life] different for Afro-Bahians. The beachheads of music and black culture are very vibrant and everyone lives and experiences these aspects of our culture differently from sexual orientation.
J: In your view, how do Afro-Brazilian cultural and political groups relate to Afro-Brazilian gays?
M: With regard to cultural groups and institutionalized black groups, they do have some difficulty in inserting the discourse of the gay movement into their political practice. It doesn't occur on a daily basis because many blacks and mixed people relate themselves sexually with other men, be it for money or pleasure, without thinking about the gay aspect. Take soldiers for example; and I've even had diverse lovers, including some who are policemen. They don't assume that they are having affairs with a gay person. But military guys take part in fetish play and gay men give them what they want, they're even looking for this kind of hookup in the majority of cases.
J: One of the major issues black homosexuals (and African-American people in general) in the USA face is a rise in HIV/AIDS transmission levels. What is the principal issue for Afro-Brazilians? In Brazil and Bahia is AIDS a problem?
M: In Bahia there are around 5,800 people identified as living with AIDS. The profile of the PWA here is male, the majority are men. We don't have a breakdown by color or race. Condoms now have been absorbed into the practice of prevention. But among some people the myth exists that black men's penises are stronger, thicker and larger than whites'. Because of this they think that black men don't get infected by HIV; the majority of Bahians don't believe this, but the myth exists. GGB has already distributed more 2 million condoms.
J: Reading Brazilian Websites and books by Brazilian authors I see that so many aspects of Euro-American culture already are in Brazil: the "bear phenomenon," circuit parties, and now barebacking (sex without protection). What do you think about these issues? Are they the result of globalization or a new form of psychic colonization?
M: I think that the Brazilian gay movement is closely linked to the movement in the USA. And Brazilian gays are really turned on by our American brothers from the north. Sometimes everything is in English: parties (festas) here are called "Party," leaflets and fliers are called "Fly"; even the model of the "body beautiful," the "Barbie" [Brazilian muscle man], is an import. Gay men go to the USA and return crazed, including bringing back novelties like barebacking. It is the effect of gay globalization, of the Pride Parades, but outside the language issues and sex without protection, I don't see much that's bad in all of this.
J: Some Americans believe that Brazil is a country of greater openness and tolerance than the USA in terms of sexuality. But on the GGB site, you've documented many incidents of anti-LGBT violence. from attacks to murders. What is the reality in Brazil and in Bahia? What is the relation between class, homophobia, economics, inequality, and religion?
M: Brazil is a country that's learning pretty quickly to live with gays. Of course, inherent prejudices exist in poor countries. It's true that homosexuals are killed here. More are killed than in Mexico, more than in the USA, and it's a point of shame for us. Many gays are assassinated every year, the fruit of prejudice. It's very contradictory, because Brazilian men like to have sex with gays. Perhaps it's that they have a problem in acknowledging this posture; sometimes after the sex depression sets in. That happens in all places in the world. It's a question that requires ample reflection, an analysis of all the possibilities, including the question of poverty.
J: What are some other current objectives of GGB? What are your goals now?
M: The objectives of GGB consist of expanding the level of information in the general population about homosexuality and creating a culture of respect for differences. Our current goals are guaranteeing social space so that homosexual people can express themselves freely, equally placing the discussion about homosexuality on the political agenda and of human rights in Brazil.
J: Thanks so much, Marcelo, for your time.
M: You're welcome.
--John Keene (c) 2003-2005
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