A few more sketches from the vault. Sydney Blair administered the MFA program down at U.Va., and was a great colleague. I think this drawing may have been at another reading, though I didn't note which one. The "de espaldas" probably comes from the fact that I was reading José Balza's La mujer de espaldas at the time. Charles Wright is a lovely, genial person, and one of the major contemporary American poets. I drew him at one of his readings down at U.Va., where he's the Souder Family Professor, and looking at the date, it coincided with the happier period of C's and my sojourn down there. After hearing Charles read, I became a great fan, and was really happy when he was finally honored with the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Black Zodiac (FSG). I consider his entire poetic opus of the last 15 years or so to be a long and entrancing serial poetic monologue. Charles Bernstein is another one of the leading American poets and poetics theorists, and his lecture at U.Va. was memorable for many reasons, not the least of which was that it merged the essay and poetry genres--this is much more common nowadays with the growth of the creative nonfiction genre--and at one point, he read a "warped" section of the essay in a warped manner, which is to say, he mimicked a warped tape as he read and performed the text. Perhaps this isn't so remarkable, except that rather than doing so before a room full of poets, he did so before a room full of English professors (unlike at the current university, when poets like Bernstein came to read, a sizable portion of U.Va.'s English faculty and grad students would show up). I sort of remember some of the people in attendance being momentarily surprised, but then they knew they were going to hear something different from Bernstein, and they did. (I should find out where that essay appeared.) This young guy sat next to me on a train trip north, I believe, to New York (or was it Boston? Washington? Philadelphia?), and was fairly chatty. Then he fell asleep, and I sketched him as quickly as I could. He was quite beautiful, as I think the drawing conveys. I don't remember where he disembarked.
Since I haven't really had any time for entries of late, I thought I'd post a few drawings. The first two originally appeared on my old NYU website (which disappeared back in 2001). The other day, at lunch with visiting poet-in-residence Heather McHugh and my colleague Brian Bouldrey, we were talking about the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (as the earliest readers of this blog know, he was the second or third poet I mentioned, after Jay Wright). The discussion of Rilke jogged my memory about Mark Strand, and more specifically led me to tell about how, some years ago (1994 to be exact), I heard Strand read from his work down at U.Va. I'd been reading Sleeping with One Eye Open, Reasons for Moving, and Darker, which was my favorite poetry book for about a hot month, partially because of its style, which seemed so mysterious and fresh at the time (and these books were his three earliest, from the late 1960s and early 1970s, and thus superannuated by the time I'd come across them), and because he'd spent time in Brazil and was translating one of that country's major poets, the late João Cabral do Melo Neto, a poet of soil and stones if there ever was one.
Strand was at U.Va. that spring I believe as one of their distinguished Rea Lecturers, and he'd published his collection Dark Harbor and won the Bollingen Prize the year before, so his visit was a big deal. In his comments to one of the students, he dismissed Rilke by noting that great poet's emotional immaturity, and pointing out that mainly adolescents were likely to get worked about Rilke, or something to that effect; I don't believe I protested vocally, though the peremptory tone soured me a bit on him as did his first comment upon seeing my drawing, which was that I'd drawn the shoulders too narrow (though he was right, they are). Nevertheless, he did sign the drawing with an arrow. He also actually uttered the comment I penned in below the image, though not merely to me, but to everyone present. It was pretty funny.
"I am developing a cold while I stand here. I might die." Charlottesville, though a wonderful town in many ways, can have that effect on some.
To the right, I see now, I was taking notes on Black visual artists of the 1960s and 1970s, as part of my "investigations." One I noted was Paul Keene, of Philadelphia. We unfortunately have never met. (And then there's a recipe just below that, for South African curried chicken....) I didn't remember drawing this picture of Alfred Kazin, who I do recall, however, giving a reading down at the University of Virginia. He was reading from Writing Was Everything, which had only just appeared. I'd heard much mention of Kazin's greatness in several of my undergraduate American literature classes (in my freshman year I conned my way into a course on Modernism taught by Joel Porte, and the shock of the new--as well as the burden of the reading and paperwriting--was all mine) as well as in essays on the mid-20th century flowering of the (in)famous New York intellectuals, so I was determined to hear him read. At some point I began sketching, and thus the drawing. It wasn't the most interesting lecture I heard during my time down there (there were many, but two come immediately to mind; one by Charles Bernstein, and I'll post the image tomorrow, the other by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, whom I did not draw, as I sat there both spellbound and confused, trying hard to follow the train of her argument--"the subalternity of the subaltern," a concept I'm now quite familiar with), but Kazin did give me a little blast of New York City long passed and past, leading me to read a few chapters of his book, as well as his earlier Walker in the City. This is one of the most recent drawings I've done (2007); it's of my colleague Alex Weheliye, who, as I noted a few posts ago, read a few weeks ago at the university from his book Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity (Duke UP, 2005), through the Center for Writing Arts, which another colleague, the amazing Reg Gibbons, administers these days. Alex is ferociously brilliant, and his book has interesting insights in pretty much every sentence, so as with my sketches of Duriel Harris, Ronaldo Wilson, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, and a few other people thinking on a higher plane, I both took notes--which start below the line barely visible at the bottom of the drawing--and allowed some of Alex's words to hover around him. I don't think I could find a black pen that afternoon, so I went with blue, but it turned out okay. And the shoulders aren't too narrow....
Since I no longer know whether I'm coming or going and really have zero time to write original blog entries, I'm going to post a few things people have forwarded to me and let the various things I've been thinking about steep.
The first is from Charles Stephens and others who've been working on Phyre, a LGBT celebration that's taking place this week (February 18-24, 2007) in Atlanta, Georgia. From the site:
What You Need To Know About Phyre=(fire)
America’s fascinating history is rich with heroes and heroines that have built the foundation of her democracy and her freedom. As a result of the contributions of these sheroes and heroes, we are a better, much fuller and dynamic country. While American history brilliantly documents the contributions, as well as the perspective, of European males succeeding in the “new-frontier” or struggling in the Great Depression, the history nearly omits the existence of African-Americans who too were part of the foundation. When African-Americans have documented our history, we are limitedly successful because much of our history has been erased, denied, or forgotten. During February, while the nation dedicates time to remembering and honoring our African-American past; a coalition of community partners, PHYRE, based in Atlanta, Georgia, is honoring African-American history by dedicating the week of February 18, 2007 - February 24, 2007 to celebrating and remembering lesbian, gay, and bisexual African-American women and men who too have shaped the American mosaic through their contributions in politics, social justice, film, art, music dance, religion, and literature.
As African-American communities move forward with creating institutions, building monuments, memorializing and celebrating our greatnesses by demanding visibility, inclusion, and recognition, PHYRE’s vision is to expressly add that our history is rich also because of contributions from African-American persons who among them are lesbian, gay, and bisexual. In the words of Alice Walker, “We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.” The PHYRE project aims to assure that the truths about lesbian, gay, and bisexual African-American’s is known, understood, and celebrated. As the truths become more and more evident, America and all her children will be free.
During the week of February 18 - 24, 2007 PHYRE will celebrate the truths by hosting an array of community-wide events that honor and remember African-American lesbian, gay, and bisexual American history. The events are arranged to promote dialogue, as well as, to promote cross-cultural awareness of the contributions of African American lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons. The organizers plan on making this tribute an annual event that is rooted in Atlanta, but stretches across all communities in the United States, with hopes that within Black History month, America will dedicate one week to honor the contributions of its black lesbian, gay, and bisexual past. All events will be free of charge and open to the public.
For more information contact the PHYRE Information Line at (678) 280-7750, visit us on the web at www.afterthephyre.org, or via MySpace at www.myspace.com/afterthephyre.
The events include a silent auction, a film series, tributes to the ancestors, and other important cultural and spiritual work, so if you're in Atlanta, please check them out.
***
Another recent email comes from author Thomas Glave, who writes about having spoken with one of the young men who was nearly lynched in Jamaica just a few few weeks ago. As reported in the Jamaican Observer (and extensively on Rod 2.0's excellent site, C pointed out to me), three young men found themselves trapped in a pharmacy as a frenzied crowd of 2,000 quickly gathered outside and began calling for them to be cast outside so that they could be killed. The pretext was that they were too overtly flaunting their (homo)sexuality and flouting the social codes of the deeply heterosexist and homophobic society in which they live. Police rescued the young men, but Thomas reports on what happened to one young man after they were delivered out of the hands of the mob.
Warm greetings, all. Please excuse this "mass" email. Here is some *awful* news -- *again* -- from Jamaica. Today, I called one of the guys who was attacked; he's physically OK, but, as you can imagine, going through a lot in other ways. This article doesn't even come close to describing how vicious the police were to him in particular, calling him names "dutty nasty battyman," for example (literally "dirty nasty faggot"), cursing him, hitting him in his stomach with their rifles, and hitting him in his eye and on his head. After they took him to Half Way Tree police station -- where they told him not to show his face again if he knew what was good for him -- he found his way to Medical Associates Hospital, not far from where the whole thing happened, where he was treated for his injuries, and released.
He called friends in New York and Switzerland, asking them to call the police in Jamaica; it's because of the calls from "foreign," some people believe, that the police came at all and got the guys out of there. Those of you who know the "connected" people in Jamaica in the LGBT community will be able to find out more by talking with them.
Rod notes in his most recent entry that Jamaicans Forum for Lesbians, All Sexuals and Gays (JFLAG) is now demanding an investigation into the allegations of police violence and taunting at the Half-Way-Tree station, where some police supposedly warned the young men never to set foot again.
***
Reggie Harris wrote to alert me and others to an article this past Saturday in the Baltimore Sun on Morgan Monceaux/Master Nagrom (at left, Sun photo by André F. Chung) an artist and activist we know who is finally get some measure of his due for his artwork, which includes his ongoing Black Divas series, a group of paintings of noteworthy Black classical singers, some of the totally forgotten, for which he conducted extensive research and on which he has been working furiously, especially since he experienced another flare-up of a very serious illness. Half a decade ago, I went to Nagrom's studio in Rhode Island, and had the opportunity to see some of his work and chat with him. Among the many impressive projects I recall were the First Lady series, which I thought must have taken a herculean effort to complete and some of which were displayed at the National Portrait Gallery last year, and his erotic paintings and drawings, which received a solo show at New York's LGBT Center a few years back. The Vietnam veteran and former theology student has published several books and, according to the article, isn't setting a deadline anymore: he says of life in general, "Each step takes you closer to a realization of who you are and what you're here to do." Here's to hoping that he has many more years left of thinking, dreaming, creating, painting.
“BEDTIME STORY,” A TALE OF LOVE, LOSS, REDEMPTION AND HOPE by TSEHAYE GERALYN HEBERT AT eta THURS, FEB 15 – APRIL 8, 2007 “Visual Connections” All-Woman Photography exhibit in eta Gallery
CHICAGO (January 19, 2007) eta Creative Arts Foundation presents “Bedtime Story,” a tale of love, loss, redemption and hope in a Louisiana hamlet written by Tsehaye Geralyn Hebert and directed by Kamesha Jackson. Opening Thursday, February 15 thru April 8, 2007, show times are 8 pm Thursday through Saturday; 3 & 7 pm Sunday at eta Square, 7558 S. South Chicago Avenue. The popular “2-for-l” tickets Thursdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 7 pm continue, subject to availability, except opening and closing nights. This production is partially supported by ComEd. General admission is $25 w/student, senior and group discounts. For tickets and information, call 773-752-3955 or visit the web site at www.etacreativearts.org.
Set a few years after the riots of 1919 in the Louisiana Bayou, a Grandmother’s innocent bedtime stories are the key to what unearths long held secrets that threaten the foundation of the Gremillion household.
“This play poses and grapples with the question – Can love truly heal all wounds,” says Kamesha Jackson, the director. “Tsehaye Hebert’s Bedtime Story is a beautifully woven tale full of characters that (almost) anyone can relate to on some level.”
Adds Hebert, “It’s a love letter to my family, my state, my African American southern roots and to survival beyond anything we can imagine.”
***
Poet Sandra Miller, the editrice of 1913 Press and 1913: A Journal of Forms, and publisher of Seismosis, has sent out another announcement for 1913 Press's Rozanova Prize.
"All writing is collaboration." ...I think Robert Kelly said that.
1913 says: There's till time to submit to THE ROZANOVA* PRIZE for a collaborative and/or visual book, to be published in a beautiful perfect-bound edition by 1913 Press. Winner also receives standard royalties contract and 25 copies of the book.
"COLLABORATIVE and/or VISUAL" are as open modalities as you want to make them.
Please see 1913 a journal of forms and 1913's book publications for fine examples: Seismosis by John Keene + Christopher Stackhouse and Sightings by Shin Yu Pai
http://journal1913.org/home.html
DEADLINE: March 13, 2007 $20 entry fee
ALL entries will be considered for publication by 1913. All contest entrants will receive a copy of the winning book.
Multiple entries are accepted, but must be sent under separate cover
either online: http://www.journal1913.org/prizes.html
or by mail to: 1913 Press Box 9654 Hollins University Roanoke, Virginia 24020
Please email the editrice@journal1913.org with any questions at all.
1913 looks forward to the opportunity to read your work...and collaborate!
*After Olga Rozanova (1886-1918), Russian avant-garde (Cubo-Futurist, Proto-Suprematist, Neo-Primitivist) artist who began constructing book art objects in 1913, in collaboration with Kruchenykh, Klebnikhov, and Malevich. Rozanova died young and unexpectedly, a week before the October Revolution anniversary.
***
Finally, I just received word from poet and scholar Evie Shockley, announcing the new issue of MiPOesias, which she edited:
cc,
i invite you to celebrate with me and the contributors among us: ~QUEST~ : A Special Edition of MiPOesias Magazine featuring new work by African American poets has been released! check it out:
don't miss the audio components of this issue -- most poets have mp3s of their poems that you can access on their individual pages, but on the MiPO home page and/or the cover page of the issue, a podcast compiled of readings by each of the poets who recorded audio will load and play. you can also download this podcast from the iTunes store for free; search the podcasts for MiPoesias.
don't miss the amazing artwork of krista franklin on the cover page!
there is some really exciting work in this issue! enjoy --
peace, evie
The lineup of contributors is amazing! They are:
A. Van Jordan Aracelis Girmay Brandon D. Johnson C.S. Giscombe Camille Dungy Carl Martin Cherryl Floyd-Miller Christian Campbell Christopher Stackhouse Derrick Weston Brown Douglas Kearney Duriel E. Harris Ed Roberson G.E. Patterson Geoffrey Jacques giovanni singleton kim d. hunter Kyle G. Dargan L. Teresa Church Lenard D. Moore Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon Marilyn Nelson Meghan Punschke Mendi Lewis Obadike Opal Moore Raina Leon Reginald Harris Reginald Shepherd Tara Betts Thylias Moss Tonya Foster Treasure Williams Tyrone Williams
though not mine, just the ones I've attended in the interstices of my work-related reading. Here are photos from of the recent Chicagoland events I've been able to catch:: Fiction writer Frances de Pontes Peebles, a native of Recife, Brazil, reading from her novel The Seamstress, set in Brazil's northeast region, at today's Naïeveté Studios Second Sun reading. The novel will be published in January 2008. Poet, fiction writer, healer and all around beautiful person M. Eliza Abegunde Hamilton introducing Frances de Pontes Peebles, at the Naïeveté Studios Second Sun reading (Reconstruction 747, the arts and goodies fare, was also yesterday and today.) My esteemed colleague Mary Kinzie, reading poems to benefit the undergraduate Dance Marathon, at Café Ambrosia, on Friday. My esteemed colleague Brian Bouldrey, reading a selection of his forthcoming book, Walking Across Corsica, to benefit the undergraduate Dance Marathon, at Café Ambrosia, on Friday. One of my newest colleagues, Eula Biss, reading from a creative nonfiction work to benefit the undergraduate Dance Marathon, at Café Ambrosia, on Friday. Q musing, as Michael read. Michael Warr reading from his work, at his reading with Q, on February 1. Quraysh Ali Lansana, reading with Michael Warr at the Spot, an event sponsored by the Poetry Center of Chicago, on February 1. Lisa Buscani, director of the Poetry Center of Chicago, the sponsor of Q's and Michael's reading, performing one of her poems.
It's officially official: this morning, Barack Obama (at left, AFP/Mandel Ngan) launched his campaign for the presidency. On a superfrigid day in Springfield, the Illinois state capital, in front of the Old State Capitol building, before which Abraham Lincoln began his anti-slavery campaign in 1858, the 45-year-old Democratic US senator promised to transform the political landscape, end the war in Iraq, and bridge the partisan divide. Despite the hellish temperature, the enthusiastic crowd numbered in the thousands. Obama appealed to the audience, and more broadly to American voters, to elect him as a representative of a new generation, with a fresh and clear vision and the will to enact it. He acknowledged his relatively brief tenure in office, which has become a standard/conventional wisdom talking point against him, yet argued that his demonstrated leadership skills and determination to unite the country and put it back on track were what the US needs--and regardless of how you feel about his candidacy, his point is well taken, especially after eight years of the current quasi-fascist horrorshow, which may include a third war, against Iran, as its capstone.
A great quote:
For the last six years we've been told that our mounting debts don't matter, we've been told that the anxiety Americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnant wages are an illusion, we've been told that climate change is a hoax, and that tough talk and an ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy, and strategy, and foresight. And when all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq mounts, we've been told that our crises are somebody else's fault. We're distracted from our real failures, and told to blame the other party, or gay people, or immigrants.
The primaries are a long ways off, and the odds against Obama are long (though recent polling shows him in second or third place in key primary states, and matching up well against the Republican media darlings), but his election would be revolutionary, constituting a social and political landmark in American history.
Update: Obama's already being attacked by...the Prime Minister of Australia! That's right, he's only a primary candidate at this point, but a foreign leader has jumped into the fray to attack him. John Howard, Australia's right-wing, pro-Bush PM, obviously feels so threatened by Obama (WTF?) that he felt the need to issue this statement. Is he suffering from hallucinations that an Aborigine (Black Australian) might be in a position to run the US? It's pretty bizarre, but let's see what other friends of W decide to launch criticisms of him.
Meanwhile, Steve Gilliard, whose News Blog I check every day, repeats the meme that he has no experience and that, according to some Black people (this time Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Nation crew), he's not down enough. Oh, and he adds that Lincoln was a racist, and since Obama delivered his remarks in the racist's hometown, etc. In the comments more than a few people contexualize Lincoln's feelings about slavery, Black people (and bodies), and so forth, but Stanford historian George Williamson wrote a highly informative book about this topic, and if you read it you'll all you want about Lincoln's issues somatic norms and so on.
***
This afternoon, after weeks of wanting to go see it, I finally traipsed down to the Music Box and caught David Lynch's Inland Empire. As I described it to C tonight, I can't really describe it except to suggest that, after one viewing, I think it primarily is Lynch's tone poem of the nightmare(s) of Hollywood, with Laura Dern standing in as his (or someone's) alter egos. But then Laura Dern (Nikki Grace/Susan Blue) is only one of several actors and actresses who occupy the screen in a dizzying round-robin fashion. After a confusing intro, which includes a transaction between a prostitute and john in Polish, both with blurred out faces, in black and white, and people in rabbit suits in a sitcom, the film appears to settle on semi-firm footing with Grace Zabriskie (Visitor #1) appearing, in full derangement mode, at the mansion of Dern's Nikki Grace, a rich but unemployed actress, to spew what could only be considered a disorientingly scary prediction about Grace's upcoming role, as Susan Blue, in a film with the ridiculous title "On High in Blue Tomorrows...." And scary only barely encapsulates the delirious horrors that ensue, as Grace, on set with Justin Theroux's Devon Berk as Billy Side, under the direction of Jeremy Irons's Kingsley Stewart (with a dour Harry Dean Stanton as Freddie Howard in tow), begins to fall too deeply into her role, which is to say into her own inland empires, and out of reality altogether...though Lynch, as in Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and his other quasi-realist creations, poses important questions about what the "real" really is. One of my university colleagues mentioned that she'd felt almost continuous unease throughout the film, and I can echo her assessment, adding that I had to cover my eyes more than once; kept mistaking mini-climaxes for the real thing; and still have no idea what the scenes in Poland (as opposed to in Polish) or the rabbit family or the thuggish circus crew represent, though other viewers may have readily picked up on the semiotic web connecting them to the rest of the film. (I wonder if Lynch fully knows himself, or if he regrets having not cut the strange Diane Ladd--Laura Dern's mother in real life--talkshow scene as well.) The actor Peter J. Lucas, who played Dern's husband, Piotrek Krol, creeped me out to no end.
The best things about it were Dern's performance, which entailed both range and stamina, which she supplied in full measure, and the film's almost nonstop tone and sense of menace, as well as its hallucinatory movement as narrative, in and against time; Lynch literally transcribed his nightmarish fantasy of Hollywood, as one infernally bad marriage/(hetero)sexual transaction for pay, boundless in every way, directly into a loose(ly) script(ed) form. The accordingly matching affect, it would then seem, would be something profounding and unremittingly disquieting. It struck me that this was a kind of apogee of experimental filmmaking that we seldom see--though Lynch welds his lyrical visual poetics, glazed here by digital video's fuzzing technlogy, with what could only be called drama in the archetypal sense, and, more specifically, were there not hints of (sentimentalized) resolution, tragedy. Instead, what he's produced is an ironic comedy whose language game is always partially concealed, veiled, hidden, though he gives us many pointers, so it does no justice to call it beautiful or brilliant or anything else, because what on earth could these terms mean on anyone's terms but his? And yet any one of them, as well as far harsher appraisals, might be appropriate too--and that, I think, is part of his point. I want to see it again, just to see if I can piece together more clues, but I'm glad I caught it before it disappeared.
Yesterday, amid my student meetings and stacks of reading, and after attending a mind-stirring lecture and Q&B by my colleague Alex Weheliye from his remarkable, award-winning study, Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity (Duke UP, 2005), I had an opportunity to see a movie I'd heard of but never caught, Imagine the Sound (Ron Mann, 1981), which explores the work of four important figures from the black/music avant-garde of the late 1950s through the early 1970s, Cecil Taylor (one of my favorite artistic avatars), Archie Shepp, Paul Bley, and Bill Dixon. Another colleague, Kevin Bell, whose extraordinary study of transatlantic modernisms, Ashens Taken for Fire: Aesthetic Modernism and the Critique of Identity (Minnesota, 2007), has just appeared, had secured the VHS tape via interlibrary loan (the university unfortunately does not own a copy), and after he rolled the department's video equipment up to my office, he, poet Ed Roberson (!!!--author of the indepensible collection Just In: Word of Navigational Changes: New and Selected Poems, Talisman, 1998, and many other amazing works) and I spent a little chunk of the late afternoon watching and enjoying it. (Kevin's class will get to see it next week.)
For anyone who is a fan of or fascinated by some of the musical innovation of the 1960s, Imagine the Sound is a must-see. Although it only focuses on four key figures, all male, it presents rarely seen material, including Cecil Taylor performing one of his "dance poems" and several solo numbers, Archie Shepp reciting-singing a poem for Malcolm X, and Bill Dixon expatiating on any number of topics in a magnetizing fashion. The performances and commentary by Taylor or Shepp alone would be worth the effort required to get ahold of the video, but Dixon also is a highlight, and his words were a revelation to me. In addition to his trumpet performances, which range between mechanical moans of various kinds to expressive whispers and shrieks, he talks about his experiences starting out and how he had to learn to channel his anger into and through his music, his and the other musicians' pre-commercial foci and the larger field of artistic ferment that was taking place in New York during the 1960s (the Judson Church dances, performance art, the painting scenes, etc.), and his desire to start his own "institute," among other things. Although I often experience brief moments of disabling nostalgia and belatedness when watching such documentaries (as when I recently watched the mesmerizing but problematic 2006 Peter Rozen "great men of art" documentary on late 1950s-mid-1980s New York artmaking and the Henry Geldzahler circle, Who Gets to Call It Art?), I felt energized after the film ended, and Kevin, Ed and I chatted briefly about the narrative, the aesthetic, sociopolitical and performative spaces and dialogues these artists opened up and continue to open up (and all three are still alive, as far as I know), and how we and others are still coming to terms with it. (This was a key theme in all the documentees' commentaries, but especially in Taylor's and Bley's.) It was the sort of afternoon I imagined I'd experience all the time once I cast my lot with academe, but unfortunately, such moments happen all too rarely....
Update: Ron Mann, the director of Imagine the Sound, posted in the comments section to say that he's "just restored the film to HD and 5.1 Stereo Sound. It will premiere at SXSW, Austin TX March 07. For more info see www.sphinxproductions.com."
What a summery day we had in Chicago this afternoon: it reached 15 F. Meanwhile, in the wider world, the news includd the imminent coming out by a former NBA player (the first former NBA player to come publicly out of his own volition?) John Amaechi. A Boston native and the son of a Nigerian father and white British mother, Amaechi was reared in the UK, played college basketball at Pennsylvania State University, where was a two-time Academic All American, and wasn't drafted but still managed to have a 9-year career, for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Orlando Magic, and Utah Jazz, as well as in the European League. (A former coworker of mine went to college with Amaechi, and had only positive things to say about him.)
Since retiring three years ago, Amaechi has been a TV personality in Britain, and also runs a foundation, ABC, which aims to create sports opportunities for children throughout the UK. The news of his self-outing began building recently with the forthcoming release of his book, Man in the Middle, which purportedly will describe his experiences as a closeted professional athlete. In addition to running his foundation and his TV work, Amaechi has been very active in a number of social causes, has mentored young people, and is a practicing poet. He used to have a Website that featured some of his lyric stylings, as well as pictures of his friends and family, and other aspects of his life, though it's unfortunately been taken down. He also was named one of 100 Great Black Britons several years ago.
I applaud Amaechi's courage, and love that his coming out occurred during Black History Month. Now let's see if he'll be a lone wolf for a short time or a long while; how long will it take for any other ex-NBA players, and in particular, Black ex-NBA players, to go as far as he (or Dennis Rodman, who declared his gay-friendliness a few years ago) has? He certainly isn't the only gay former NBA player, and there must be some gay and bi men currently in the league.
I woke up this morning to the radio announcer saying it was -5 F this morning without the wind chill, but the icy climate here in Chicago may also be the result of the Chicago Bears' loss in yesterday's Super Bowl to the Indianapolis Colts. It was an auspicious game, marking simultaneously the first time an African-American head coach had made it this far and the first time two--Lovie Smith for the Bears and Tony Dungy for the Colts--would be facing each other. The Bears had dominated the National Football Conference, primarily because of their defensive prowess; their main weak point remains their less-than-top tier starting quarterback, Rex Grossman. In contrast, the Colts, one of the top American Football Conference teams, have one of the league's best quarterbacks, Peyton Manning, and best receivers, Marvin Harrison, but their defense for much of the season was horrendous. If the Bears' defense could keep the scoring low and if Grossman and running back Thomas Jones could put some points on the board, the Bears would have the edge; if not, then it was Indianapolis's game to lose. As the contest began, both teams would have to deal with Miami's relentless downpour.
As it turned out, after a spectacular opening few minutes, during which the Bears' kick and punt return star Devin Hester set a Super Bowl record for the longest touchdown return (92 yards), and after Grossman threw a touchdown pass to receive Muhsin Muhammad, fortune shifted to the Colts. Manning, Harrison, receiver Reggie Wayne (above right, with tight end Bryan Fletcher), and the two backfielders, Joseph Addai and Dominique Rhodes, repeatedly drove their team down the field, and while they could not get touchdowns every time, they were able to pass Chicago by the midpoint of the game 16-14, and pull ahead 22-14 after the half-time break. For much of the second quarter and second half, Chicago's Grossman could not get a handle on the ball, could not convert third-down possibilities, and simply looked off kilter. He slipped on the wet field at one point, and threw several interceptions, including one in the fourth quarter to backup defender Kelvin Hayden, that effectively sealed Chicago's defeat. After the getting the ball back, he threw another interception, and the Vince Lombardi Trophy went to Dungy (who unfortunately has cast his lot with the horrible homophobes of the American Family Association) and the Colts.
I turned off the sloppy broadcast, which for much for the evening featured water-fogged shots, after the fifth or six incoherent invocation of "God" by the owner, Jim Irsay (whose father infamously moved the team in the middle of the night from Baltimore), and Dungy--did they think they'd dropped down at a revival meeting? Was God not on Chicago's side as well?--but I do congratulate the coach on making history and finally vindicating his talent and skills, which had been called into question by critics and his prior employers in Tampa Bay. As I noted to sports-loving friends, perhaps this victory will also mean that football fans no longer have to hear the sportswriters and commentators harping on the fact that Peyton Manning, considered by many of them to be a deity alongside the Patriot's Tom Brady, had not won the Super Bowl. I would like to see Lovie Smith lead the Bears back next year, though he'll still have the problem of his inconsistent quarterback, and a much tougher schedule to negotiate. That is, if the Bears re-sign him (and they should do so as soon as possible), and if he doesn't return, that spells an opening for the Saint Louis Rams....
Added note: Commenter Eileen rightly mentions the halftime entertainer, Mr. Prince Nelson Rogers, and I must admit that I tuned out when he came on. I was a major fan of Prince's in my youth, had a crush on him, wanted to live in that paisley-park of a world that his music conjured up...but I haven't been too Princified in recent years, and I wondered, why weren't some new musicians, from the current generation of musical artists, out there? Prince did manage to add his take on instrument malfunction, though I've heard no outcry about it (the phallic usually seems to occasion less outrage than the mammary/vaginal), but in general, for me he quickly disappeared into the surroundings. (And he certainly wasn't going to be singing any of my favorites among his songs, like "Lady Cab Driver," "Controversy," etc.)
Also, I paid very little attention the ads. Often I muted them, so I missed the homophobic one from Mars, makers of Snickers and M&Ms, that's being harshly criticized on AmericaBlog. Did anyone else catch this one? I did notice several violent ads, including one warning about heart disease that was brutal enough to induce a cardiac arrest. I also found Coca Cola's attempts to commodify Black history disgusting and offensive; and given that the last thing that many African Americans--or anyone else, for that matter--need to be drinking is corn syrup and additive laden sodas like Coca Cola, whose production takes a tremendous toll on the environment, Coca Cola's ads were especially ironic. But it's not me they're thinking about; it's the millions of children, in particular, that they want to hook on their potentially teeth-rotting fizzy juice, whose consciousnesses they want to industrialize. Somehow, I doubt the American College of Dentistry or the American Diabetes Association would be happy without their assistance.
Update: Courtesy of Audiologo (thanks so much!), here is the link, from This Modern World, to Mars's offensive Snickers commercial.
Well, I've learned my lesson. I won't be commenting again on this blog about how unseasonably warm it is in Chicago, knowing full well my propensity for talking things up (as C will attest) and what this city and region, despite global warming, still have in store. Tonight It's 12F, without the wind chill factor, though I ventured out to a reading (which I'll blog about I hope tomorrow), I tried to spend as little time as I possibly could outdoors. This afternoon, between my morning and afternoon workshops, I decided (foolishly) to walk to the post office to mail some bills, and although I have never and will never have my face in a threshing machine, I was able to imagine the feeling just walking into the eastward wind. In addition, every morning, the sidewalks and my car have borne a light coat of snow and ice. It might not have been a White Christmas, but it's been a very White January.
Wherever in the vast plains those arctic winds are coming from, I wish they could go back. It is days and evenings like this that give me endless appreciation for whomever invented the radiator and thought of 7+ foot thick brick and concrete walls for houses and apartment buildings, and double-paned windows....
***
Another note about Chicago. Every day that I drive to and from Evanston, I say that I'm going to write about Chicago driving, even though I know full well from the statcounter associated with this blog that very few of my readers come from the Arctic City. But nevertheless, on the off chance that I have some Chicago readers other than my wonderful former students and a few colleagues, I am going to recommend one thing that even the worst drivers I have encountered driving in Boston (where, as I once told Reggie H. people were liable to drive backwards at upwards of 20 miles an hour down the street and then someone proceeded to illustrate my point, right then and there), or New Jersey (where the highways are basically raceways), or New York City (where you play a game sort of like Bumper Cars except that you never actually touch the other car, only at 10x the speeds), or Washington DC (which is a giant driving maze without walls), or anywhere else but Chicago appear to have learned during their period of learning how to handle an automobile. There is a lever which connects to a mechanism that creates a blinking light on either side of your car's front and rear lights. This mechanism is generally known as a turn signal or blinker. (I have no clue what the correct term is in Spanish, though I would guess it's something like señal de vuelta, maybe, maybe not.) At any rate, these lights are very useful. They indicate when you plan to make a turn left or right, be it onto a street or into an alleyway or parking lot, or if you plan to change lanes, or if you aim to pull into a spot to park. In every other place that I've lived, most of the drivers realize that the turn signal/blinkers are for these multiple purposes. But not, it seems, in Chicago. Change lanes, often no signal. You signal you're going to park, and someone pulls right up behind you so you can barely back up; or they stop in the middle of the city's narrow residential streets, as if waiting to pick up someone, and lo, here they come backing up, into what could be one or two different parking spaces--but without a turn signal. And the person in front of you slows down to a crawl, with their break lights on? Are they going to stop for some reason? No, they're making a turn! I'm not sure why this basic aspect of driving is so hard for some of the good people out here to grasp, but I'm appealing to them: please learn to use your turn signal/blinkers. Please. You're not only doing yourself a huge favor, but everyone else as well. Please!
***
Today is the first day of Black History Month, which I was fortunate to have been introduced to formally as a grade schooler, during those heady days in the early and mid-1970s when cultural affirmation was beginning to take root in many parts of the country. This was also not too long after the heyday of the Black Arts and Black Power movements, and so in addition to my introduction to Black history in school--in a Roman Catholic school, mind you, that went on to rename itself after the nation's first Black* Catholic bishop--I also took "African" dancing lessons and Black drawing classes and the like. It was not only edifying, but incredibly fun. (Especially those dances.) As I was in a predominantly Black environment at the time (though I'd gone to a multracial, multiethnic Montessori school for preschool), celebrating Black history seemed natural; nearly all the teachers and the students were Black, and the few White nuns and Fr. Ed appeared to go along with it (again, this was a very different period from today). Lining the hallways were the posters about famous Black people (from Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass to Mary McLeod Bethune and Ralph Bunche), and we learned a bit about famous Black people from Missouri, like our then-Congressman, Bill Clay, and Madame C.J. Walker, who'd lived in St. Louis, and George Washington Carver, as well as famous Black public figures, like the late Martin Luther King Jr. and Shirley Chisholm. (We didn't hear too much about famous Black entertainment figures from the state and city, like Chuck Berry, Redd Foxx, Dick Gregory, or Tina Turner, but then the emphasis was on certain types of role models, i.e., world leaders, scientists, and so forth, and not others, i.e., people in entertainment; Scott Joplin and Bobbie McFerrin Sr. were a few of the musicians whose work I remember hearing discussed, but I had to hear about the other famous St. Louis and St. Louis-area musicians, like Miles Davis, Clark Terry and Joe Bowie (of Art Ensemble of Chicago fame), and so on, at home.) I cannot recall if Anheuser-Busch had begun releasing its great Kings and Queens of Africa calendars and posters back then--I want to say they did, but I might be conflating memories--but I do know that non-American famous Black people, like Haile Selassie and Anwar al-Sadat were mentioned approvingly.
Then we moved to the suburbs, and I was no longer at a predominantly Black school, and wasn't getting any sort of exposure to Black history or culture outside my home or family or immediate neighborhood. I was in fact the only Black person in my class, and only one of three Black children in the entire larger new school I attended. (My new neighbors up the street had already all graduated from the elementary school and were away in high school, while the other neighborhood kids went to a different school named, appropriately enough, after Frederick Douglass.) If any discussion of Black anything came up in any of my classes for those first two years, I don't remember it at all. At the next school I attended for junior high, I was one of two Black students in my class, and one of a little over a dozen in all 7-12th grade classes combined. In English we studied grammar and read poetry and fiction, none of it by anyone Black. In history, we learned about the Greeks and Romans and British (though none of the Black denizens of any of those cultures). In Latin and French and Musical Education--well, no Black people turned up at all. Religion, same thing. (The North African St. Augustine was a year away.) Around this time my parents joined one of those organizations (not Jacks & Jills) which believed in bringing Black children, especially ones scattered about the suburbs, together to socialize. The organization or members hosted various events, and it was at one of the older kid's parties a few years later that I first heard "Rappers Delight." They also had a public recital, and though I was painfully shy, I did agree to participate in one of them. Around this time, I was becoming fascinated by Langston Hughes, whose work I knew about from early childhood on, though I didn't learn he was a native Missourian until reading one of those Black history posters. To me he was the most famous Black American poet (then and now), and though Nikki Giovanni was my favorite at the time, I considered Hughes to be the poet whose work I should try to publicly recite. (I also thought of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, but Hughes was more contemporary.)
So for the recital, I decided that I would memorize one of his poems, and I picked one of the most obvious, which I'd been familiar with from my prior Black history classes and books at home and at my godparents' homes: "Dream Deferred." To me, it is one of the central poems of the Black American experience, and though I was terrified to death by the prospect of reciting this short poem aloud, when the time came, I got up and delivered it, I think without faltering. The one comment I remember after that experience was that a woman complimented me on the performance and on wearing my afro combed back "like Frederick Douglass." I don't remember "Dream Deferred" by heart anymore, but one of the pleasures of my class this past fall was that I had the opportunity to read it again with students. Here it that poem, by an artist and figure I adore more and more as I grow older, (James Mercer) Langston Hughes (1902-1967), whose birthday is today:
Dream Deferred
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
And here is another poem by him, that captures in all its simplicity the spirit of Carter G. Woodson's original "Black History Week" and now, of Black History Month, "My People":
My People
The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people.
The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people.
Beautiful, also, is the sun. Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.
I never tire of watching Serena Williams play; in addition to her heartstopping talent, singular fashion sense, and on-court expressivity, she always carries about her person and career the requisite amount of drama, and her performance at this year's Australian Open did not disappoint. After missing nearly all of 2006 with one of the many injuries that have increasingly plagued her in recent years (and also provided her with time to begin her acting career and hit the town with the likes of Rick Fox), and with many of the tennis world's pundits decrying her lack of fitness and declining abilities, the 25- year-old star and two-time champ returned to Melbourne unseeded, and proceeded to plow through the field of ranked women, becoming only the second unseeded woman in the history of the Australian Open to do so. In the final, against the new international darling, Maria Sharapova, Serena put on a demonstration clinic, serving and acing her opponent 6-1, 6-2, which brought her a 3rd Australian Open title, and her 8th Grand Slam victory. During the trophy presentation (pictured above, AP Photo/Rick Stevens), she was as charming and gracious as possible, and dedicated the win to her slain older sister Yetunde Price ("I love her very much" was Serena's moving tribute). Serena's elder, diffident, cygnine sister Venus, the pioneer of the sisters' winning ways, with back to back Wimbledon and US Open wins half a decade ago, was absent as well, suffering through her own spate of injuries and thus unable to participate , though anyone who's followed these two for more than a hot minute could easily imagine they'd probably decided that this major tournament was Serena's to walk away with. And, being the embodiment of fierceness, she did.
+++
A study by Joni Hersch, a law and economics professor at Vanderbilt University, confirms something that I've always figured, and which makes perfect sense given the history and ongoing problems of our society: the lighter-skinned (and taller) an immigrant, the more she or he will make. As Travis Loller reports in his article, "Study Says Skin Tone Affects Earnings," in today's Washington Post, Hersch controlled for other factors and found that skin-tone still appeared to be the key in earnings differences. Yet despite the fact that many cultures have a bias towards lighter skin tones and hues, the key factor according to the study was a US preference, above and beyond that of the immigrant's original culture or society. Quoting the article:
"On average, being one shade lighter has about the same effect as having an additional year of education," Hersch said.
The study also found that taller immigrants earn more than shorter ones, with an extra inch of height associated with a 1 percent increase in income.
Other researchers said the findings are consistent with other studies on color and point to a skin-tone prejudice that goes beyond race.
Hersch took into consideration other factors that could affect wages, such as English-language proficiency, education, occupation, race or country of origin, and found that skin tone still seemed to make a difference in earnings.
That means that if two similar immigrants from Bangladesh, for example, came to the United States at the same time, with the same occupation and ability to speak English, the lighter-skinned immigrant would make more money on average.
"I thought that once we controlled for race and nationality, I expected the difference to go away, but even with people from the same country, the same race _ skin color really matters," she said, "and height."
Although many cultures show a bias toward lighter skin, Hersch said her analysis shows that the skin-color advantage was not due to preferential treatment for light-skinned people in their country of origin. The bias, she said, occurs in the U.S.
Economics professor Shelley White-Means of the University of Tennessee at Memphis said the study adds to the growing body of evidence that there is a "preference for whiteness" in America that goes beyond race.
The Post article contains more specifics about Hersch's methodology and sample size, and notes that it correlates with a study that William Darity Jr., an economic professor at the University of North Carolina, conducted on skin tone and wages among Black people. (I would even go so far as to venture that were similar studies conducted in every nation in the Americas, the results would be similar.) Hersch will be presenting her findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco next month, and suggested that this might be another route for legal redress (though I do believe there have been some skin-color suits in the past). Finishing this article, I thought again of discussions, with friends and acquaintances, as well as pieces I've come across online and elsewhere, on the persistence of skin-color discrimination, both within specific groups (African Americans, Latinos, etc.) and of course in the broader society, pointing to an enduring racist and supremacist social logic that all the expressions and performances of Black Is Beautiful or overt and covert acts of resistance, assertion and counterargumentation won't dispel, at least not any time soon.
+++
Last quarter, the university's Center for Writing Arts brought playwright Rebecca Gilman to campus to speak about her work. I ended up only catching a small part of the talk because of a prior engagement, but I did purchase one of her plays, the highly praised Spinning into Butter, which explores the crisis that ensues at small Vermont college when someone starts posting anonymous, racist letters on the door of one of the college's few African American students. The situation is not, however, as it initially seems, as the college's administrators soon eventually discover. I haven't finished the play, but I was curious to find out if any Jstheater readers had seen the play staged and what your impressions were. I also saw on imdb.com that Mark Brokaw's film version of the story, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Miranda Richardson, Beau Bridges, Mikelti Williamson, and Victor Rasuk, has completed filming and may hit screens later this year. That's another incentive to finish the play....
I usually don't check the stat counter at the bottom of the Jstheater page, but the blog has now had 70,000 visitors, and so far this month, there have been nearly 3,000 page loads, comprising 2,244 unique visitors, 1,799 first-time visitors, and 445 returning visitors, a small number, but exciting nevertheless.
In addition to the current daily pages, in the past most of the first timers have pulled up a page from 2005 or so featuring a photo of Destiny's Child (Beyoncémania is far from dead, I realize), but in recent months the main draws have been the January 2006 archives, the November 2005 archives, the Alice Coltrane mini-tribute, the link to excerpt from the Idris Elba interview, my commentary on MTV's True Life: I'm Dead Broke, and the short Autumn in January-Charles Rangel post from a few weeks ago. An eclectic list, to say the least.
Jstheater visitors are primarily accessing the site from the US, but there have first-time views and returning visitors from all over the globe. Just today, as of 3 pm, people (or autobots?) from, in descending order, the US, Bahamas, the Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, France, Portugal, UK, Poland, Italy, India, Dominican Republic, Slovakia (Hi Francisco!), and Spain have popped by--to an old post so far. I wish I could keep up the daily posting schedule I achieved two years ago, but with my current workload, it's just not possible. I am trying to maintain a semi-regular stream even of tiny posts, including quotations, photos, drawings, and the like, though, so we'll see how it goes. I also am trying to cut down on all the errors, but I'll willingly admit that these days, it's a miracle if I can look at a computer screen, let alone a book, for longer than 10 minutes without my eyes tiring (and yet the stack of required reading material steadily grows).
To all the Jstheater readers out there, I offer a deep thanks!
∆∆∆
For those in and near Princeton, Audiologo will be screening one of her works tomorrow night. She writes:
The re-screening of my sound/video work "Tarry On/Because I Must" is set for the following time and location:
Thursday, January 25th, 7pm - 8pm Woolworth Center (Music Building), Room 106 (first floor).
There will be light refreshments.
I wouldn't miss it if I were nearby.
∆∆∆
I was happy to see that President Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth had been nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Documentary, and one for Best Song, "I Need to Wake Up," sung by Melissa Etheridge. I still haven't seen the film, but it's next in my Netflix queue, so I think I'll be able to catch it before the awards presentation show.
As has been the case for the last decade or so, I haven't seen most of the contenders for the top prizes. Once upon a time I tried to see every one of the major award contenders despite having not a dime to my name, but then life impinged, and now I'm lucky if I catch even a handful. (I did see the best nominated film last year, Brokeback Mountain, which didn't win.) I did see Dreamgirls, and while I enjoyed it (and reviewed it here), I didn't think it was as great as many critics I've read. Nevertheless I'm glad that it did receive a number of nominations, particularly for its music, art direction, costumes, and for its chanteuse extraordinaire, Jennifer Hudson (at left, with her Golden Globe Award), I have a feeling that she'll win the Best Supporting Actress award, and Beyoncé Knowles will win Best Song, for the beautifully sung but not so great "Listen," and the Motion Picture Academy will pat itself on the back for not fostering the very discord the film portrayed.
I also saw Volver, which I hope to review eventually, but Penélope Cruz sizzled in her Anna Magnani-esque star turn. The film itself was a mess in terms of plot and characterization, with enough melodrama for a dozen telenovelas, but Cruz blazed through the folderol, and made it clear to me that with the right script, she has real acting talent. She's up against Meryl Streep (who's won it several times already), Helen Mirren yet again channeling a Queen Elizabeth (and the Motion Picture Academy loves things British and royal, and Mirren's a great actress anyways), the always outstanding Judi Dench (who may cancel Mirren out), and Kate Winslet, who's blond, talented and foreign (canceling out both Dench and Mirren), so perhaps Cruz has a chance, though I doubt it.
Among the Best Actor nominees, I am torn between the award going to two performances I haven't seen; I almost would like to see Peter O'Toole win because he's been nominated so many times and is still around, but then everyone says that Forrest Whitaker terrifyingly inhabits his Idi Amin role in The Last King of Scotland, so perhaps he should win. I want to catch Whitaker's performance, though, before Oscar night. As for the other actors, I'm delighted that Will Smith was nominated, but was his performance that great? Everything about The Pursuit of Happyness reeks of Hollywood, which is one reason I haven't gone near it yet, though I usually will watch anything that Smith is in. Also, can we have a yearlong moratorium on nominations going to people impersonating or engaging in mimicry of other real people, living or dead, for a change? Do Hollywood screenwriters even remember how to write excellent non-biopic roles any more? (Yes, yes, I know, cf. Winslet, Wahlberg, etc.)
Among the Best Foreign films, I did see Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, and thought it one of the best movies I've seen in the last year. I hope to review it soon, so I'll only say that it was so imaginative, well acted, superbly structured, and thematically grounded that it had me thinking about the possibilities of cinema (and literature, for that matter) as an art and as a means for addressing history and politics for several days after I'd watched it.
With the other awards, I have to say I really don't care, though I think that Eddie Murphy is probably going to get the Best Supporting Actor award, but Djimon Hounsou (at right) should win on general principle, or if the voters see them as canceling each other out, it'll go to Mark Wahlberg in the Martin Scorsese vehicle, The Departed, another film I haven't seen, though I used to be a Scorsese enthusiast. His last few movies have broken me of that, though. I imagine he'll receive the Best Director award for his body of work. And I hope Gore wins for his documentary, just on general principle; maybe it'll be the catalyst for his entering the race and winning the office that was stolen from him 7 years ago, saddling us with the mad bull who, horrible to say, still has nearly two years left to smash up everything in sight, which is to say, to continue to completely misgovern.
∆∆∆
I missed the emperor decider's speech last night, as I was in class until 9:30 pm Chicago time, but today I got C's appraisal and read a little about it online. I had to conclude that as I already knew, I hadn't missed a thing. In addition the usual vomitus of mendaciousness about the Iraqmire and the GWOT™ (which I think was renamed), there was the horrendous proposal to further screw up the health care system by further subjecting it to bad conservative/neoliberal ideological tinkering, as a way of providing more money and power to the insurance industry and yet another tax break to rich people, and there was the national ID system to increase the tracking of citizens and facilitate immigrant slave force. (Ahem--why won't the mainstream media discuss the fate of those immigrants arrested in the Swift Co. raids, or where they're being housed? Does anyone know where the "detention facilities" that Halliburton received the contracts for were built?) Given the sheer awfulness of these ideas, along with the rest of the exceedingly banausic tripe issuing from the ed's tongue-poked lips, I had to wonder why the networks even kept the cameras on, though I realized after reading about Dana Milbank's and others' most recent rounds of silliness today that it was to catch Hillary Clinton "daydreaming," Barack Obama "barely lifted his head" from his copy of the remarks, and Mrs. Speaker Nancy Pelosi blinking furiously. Saint John "Surge" McCainslumbering at his dear decider-pal's twaddle, however, was not worthy of the MSM's concern.
I did, however, catch James Adomian's hilarious version of the speech ("I believe this nation continues to be strong in its own steadfast"), which includes a very brief Democratic response, culminating in slapstick, by an actor who has Obama's voice down, going up against a pseudo-Clinton.
Then I both watched and read Virginia's junior, Democratic Senator James Webb's excellent response. Perhaps the networks should have just gone with Webb and done the country and the world a huge favor.
The Democratic field grows larger by the day. As has been widely predicted for several years, New York's junior Senator and the first First lady ever to serve in Congress, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has launched an exploratory committee to run for the presidency. As she states it, she "in it to win it," but then anything less would be out of character. Democratic hack Terry McAuliffe--who as head of the DNC presided over years of electoral losses before ceding the post to Howard Dean, who helped to engineer this past fall's electoral comeback--has already begun suggesting that her campaign will be Thatcherian in nature--Lord help us! Nevertheless, I'm excited by the possibility of her history-making run and possible win, because by every conceivable measure Hillary Clinton and the constellation of politicians, policy makers and administrators around her would leave a positive legacy, even with the (remnants?) of the Iraq War overshadowing at least her first few years. Yet I'm also concerned that were she to win, we'd experience a return domestically of the previous Clinton administration's DLC-tinged rhetoric, small-bore policies and triage politics that effectively constituted one of the more successful moderate conservative administrations in the last 50 years. After 8 years of Bushism, a more radical course of action is necessary. Overall, I find the prospect of a forthcoming Clinton campaign very exciting, and am eager to hear her goals for getting out of Iraq and for her governance, and witness how she deals with the expected attacks and outrageousness coming from the media, the right, and even some in her party. Whitewater, for which she and her husband were fully exonerated was, I'll never forget, a creature nurtured and propelled primarily--at least in its early stages--by the "mainstream media."
In addition, today New Mexico's governor and former Congressperson, Clinton administration Energy Secretary and US Ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson announced he'll run for president as well. I view Richardson, who'd become the first Latino president of the US, as one of the less likely primary winners, but given the crowded field and his moderate-to-progressive stances, his victory in the primaries isn't inconceivable. Two landslide gubernatorial wins in 2002 and 2006 point to a strong, effective and popular campaigner, his successful infrastructure initiatives show that he can push through efficacious policies, and his brokering of the cease-fire in Darfur indicate that even as a governor, he not only has an interest in international affairs, but hasn't lost his diplomatic skills. I'm particularly interested to hear his views on how to extricate ourselves from the debacle in Iraq (and the unfolding, preventable one in Afghanistan) and rebuild our ties to allies, as well as improve our international standing, especially in the Muslim world. As with Clinton and Obama, I'm excited that he's in the race, and can't wait to see how it all unfolds over the next two years.
Speaking of Democratic candidates and the expected media attacks (that keep coming), Fox News has launched its own, ignorance-laden smear againstBarack Obama. As I said a few posts ago, it'll only get worse.
::::
The other day, Raw Story provided a link to one of the strangest and most disturbing stories in recent memory; yet I could also see this as a Todd Solondz movie. (Just so long as Bruce LaBruce or Gaspar Noe doesn't get ahold of it first.)
On a different continent, extremists in Nigeria, who seem to be endlessly focused on everything but the real problems facing that country, are agitating to ban anything and everything gay....
::::
Two coaches made NFL and US sports history today: Lovie Smith led the Chicago Bears to the NFC Championship over the New Orleans Saints, while Tony Dungy coached the Indianapolis Colts to the AFC Championship over the New England Patriots, thus each becoming the first African-American coaches ever to take teams to the Super Bowl, and just as historically, at the same time!
The Bears defeated the league's Cinderella team on a superb ground game by running back Thomas Jones and their game-transforming defensive unit, to finish 39-14, while the Colts roared back from a 21-6 deficit under the steady arm of star quarterback Peyton Manning, and sent the Patriots packing 38-34.
The wins are a great vindication for both Smith and Dungy; the soft-spoken Smith is the lowest-paid head coach in the NFL and is in the final year of a 4-year contract, while Dungy, who weathered the suicide of his son last year, was fired from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers despite leading them to the conference championship in 1999, and nearly won the conference championship in 2003 with Indianapolis.
Congratulations to both teams, and, pace St. Louis Rams, GO CHICAGO BEARS!
Some years ago, an acquaintance traveled to Venezuela, and as a gift, he brought back a collection of stories by José Balza (1939-, photo at right, ClubCultura.com), whom he was told was one of the most important literary figures in that country. I hadn't taught myself enough Spanish to read or understand even a paragraph at the time, but was so excited to receive the gift that as soon as I had it, La mujer de espaldas (Monte Avila Editores, 1986) in hand, I set out not only to try to read but translate a few of the stories, in order to see what I could appreciate beyond mere comprehension. Just getting through several of the stories, none of which were very long, taxed all my powers, but in addition to being deeply impressed by Balza's style, I was able to write out several translations that I later showed to a Spanish speaker who felt they passed muster. Nevertheless, I decided to set Balza's book aside until I knew enough Spanish to read it without pausing after every other word, and since that was a benchmark for the then-distant future, it disappeared from my active bookshelf. So I hadn't thought about Balza, who is still writing and publishing, and is a professor at the Universidad Central de Caracas, or the translations until recently, when I was trying to organize my computer files yet again, and came across one of them, "Enlace" ("Link"). In it, Balza directly cites a writer who was his obvious inspiration throughout the story collection, Jorge Luis Borges, and the text is a Borgesian piece, in theme and tone, but condensed in method. In contrast to the moment when I first translated it, the story feels very close to my current personal experience. I am posting it below. (Click here to read an interview with Balza, in Spanish.)
LINK
For Sael Ibánez
In spite of all these years, I still fall prey to that vivid and dense anxiety that arises on contact with my students. I have always conceived of each hour of my classes as a castle of a thousand doors which uniquely permit me, each at the same time, to enter.
Among my students there have tended to predominate the naive, the easy believers, and those incapable of imagination. Sometimes, for certain exams, I recommended various bibliographies (that is to say: different exams, multiple approaches to a theme); and among each group of students (and recommended texts) I slipped, as a tribute to Borges, an imaginary author and a non-existent book.
One day, the least bold of them not only chose precisely this very volume, but even more unreal to me, focused his exam on a synthetic treatment of this book: he centered it on an adaptation of this book, and then, established principles that could only have been extended from this text. Before signing his own name, the student wrote down a textual citation. No one had known about this passage until today. I don’t know if my invention coincided with something real; I did not want to know if the student created a theory and an author so as not to deceive me (himself) or if, astonishingly, he was (is going to be) the mysterious author of this ambiguous bibliography.
Here are some photos from two recent Chicago events I attended: the celebration and open mic at Muse Café for Toni Asante Lightfoot and Setondji Gbegan's nuptials, and the Barocas/Palmer/Hanafi reading at Powell's North. :::: On Monday I dropped by Muse Café to celebrate Toni's and Setondji's wonderful news and hear a host of poets perform and offer tributes. I congratulated Toni and Setondji then, but let me just say congratulations again, and may the radiance of both of your spirits combine and shine forth. People chilling at Muse Café before the festivities; multivalent artist Michael Warr is sitting at left, and Eliza Abegunde Hamilton is at right. Another shot of the café, and Toni getting things going at the mic Folks listening to the reading (Krista Franklin, Eliza, Tracy Hall, and Emily Evans are in front)--Setondji, in back, has on the brown-and-white striped sweater The beautiful Toni performing--beautifully, of course! Setondji and Toni, the lovely couple, at the mic What would a celebration be without dancing? Or (just after) a kiss?
(I'll post more photos when I can!)
::::
Last night, after a loooooonnnnng day at the university, I drove down to Powell's North to see Zach Barocas and two writers I'd never heard of, Justin Palmer and Amira Hanifi, read their work. I usually stay away from Powell's, not because it's not a great store, but because it has such a dizzying array of titles (I counted at least 16 just last night after a cursory review of a few of the flats and shelves) calling my name that I find it dangerous to go in there. (I've found some fascinating and obscure books in there as well, such as a volume of probate records of African Americans in Boston from the 1700s and early 19th century, to name just one.) It was a great reading, and someone brought delicious cakes, wine, soft drinks (do people even use this term any more), and these lozenge-sized pretzels that were filled with sweet mustardish filling--only in Chicago! Justin Palmer, the first reader; his long, lyric piece led listeners on a humorous journey. Amira Hanafi, the second reader, read a long poem, with extensive critical material on environmental degradation, that put me in mind of a humming factory floor. Zach read from his first collection, Among Other Things: Poems and Proposals, which gathers his characteristically short, almost apothegmatic yet wide-ranging poems and poem-proposals that often serve as, well, quiet proposals about the lyric itself. One of my favorite is "There's Nowhere Left to Go But Home." A few years ago he (co?-)established the Cultural Society, which features a great website and has published a number of broadsides over the years, as well as his book. One of the poets he dedicated a poem to was Peter O'Leary, who's also in Chicago. One of his best poems was dedicated to his wife, Kimberley, who ran one of my favorite stationery stores in the West Village. She now has a store and company, Letterbox, in Minneapolis. He's reading one of his proposals: Among Other Things is a poem-proposal definitely worth checking out.
the men of Other Countries have organized a book launch in New York City for this Saturday, 7 p.m. at South Oxford Space, 138 S. Oxford St. in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Call 917-364-1491 for more information. I've attached a pdf with the event information for you to pass to your friends; also attached is a jpg in case you'd like to post it to your blog.
your contributors' copies arrive Monday, so i'll be shipping them to you all next week. i'll include a letter about upcoming publicity, discounts if you purchase through RedBone Press, etc.
the books will be available on amazon.com and barnes and noble.com, and through spdbooks.org (my distributor).
Alongside the poetry, stories, essays, reflections, recollections, and other pieces by the 60 contributors, one of my early stories, from about exactly 10 years ago, is in the collection.
What a summery day we had in Chicago this afternoon: it reached 15 F. Meanwhile, in the wider world, the news includd the imminent coming out by a former 
Then we moved to the suburbs, and I was no longer at a predominantly Black school, and wasn't getting any sort of exposure to Black history or culture outside my home or family or immediate neighborhood. I was in fact the only Black person in my class, and only one of 
I never tire of watching 
I was happy to see that President 
The Democratic field grows larger by the day. As has been widely predicted for several years, New York's junior Senator and the first First lady ever to serve in Congress, 
In addition, today 
Some years ago, an acquaintance traveled to 
Tomorrow's upcoming event, from 
