NJ Supreme Court on Same-Sex Marriage + Voting + WS + Congrats to Jess + Ciudidano Cero

Oh well--Blogger continues acting up. After I'd corrected the link to Zack Barocas's review (thanks Reggie, for pointing it out) and added "more" of what I had intended to add to yesterday's post, particularly after I learned about the New Jersey Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, Blogger again wouldn't either save or let me access the page, and so I lost a good portion of the post. I did copy over some of it, so I'm posting that below.

NJ Supreme Court Issues Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage
Yesterday at 3 pm the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a "compromise" ruling stating that the New Jersey State Constitution required equality of benefits for all persons, which is to say, same-sexual couples, under state law, yet it also said that there was no specific right to "same-sex marriage" in the Constitution, and left it to the state legislature to figure things out. Ironically enough, in light of the national Republicans' anti-gay and anti-same-sex marriage stances, the retiring Republican chief justice, Deborah T. Poritz, dissented, going further than the rest of the court by stating that in fact that gay marriage should be legal. The majority left the decision in the hands of the Democratic-controlled state legislature, which now has about six months to decide whether the state will allow civil unions, gay marriage, or some differently named, expanded version of the domestic partnership law that now exists. Since New Jersey has no law barring out-of-state couples from marrying in state, as Massachusetts does, it could quickly become the chief destination for same-sex couples from other states who seek then to launch lawsuits in their home states. (Some pundits are already crowing that this will empower the anti-gay right, but my sense is that after Foley-Kolbe-page-gate, and the outings of vile Republican hypocrite closet-case US Senator Larry Craig and, most recently, Florida's GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist, gay marriage's motivating power for the Talevangelicals has been considerably blunted.)

My feelings about marriage and same-sex marriage are complex, and while I have many criticisms of the institution of marriage as it's developed over the centuries, I nevertheless think that same-sex couples should enjoy equality under the law without hesitation. C and I signed up for the domestic partnership option not long after New Jersey instituted it, but it isn't universal across New Jersey and has little to no legal standing outside the state. With a marriage or civil union option, we and other couples could receive equal and transferable treatment, I imagine, in Vermont and Massachusetts, and vice versa, and as more states shift to some comparable form of equality, either by legislative or judicial means, a same-sex version of the Full Faith legislation will come into play. Yet for now federal discrimination continues. Returning to New Jersey, I'm curious to see how far the Democratic legislature, under the guidance of a progressive governor, Jon Corzine, is willing to go. New Jerseyans are pretty open-minded--increasingly so on social issues--and have already ratified domestic partnerships, so I don't see either civil unions or same-sex marriage, called that, as being too much of a leap. But we'll see.

Vote, Vote, Vote
I voted last week via absentee ballot, and I want to urge all J's Theater readers to vote in the upcoming federal and local elections. Every election is important, but the upcoming one is crucial. It could determine whether we have two more years of unimpeded, reckless misgovernment in Washington or something resembling, however indistinctly, a functioning divided governmental system of checks and balances. In my own case, I had to try my best not to retch as I cast a vote for Robert Menendez, the current sitting Democratic junior Senator from New Jersey. He's in a very tight race against a laughably underqualified Republican scion, Tom Kean Jr., whose aristocratic, self-styled "moderate" father, Tom Kean Sr., one of New Jersey's former governors, has been part of the Bush administration protection racket for the last few years. Kean Sr. not only did his best to shield Bush from any real scrutiny while serving as the co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, but just recently he served as a front for ABC's right-wing version of narrative leading up to the Al Qaeda attacks in 2001 and the early period of the US War in Afghanistan. The son, for his part, has been a dear friend to a number of business interests and doesn't turn down a corporate fundraising dollar if it comes his way, but far more worrying is the likelihood that he'll become the good little Republican zombie he was born to be and will enable George W. to continue his reign of tyranny.

Yet Menendez leaves a lot to be desired as well. Scandals ring him like rain clouds. His associates have been the subject of valid state and federal investigations, and as a member of the Hudson County Democratic organization, he has had ties to Bob Janiszewski, the disgraced former County Executive who wore a wire for the Feds and ended up being convicted of extortion and tax evasion. Moreover, Menendez was constantly battling Jersey City's beloved first Black mayor, Glenn Cunningham (who tragically fell dead before completing his first term), and maintains an extremist position, out of step with the Democratic Party and many fellow Cuban Americans, on Cuba. On top of this, he voted for George WPE's and the Senate Republicans' horrible torture bill, the anticonstitutional Military Commissions Act of 2006, which is utterly inexcusable or unforgivable. (Reggie H. has a very thoughful piece on this very bill.)

So what to do? There were Green, Libertarian, Democratic Socialist, and other candidates on the ballot, but I effectively saw this vote as coming down either for Kean Jr.-Bush or against them, so it had to be Menendez. Still, if he is indicted after winning, I hope our dear progressive-leaning governor, Jon Corzine, appoints someone who's not so tainted with the whiff of corruption. I know he wanted to make history by appointing the first Latino Senator from New Jersey, but there certainly have got to be other Latino Democratic figures--or figures of any race, gender, etc.--who could better represent the state.

The Democrats need six seats to retake the US Senate. It looks like Menendez will hold his seat, as will Democrats in Maryland (Cardin is barely ahead of Steele), Minnesota (Amy Klobuchar is well ahead of Mark Kennedy), Washington State (Maria Cantwell leads Mike McGavick), Michigan (Debbie Stabenow has opened up a widening lead over ultrarightist Dick DeVos), and a number of safe states (Massachusetts, New York, etc.). Democratic candidates in Rhode Island (Sheldon Whitehouse), Ohio (Sherrod Brown), Montana (Jon Tester) and Pennsylvania (Bob Casey Jr.) are leading their incumbent Republican opponents. In Missouri (Claire McCaskill vs. Jim Talent), Tennessee (Harold Ford Jr. vs. Bob Corker), and Virginia (Jim Webb vs. George Allen), the races are very close and could go either way. One thing I'm realistic about is how conservative some of the Democratic candidates, like Casey Jr. (who is anti-abortion) and Ford Jr. (who is about as right-wing a Black Democrat as you're going to find) are, and how easily they buy into the right-wing rhetorical echo machine without actively challenging its illogic. Yet I also keep in mind that if the Democrats win the Senate, the committee chairs will include the likes of Pat Leahy, Tom Harkin, Carl Levin, Kent Conrad, and others who are likely to press investigations and provide an overt challenge to the Bush-Rove juggernaut of signing statements, steady arrogation of unitary executive power, and complete and total suppression of Congress's oversight roles. The Republicans have decided to dump $5.5 million into the Kean Jr. campaign, but I hope it will turn out to be as bad of a decision as their focus, late in 2000, on pumping up Bush in New Jersey. He lost, history records, by a sizable margin to Al Gore. I'm not at all for wasting more than $5 million, but if it's going to a good cause, like stripping the Republicans of another dangerous weapon, I'm all for it.

St. Louis Cardinals vs. Detroit Tigers
The World Series has begun, and as of last night, the St. Louis Cardinals lead the Detroit Tigers 2-1 in wins. All of the pre-matchup hooplah basically dismissed the Cardinals as also-rans, and suggested that they would be trounced, in four games or, as Bernie told me, one wag suggested "three." Although they swept the San Diego Padres and defeated the National League's best team, the New York Mets, in 7 games, the Cardinals weren't given much of a chance. Detroit, which trounced its opponents for most of the season and then handily won in the post-season, was the overwhelming favorite. (And Detroit fans I know have been predicting a rout.) Yet the Cardinals won the first game 7-2, behind stellar pitching by rookie Anthony Reyes and timely hits, and after dropping the second game in Detroit, to a pine-tar-palmed Kenny Rogers (this drama continues to fill airwaves and Internet discussion boards), their Cy Young-winning starter Chris Carpenter took the mound in St. Louis Tuesday night and threw 8 shutout innings. The rain forestalled last night's game and if it's all stormy in St. Louis as it is today in Chicago, there may be another day's delay. Either way, the Cardinals have exceeded the expectations of all the naysayers, and with hope, they'll win the whole damned thing and be done with it.

Congratulations to Tyehimba Jess
Congratulations go to fellow CC brother and extraordinary poet Tyehimba Jess, who was awarded a 2006 Whiting Writers Award for his poetry. Jess's first book of poems, the National Poetry Series-winning volume Leadbelly (Verse Press, 2005). A wonderful brotha and an exceptional book of poems! Congratulations!

Rey Emmanuel Andújar's Ciudidano Cero
This past spring I wrote about picking up one of the exciting young Dominican author Rey Emmanuel Andújar's (at right, in Ciudidano Cero) books at the International Festival of the Book/Feria Internacional del Libro in Santo Domingo. He dropped a few comments in to J's Theater, and has continued to send me updates on his projects. For anyone in Santo Domingo this November, he'll be presenting his ongoing "laboratorio," which take the form of a performance piece entitled Ciudidano Cero (Citizen Zero) at the Santo Domingo International Theater Festival, which runs from November 9-19, 2006. (There is another piece, entitled "Cero," by Waddys Jácquez, which also will be going up, but according to the press note, the pieces are dramatically different.) The press note also states of Andújar's project, begun in 2001, that "es el resultado de un laboratorio desde la dramaturgia del escritor al texto ejecutado desde la miseria del circo caribeño partiendo de un cruce antropológico con la cultura Hip-Hop dentro de la estética marginal" (roughly: "it is the result of an experiment from the writer's dramaturgy, a text created out of the the misery of the Caribbean circus, starting from an anthropological crossing with Hip-Hop culture within a marginal aesthetic/aesthetics of the margin.") Andújar's email includes a link to a video, posted on YouTube, that features scenes from "Ciudidano Cero," with the hiphop group Lo Correcto. It's well done, and if you haven't heard any Dominican hiphop, want insight in musical form into the experiences of DR's poor and working-class youth, and have no familiarity with Andújar's work, it's a fine introduction.

Second Sun(day)ing

Thanks to Blogger, I lost a longish post last night. In it, I talked about my participation in a reading at Emily Evans's, Krista Franklin's and Toni Asante Lightfoot's Second Sun Salon this past Sunday at Naïeveté Studios on Chicago's Northside. (I also see that yet again, Blogger is posting a "Scheduled outage at 2PM PDT" at the head of the posting page--is this a sign of a trend now that Google has snapped them up?) A. Tacuma Roeback, Erin Teegarden (who's one of the lights behind the Rec Room readings in Chicago), and Maria Eliza Hamilton Abegunde, an incredibly luminous poet and fiction writer, were on the bill, as was I. It was exciting to read with them, especially since this was the first opportunity I'd had to present more than a few pieces from Seismosis since it was published. Toni (pictured above, at right, after the event) joined me in an improvised reading of "Analysis II," one of the poems that, in dialogue with the drawings that precede and face it, as well as with several other pieces with a similar name, attempts to embody textual simultaneity. I'd never read this piece before, but Toni gamely agreed to try it with me, and the experience was thrilling (and led to really engaging conversations afterwards, including one with one of Chicago's most talented younger playwrights, Idris Goodwin). I was reminded of a performance by two of my former students, Tai Little and Eileen Korte, several years ago, at Northwestern's Senior Writing Major end-of-the-year readings; they read a section of parallel texts from Tai's brilliant honors novella, and the effect was electric. I had a similar initial impression (at least) of the reading by John Ashbery and Ann Lauterbach I saw this past summer of Ashbery's "Litany," though the senior poet's phlegmatic manner and flat tone somewhat dimmed the effect after a little while. The experience got me to thinking what it would be like to hear Samuel Delany, Thomas Glave, Chris Mazza, Deborah Richards, Mark Danielewski, John Cayley, or the late John Cage, to name a few of the people who immediately came to mind, reading some of the parallel texts in their works simultaneously. The aural experience is quite different from the nearly impossible visual one, especially with each of these authors' denser prose texts.

I'll try to post more later, but I always want to note that Seismosis received what I believe is its first online review, by poet Zack Barocas. It's a brief but perspicacious piece that drives right to the core of what Chris and I were trying to do--and did. Thanks, Zack!

Black Performance Studies Conference

Another pinnacle of this past week was the Black Performance Studies Symposium, organized by two of my colleagues, E. Patrick Johnson and Dwight McBride, that took place at the university this past Saturday. I was trying to think of superlatives to describe it, but I'll suffice by noting that although I was getting over a cold contracted the prior weekend and felt exhausted from all that was going on during the week (teaching and administrative duties, etc.), I eagerly got up early on Saturday morning and spent almost the entire day listening in enthrallment to discussions with which I had only some familiarity (I am not a scholar of performance theories or studies, though I incorporate what I know of them into most of my courses and work), taking copious notes that I realized only afterwards filled nearly six pages. The conference confirmed for me that this is one of the most exciting areas of humanities-centered inquiry occurring these days. There was not a speaker from whom I did not gain some new insight. To give a sense of the panelists, I am reproducing a condensed version of the schedule below:

Black Performance Studies: A Symposium
9:00-9:30 Introductions: E. Patrick Johnson,
Northwestern University
Welcome: Barbara O'Keefe, Dean, School of Communication, Northwestern University
Opening Remarks: Harry Elam, Stanford University
Dwight McBride, Northwestern University

9:30-11:00 Panel 1
Moderator: Margaret Thompson Drewal, Northwestern University
Keynote: Awam Ampka, New York University
Archetypes, Stereotypes and Polytypes: Theatres of the Black Atlantic
Faculty Respondent: Hershini Young, SUNY-Buffalo
Student Respondent: Olateju Adesida, Northwestern University

11:15-12:45 Panel 2
Moderator: Tracy Vaughn, Northwestern University
Keynote: Brandi Wilkins Catanese, University of California-Berkeley
Are We There Yet?: Race, Redemption, and Black.White.
Faculty Respondent: Paul Bryant Jackson, Miami University of Ohio
Student Respondent: Javon Johnson, Northwestern University

2:00-3:30 Panel 3
Moderator: Jennifer DeVere Brody, Northwestern University
Keynote: Louis Chude-Sokei, University of California-Santa Cruz
"The Darky Act Makes Brothers of Us All": Pan-African Soundings of the African American Voice.
Faculty Respondent: Sandra Richards, Northwestern University
Student Respondent: Lori Baptista, Northwestern University

3:45-5:15 Panel 4
Moderator: Huey Copeland, Northwestern University
Keynote: Daphne Brooks, Princeton University
"Fucking A": Toward A Genealogy of Black Feminist Profanity
Faculty Respondent: Harvey Young, Northwestern University
Student Respondent: Tamara Roberts, Northwestern University

5:15 Closing Remarks:
Stephanie Batiste, Carnegie Mellon University

I was familiar with the work of my university colleagues (like Patrick, Dwight, and Jennifer), but not with some of the other scholars, or I'd only read essays by them or sections of their books (Daphne Brooks), so it was refreshing to hear about their new research and to hear them engaging in dialogues with other figures in the field and with the non-academic participants (this is one of the regular features of many of the university's scholarly events that I most enjoy, the presence and participation of non-scholars). Particularly revelatory for me were the theoretical frameworks involving archetypes, stereotypes and polytypes, and Afromodernities and countermodernities that Ampka laid out, which made me think about a brief email exchange that I'd had a while back with Mendi on the topic of archetypes (and my failure to pass on to her a not-very-interesting essay in a reader I've used in that past); Louis Chude-Sokei's tracing of a geneology (which Sandra Richards deftly praised and problematized) between cross-intra-racial minstrelsy (in the embodied performances of Bert Williams) and networks of pan-African performance and performative circulations, ranging from Carnival celebrations to hiphop, as well as his discussion of the now "un-marked" aspects of African-American popular culture, as a sound-sign-system for American imperialism, and the resultant backlash, in African Diasporic sociocultural systems; Brandi Cattanese's discussion of Ice Cube, the narrative of progressivity and the horribly failed experiment of the TV show "Black.White"; and Daphne Brooks's recuperation of minstrelsy's "dark humor" in the cultural production and work of Josephine Baker, Suzan-Lori Parks and Kara Walker. It would not be too much to say that Brooks helped me to rethink in some key ways my habitual (conflicted) responses to Walker's work, though I wish I could have had the chance to ask her about audience and expectations, which is to say, the sociopolitical space in which Walker's artifacts (are expected to) perform.

The audience's questions and responses were also excellent and provocative; more than once Hershini Young, Stephanie Batiste, Daphne Brooks, and others posed questions or formulated comments that reframed the talks and led to new insights on the discussions at hand. One concepts that were burbling both here and at the Cave Canem conference were "resistance" and "authenticity"; certainly performance studies and other theoretical interventions, like generations of African-American literary and cultural production--African-American lives and living, have called into question any simple notions of the Black authentic, as Elizabeth Alexander I believe labels it in her study, The Black Interior, and yet condensed, indexical and sometimes reductive notions of Black authenticity (or any other kinds of authenticity, relating to gender, class, sexualities and sexual orientations, etc.) inhere, not only outside the theoretically open space of conferences like this, but sometimes inside them. It was enlightening to hear how performance studies scholars and practioners interrogated--that's an academic word for you--often through discussions of a variety of performances, various kinds of authenticities. Another recurrent concept was that of minstrelsy, as a central site of inquiry; although I've read a range of books on the topic, I found myself opening my mind to other ways of thinking about minstrelsy's historical and current work in our society, in its numerous forms. As I've felt often after such mind-enriching experiences, I hope that some of this brilliance enters the broader public discourse, especially the Black public sphere(s).

One irony for me, which I voiced to my colleague Jennifer Brody, however, was that at a performance studies conference there wasn't more, well, innovation in performance of the material. I couldn't stop referring to the Cave Canem 10th Anniversary celebration, which included a number of moments that broke the usual performer-audience spell, including, as I've shown below in some of the photographs below, Ronaldo Wilson's concluding statement of 25 pushups; Tonya Foster's disembodied panel presence and uncanny moments of interjection during the New Media panel, and the playing of Mendi + Keith's "The Pink of Stealth" foxhunting game for the audience and Duriel Harris's audioclips; Toni Asante Lightfoot's and Meta Sama's (as well as the audience's) participatory intervention involving Tim Seibles's reading of his poem "Faculty Meeting," which was one of those indelible moments that could never have been scripted; Doug Kearney's electrifying performance of his poem-pieces-critiques at the Outer Workings Panel; Reggie Harris's recitational march down the center aisle, as people kept asking, "Where's Reggie?" to conclude the Schomburg reading; Cyrus Cassells's and others' valentines to Dante Micheaux and Jericho Brown, and other moments of performative interpersonalitextuality at that same reading; and so many more instances of embodiment, space-expanding and boundary-breaking, and so on. Perhaps one expects poets--artists--to be so daring (though so few so seldom are)--but I do hope at a future performance studies event, if I am invited to attend, that more and varied kinds of performances are on display, though the performance of Black scholarship itself, of luminous minds actively cogitating and engaging each other, was a delight and, I must add, never depicted in our mass media. (This is true even for Black-owned and focused media.)

The day (or evening, since things ran till 11 pm!) ended with a remarkable performance, E. Patrick Johnson's staged reading (at left, my cellphone photo) of selections from his upcoming book, Sweat Tea, a collection of some 50 or so oral histories of black Southern gay/sgl, bisexual and transgender men. Patrick introduced and then read about 7-8 excerpts, or rather performed them, literally, changing his voice, speech patterns, gestures, movements (though seated), to embody the characterizations the oral histories conveyed. Some of the accounts were hilarious, some very sad, but all seemed to me to capture the richness and nuances of men whose lives are rarely depicted in any media. (Being from the upper south/lower midwest, I felt many moments of direct recognition.) The speakers ranged from a 24-year-old who was battling heterosexism to a 90+ year old resident of New Orleans who, pre-Hurricane Katrina, lived in the French Quarter. In addition to the parallels and divergences of the narratives, what fascinated me was that although the words themselves conveyed what we might consider to be mimetic representation of the men's lives--they were the men's actual words, shaped certainly and mediated by Patrick--Patrick's skillful performance, which included moments of improvisation, served both to enhance the mimesis and yet also to foreground the artifice of the performance, engendering a space of dialogue, of call-and-response, between scholar-interviewer-actor-performer and interviewees, as well as between the absent interviewees and their performed selves. Patrick mentioned that he wasn't going to add critical commentary to the interviews (except in terms of the introductions), but as soon as he said this, I thought of how the performance itself, and the dialogue afterwards with the audience, represented a kind of critical engagement of the sort that isn't always credited by academe. Respondent D. Soyini Madison spoke about this eloquently in her remarks after the performance, and also spoke of Patrick's ethical approach to representing and revealing these lives (which ar ein some key ways , of course, so close to and yet distant from his own). It made me think that when the book is released, it would be great to have both selections of the live interviews and Patrick's or another actor-performer's performances of them--as related forms of textual production, on CD or DVD, to accompany the text itself. It was the best way to end what was an extraordinary event.

I have many more thoughts, but I'll stop here and welcome comments, thoughts, and anything else!

More Photos from Cave Canem's 10th Anniversary Celebration

Ditto the last post, which is to say, what a week it's been! Every time I thought I'd post, I found myself doing something else that was necessary, or I couldn't muster the mental energy, and then I looked up a week had passed. Among the highlights of course were the Cave Canem 10th Anniversary Celebration and Reunion, which included some of the most exciting and engaging panels and readings I've attended in a while. The best aspect of the event, if I can single one out, was just seeing and spending time with so many friends and acquaintances I haven't seen in a while. I wished that I could see many of them more often; some of the Chi crew were in town, but so many other fellow CCers live all across the country, and world.

Below are some more photos from the weekend (and Blogger appears to be taking quite a while to upload each of them!), which only barely capture the general feeling of exhilaration--and I know I wasn't the only one who experienced it. Anyone interested in contemporary poetry--African-American or American--could pick up the work of any of the poets shown below, or many others who were present, and learn quite a bit. To all of them, to Cave Canem's founders, Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, to Carolyn and Sarah Micklem, to all the Faculty members, and to all the other folks who made the celebration happen, I say thank you for a remarkable weekend, and I can't wait to see you all again!

PS: If I've misidentified anyone, please don't hesitate to send in corrections!

From left: Khary Polk looking on at the Black aesthetics panel; Mendi Lewis Obadike's father is noting something in his program; Gina Dorcely is standing against the wall, and sitting in the corner are Erica Hunt and Cherryl Floyd-Miller. I think Tracie Morris is on the right, head bowed.

Reggie Harris and Douglas Kearney having a laugh after the panel

Before the politics panel; Tracy Morris at far left, Nehassaiu DeGannes (?) in the black jacket, DJ Renegade at far right

From left: Gina Dorcely, Sean Hill, and Toni Asante Lightfoot

The New Media panel: from left, Evie Shockley, Duriel Harris, Mendi Obadike, Keith Obadike (and Tonya Foster on the phone)

Audience the New Media panel; Holly Bass is in the center of the picture (visible in the front are Tyehimba Jess and Ronaldo Wilson)

From left: Julie Patton, giovanni singleton (back turned), Erica Doyle, Monica Hand, Reggie Harris

Krista Franklin striking a pose (I asked her to)

Mother Sonia Sanchez reading at the Faculty Reading

People milling about after the Faculty reading; DJ Renegade (Joel Dias-Porter is wearing the baseball cap) is chatting with Brian Gilmore, Tim Seibles is holding papers in his right hand at center, Evie Shockley is wearing the shawl at right

Tim Seibles and Herman Beavers (Karma Johnson has her back turned to the camera) after the Faculty reading

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon (Patricia Smith is visible over Lyrae's right shoulder)

Tracie Morris, a beautiful poet whose name I don't know, and Patricia Spears Jones (I believe Aracelis Girmay is one of the poets in the background)

The "Inner Workings" panel at St. Mark's Church, from left, Dante Micheaux, Ronaldo Wilson, Gloria Burgess, Phebus Etienne, Jacqui Johnson, and Ross Gay

The incomparable Dante Micheaux

From left: Yolanda Wisher Johnson, giovanni singleton, Kate Rushin (one of the first poets I ever heard read her work live), and Harryette Mullen

People watching the Great Day photo in Union Square--Thomas Sayers Ellis is styling on the right

Teri Cross, Holly Bass, and Krista Franklin posting for a photo

The same photo from another perspective; in the foreground, Valerie Jean; at back in the left, Tracy K. Smith and Jericho Brown

Brandon Johnson, John Murillo, and Toni Asante Lightfoot (Cornelius Eady is visible at right)

Michelle Courtney Berry, CC co-founder Cornelius Eady, Yona Harvey, Terrance Hayes, Brian Gilmore

Some of the many amazing poets getting their photos taken

Mothersista Cheryl Clarke at the Sunday LGBT reading at the Schomburg Center (Photo by C)

Monica Hand (Photo by C)

Dante Micheaux (Photo by C)

Mendi Lewis Obadike (Photo by C)

Venus Thrash (Photo by C)

Reggie Harris, one of the organizers of the Sunday reading (Photo by C)

After the Schomburg Center reading; Keith Obadike in the foreground (Photo by C)

Audiologo, Doug, and Keith

Jstheater himself, with Bryan Glover and Reggie Harris

At the after-rading gathering at Native, in Harlem, from left: Ronaldo Wilson (back turned), Remica Bingham, Venus Thrash, Hallie Hobson, Shia Barnett, and Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon

Remica, Venus, Hallie, Shia, Dawn Lundy Martin, Dante, and at far right, Samiya Bashir, one of the organizers of the Sunday reading

Scenes from the Week So Far

What a week it's been, and it isn't over yet. Here are some scenes from the week.

The artist Niz working on some projects at Naïeveté Studios, before Second Sun

Krista Franklin checking out some of Niz's paintings on skateboards

Hugh Spector's storyboxes, seen from above

Niz speaking about her work

Adriennne Rich, before her reading at the university, on Wednesday (National Coming Out Day); my colleague Robyn Schiff and I hosted a discussion with her earlier in the day, and I'll post that soon.

The Black aesthetics panel at the Cave Canem 10th Anniversary Celebration. At the table, from left, Greg Tate, Elizabeth Alexander, James de Jongh, Yusef Komunyakaa. Farah Jasmine Griffin, standing, was the panel chair.

A shot of the video screen showing Mendi + Keith Obadike's "The Pink of Stealth" project, at the CC10C New Media panel.

Sonia Sanchez reading, at the CC10C faculty reading, Friday night (it was 4+ hours of extraordinary poetry)

Ronaldo Wilson's closing statement (25 push ups!) at the CC10C "Inner Workings Panel" at St. Mark's Church, yesterday (at the table, also on the panel, from left, are poets Dante Micheaux, Gloria Burgess, Phebus Etienne, Jacqui Johnson, and Ross Gay.

Michael Sandy Dies, Rally on Monday

It has been an extremely busy week so far, and I'm now back home in New Jersey, attending Cave Canem's 10th Anniversary Celebration conference and reunion, so I haven't had a free moment since I've returned (no thank to Continental Airlines, either), but I did want to post a message I received from Keith Boykin concerning the recent death of Michael Sandy in New York City for readers of J's Theater who might drop by here first:

Dear colleagues:

I am writing to you today because I need your help. As some of you already know, Michael Sandy, the 29-year-old black gay man who was brutally attacked by a group of white men last Sunday, has died today.

In response to his death, several Black LGBT organizations have come together to hold a rally and press conference on Monday at 5 p.m. at New York City Hall. I ask you to please join me in spreading the word about the Monday rally. It's very hard to get the word out over the Internet on a weekend, so any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much.

Michael Sandy Dies; Monday Rally Planned At NY City Hall

BREAKING NEWS -- Michael Sandy, the 29-year-old black gay man who was attacked in a gay bashing incident last Sunday, has died. Sandy reportedly died around noon today after the family decided to remove the life support respirator that had kept him alive. Police are reportedly considering whether to elevate the charges against the suspects as a result of Sandy's death.

Black LGBT organizers and activists vowed to hold a rally on Monday to demand an end to hate violence in the city and to hold city leaders accountable. The rally is scheduled to take place at 5 p.m. on Monday at New York City Hall. The rally is being sponsored by People of Color In Crisis, the New York State Black Gay Network, Gay Men of African Descent, the New York City Anti-Violence Project and the National Black Justice Coalition.

My heart goes out to Michael Sandy's family. This didn't have to happen. But sadly, we live in a world where hate violence is still too common. Now it's time to do something about it.

How many more black gays and lesbians have to be beaten, killed or attack in New York before we rise up and do something about it? After Kevin Aviance, Rashawn Brazell, Dwan Prince and Sakia Gunn, we have a responsibility to speak out on their behalf.

It's time for black political leaders and civil rights leaders and the larger black community to be involved. If Michael Sandy were not gay, this case would have outraged most of Black New York. But because he is gay, almost no one seems to be talking about it.

It's also time for the city to be engaged in stopping these hate crimes. We need the police to be proactive in protecting us. That's why the move by one local politician to close down the park at sunset is understandable but misguided. That effort is fueled by the same homophobia that denigrates gay men as sexual predators.

And it's time for the mayor and the city officials to deal with the structural problems that encourage homophobia, racism and hate violence in our communities. It's not enough for the mayor to show up and give a speech at a press conference. It's time to show some real leadership.

And finally, it's way past time for the black LGBT community to be engaged. Our friends and lovers, brothers and sisters, neighbors and colleagues are dying in the streets. What are we going to do about it? What will we do to keep each other safe from harm? What will we do to change the climate of homophobia in our families, our homes, our churches, and our work places? It's time for black gays and lesbians to stand up and be counted

Keith Boykin

Nobel Lit Laureate for 2006?

Last year, I wrote a longish piece on the Nobel Prizes, focusing specifically on the Nobel Prize for Literature. A few of the paragraphs:

For the last few years, nevertheless, Reggie H. and I have tossed out our choices and expected winners--who we realize won't coincide--and usually the Swedish Academy has chosen someone else. Realizing that my bias tends towards American and English-language writers, and writers from the African Diaspora, whose work I know best, I still believe that top choices should be, based on the innovation, sustained excellence, and literary, cultural and aesthetic significance and impact of their work: Wilson Harris [at bottom] (Britain/Guyana), Jay Wright (US), Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados), Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe/US), John Ashbery (US), Adonis (Syria/Palestine), Assia Djébar (Algeria/US), Hélène Cixous (Algeria/France), Nuruddin Farah (Somalia), Juan Goytisolo (Spain/France), Duong Thu Huong (Vietnam), Alexander Kluge (Germany), Javier Marías (Spain), Harold Pinter (UK), Haruki Murakami (Japan), Luisa Valenzuela (Argentina), Adrienne Rich (USA), Ngugi (Kenya/US), Amos Oz and A. B. Yehoshua (Israel); Milan Kundera (Czech Rep./France), E. L. Doctorow (US), and Femi Osofisan (Nigeria). Several candidates who probably would have strongly been in the running are no longer eligible--August Wilson; Israeli Yehuda Amichai; German-British writer W. G. Sebald; and Chilean Roberto Bolaño, who passed away a few years ago. I also think it's tougher for poets, and other than Osofisan, I know very little about international dramatic arts, so there may be some very important playwrights I've totally overlooked. I haven't tossed this list of my usual suspects to Reggie H.; I imagine he agrees with some and not with others.

Taking into account the fact that often the Nobel committee follows a round-robin pattern with genres and continents, but prefers writers with centrist-to-leftist viewpoints, a few writers who probably are more likely to have the award bestowed upon them include David Malouf (Australia), who is one of the most highly regarded novelists in his country, a Booker Prize recipient, and winner of the Neustadt Prize for Literature a few years ago, which has gone to several Nobelists in advance of the Swedish prize; Les Murray, also of Australia; Carlos Fuentes, with whom I took a course in college, and whose work has always existed in the shadow of García Márquez's; Marías; Tom Stoppard and Ian McEwan, of Britain; Tomás Tranströmer, of Sweden; novelist Nélida Piñon of Brazil; French poet Yves Bonnefoy; poet Okot p'Bitek of Uganda; Israeli Yoel Hofmann; Roberto Sosa of Honduras; Caryl Phillips, of St. Kitts, the UK, and the US; Mavis Gallant of Canada and France; Alvaro Mutis of Colombia; Homero Aridjis of Mexico; Brazilian Adélia Prado (at right); Cuban Herberto Padilla; Pramoedya Ananta Toer of Indonesia; and Muriel Spark, of Britain. Less likely is American Philip Roth, who, simply because he's American, will probably not win, especially given the horrorshow we have passing for a government, though one exposé a few years actually mentioned Roth as a favorite of one of the chief judges. And he is an extraordinary writer, of capacious skill and accomplishment. To have written one or two of his best books is a lifetime's achievement, but to have penned Portnoy's Complaint; Goodbye, Columbus; Operation Shylock; Sabbath's Theater; American Pastoral; and The Human Stain is beyond amazing, and one of the reasons he's the most highly decorated living fictionist in the US.

The 2005 recipient was playwright Sir Harold Pinter, who wrote and presented (via video, I believe, because of his illness) one of the most courageous, blistering speeches in the history of the Swedish Academy's award program. Vocalizing what millions in his own country, in the US and across the world have felt for some time, he took Bush, Blair and other imperialists to task for their warmaking and the aftermath. Rather than engaging in the exalted rhetoric of prior laureates, he chose to speak directly to the moment at hand, an act that I felt at the time was more necessary now than in many past years. Overall I thought the Academy's choice made a lot of sense, though it was a bit surprising. Naturally I'm curious to see whom they choose this year.

I would bet that it won't be an American. Sorry Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth. In addition to the widespread loathing for the current administration, Americans have literally run the table on the awards so far (another American received the economics prize today.) I think the winner will be a poet, since no writer primarily writing poetry has won since Wislawa Szymborska a decade ago, rather than someone who's primarily a fiction writer or dramatist. Writers in European languages have repeatedly received the prize over the last few years, so I don't think it will go to one of the writers I'd most like to see receive it (Wilson Harris, Kamau Brathwaite, Maryse Condé, Jay Wright, Margaret Atwood, Luisa Valenzuela, etc.). If I'm wrong about this bit of betmaking, I'd be quite happy to admit it. And I also think it will somehow reflect upon the current geopolitical situation, so I am thinking that it might go to a combo, which happens infrequently, but has some precedence. I am thinking that it will go to Adonis (Palestine) and Amos Oz (Israel), or at least to someone from the Middle East, particularly an Arab writer or a writer of Arabic. Another choice might be a writer from Africa like Nuruddin Farah, who combines multiple traditions, or Assia Djebar, who writes in French and lives in the US, but whose subject matter is based in Northern Africa and in those interior, transnational, transitional and nomadic spaces that exiles and immigrants, especially women, carry around inside them. No Korean writer has ever received the award, so Ko Un could become the first, just as a writer from Indonesia, the Phillipines, Turkey, or Iran might be the first from each of those countries. Yet no Brazilian or Argentinian has received it either, so it might go to one of several leading figures from those countries, despite the European language issue. And should a European writer be strongly considered (and 7 of the last 10 have been European, or 9 if you add V.S. Naipaul, who has tried to out-English the English, and J. M. Coetzee, a European South African who writes in English), I think either Juan Goytisolo or Javier Marías would be the top choices. But then the Swedish Academy does its own thing, and who knows? It'll be interesting to see whom they announce on Wednesday.

Sunday Divagations

Divagations
On Friday, scholar and cultural critic Marjorie Garber participated in a roundtable discussion that the university's American Cultures Colloquium sponsored and moderated. (She had delivered a stirring talk on Othello, Othello and popular culture the prior evening.) When I was an undergraduate, Garber's renown resided primarily in her Shakespeare scholarship, but she has since written persuasively on a range of other topics, including the history of cross-dressing, bisexuality, the human love affair with architecture and in particular homes, the institutions of higher education, and the future of the humanities. At this forum, she focused primarily on the humanities and talked about some of the arguments in her brand new book, A Manifesto for Literary Studies (University of Washington, 20o6), a short, lambent little treatise rich with ideas that each could fill a volume. One of the most interesting moments for me arose when she spoke about serving as the chair of Harvard's Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES), the traditional home for the undergraduate and graduate studio arts at that institution. VES was for a very long time badly treated and misunderstood by Harvard, and its faculty especially felt marginalized; Garber spoke about her work in revitalizing the department, which involved listening to and incorporating the needs of its faculty and students, while also taking them seriously, and then she went on to pose the question of the placement of artists in the academy (the subject of a forthcoming book from Princeton), and to consider what the experience of creative writers might be in such a department, since at Harvard, as at the university and many other research institutions we tend to be housed in English and American literature departments (rather than, as at Columbia, in a larger school of the arts or as at Brown, as a separate entity altogether). This fed into her discussion of the humanities and in particular of collaboration, which is one of the current buzzwords I hear a lot; the call for collaboration is constant, but the reality of the situation, I think, is somewhat different, especially given how most institutions, both academic and nonacademic, reward individual work in the arts (not counting architecture, film and some aspects of dramatic work, of course) and humanities, since there is a institutional and cultural investment in existing modes, structures, practices and conventions. Would an American literature scholar who co-wrote her first scholarly text with an American music scholar be positioned in her field in the same way as a colleague who wrote her first book all by herself, the scholarly merits of both works being equal? Would either of the first two figures be likely to receive tenure based on a jointly written work? Would musical scholars easily accept scholarship by an literature scholar and vice versa? In the arts the stakes are different, but questions of authorship, genre and so on remain salient. At any rate, Garber got me thinking about quite a few things, some of which I hope to incorporate in future creative projects.

Yesterday, I dropped by Cafe 719 on Chicago's South Side to catch comics artist and novelist Michael-Christopher reading and discussing his new novel, From Top to Bottom (MC Books, 2006). Adodi Chicago sponsored the event, which drew a packed room full of people eager to hear the writer and artist and explore the central themes of his book. As the title suggests, the novel focuses on sexual politics and the politics of sexual desire, particularly sexual norms and expectations, masculinities and gender roles, within the framework of various kinds of relationships that a group of adult Black men in Washington, DC establish over the span of the narrative. I haven't the book, but the snippet Michael-Christopher read was provocative, and the conversation was lively, in part because people wanted him to complicate what seemed to be somewhat static notions of "tops," "bottoms" and "versatiles." He pointed out that the issue had preoccupied him for a while, and that it was a hot topic in DC, more so than in New York, where he'd lived previously. I did buy a copy, though, and will get to it when I have a free reading moment. (I also finally met another Chicago area blogger, The Professor GQ, Wadi G, which was great.)

Today I dropped by the new version of Second Sun, a wonderful, laid-back, community-based arts salon that Krista Franklin, Emily Evans and Toni Asante Lightfoot have resurrected after a hiatus in Chicago. Today's event was at the naïeveté studios, an artist coop on North Ravenswood, one of the streets housing the city's most exciting, grass-roots arts institutions. (naïeveté has available workspace, supplies and general space for creative folks based in Chicago or who want to spend a little time here, so definitely drop by their website if you have any interest.) Second Sun(day) usually features an artist presenting her or his work, and today's presenter was the multimedia artist Niz, a Peruvian native and current Florida resident, who is in Chicago for a short residency. Niz talked about her background, her process and materials, and her relationship to skateboard and graffiti cultures and arts. Krista and Emily also were exhibiting their art, and next door, storybox and poster-maker Hugh Spector had a number of his pieces, which are like exquisite, three-dimensional political commentaries, on display. I'll post some photos tomorrow.

Krista Franklin in front of one of her collages-in-progress

RIP: Tamara Dobson (1947-2006), who certainly cut an "imposing figure in films"

RIP: Buck O'Neil (1911-2006), a hero in multiple ways, in his own words

I am at a loss to add anything substantial or interesting to the swarm of commentary surrounding Foleygate, the sex scandal and subsequent cover up, which continues to infect the GOP like a virus. The best meme I've come across is that this scandal, one of so many now embroiling the Republicans, is emblematic and symbolic of their larger six-year failure of governance, their incompetence, their arrogance, their hypocrisy, their corruption, and their impotence in the face of the ever aggrandizing, power-hungry "unitary executive," neo-fascist president and White House. Democrats should repeat this every day on every airwave until the election, though some of the ones I've seen so far are unfortunately resorting to their usual caution and timidity. Still, I check the blogs every day to find out what new Foleygate information has been revealed; today (this evening), it was that Arizona Representative Jim Kolbe, the only out gay Republican Congressperson, is now stating that he discussed explicit electronic messages sent by his colleague, Republican Mark Foley, to a page back in 2000. He allegedly "confronted" Foley about the messages, with little longterm effect, it seems. The Washington Post article also noted that Kolbe has also maintained a close relationship with a number of pages, going so far as to let them stay in his house when he was away, etc. It certainly doesn't look good for the GOP at all; their attempts to blame each other, to blame it on the pages, to blame it on Democrats and liberal groups, to label Foley a Democrat (as well as Republican Dan Crane of Illinois, who had to resign when he was confronted about his sexual relationship with a female page back in 1983), and so on, don't appear to be working. The incoherent oaf Dennis Hastert should have resigned immediately, as should have Tom Reynolds, John Shimkus, and John Boehner. But instead, they are hanging around for their political hanging, which, unless DieVote (Diebold) has its way, is sure to occur this upcoming November.

Meanwhile, North Korea has just successfully staged its first nuclear weapons test....

Recently, I've been listening to Ed Motta, whom Donald A. turned me onto through some YouTube spots. Some of his non-videoed songs, like "Vendável" or "Colombina" trip me out because they sound like they could easily be 1970s or 1980s soul or R&B, until Motta's lush voice breaks into Portuguese. I've also been listening to TV on the Radio, enjoying them quite a bit while also trying to figure out what's going on with their music, and I've part of waves of people that have fallen hard for Corinne Bailey Rae and Amos Lee. I could listen to Bailey Rae over and over, and have been doing so, juxtaposing her songs with Liz Wright's. (After hearing Fergie's irritating "London Bridge" every five minutes when C was here last weekend, now all I seem to find on the radio is Justin Timberlake's infectious "Sexy Back." So that's in the mix too.)
Top 10 Rotation
Ed Motta - Vendável
TV on the Radio - The Wrong Way
Amos Lee - Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight
Corinne Bailey Rae - Like a Star
Dr. Lectroluv/Drexciya - Black Sea
Radiohead - There There
Le Tigre - TKO
Seu Jorge - Funk Baby
Tego Calderón - Los Maté
Dead Prez - Hip Hop

Tuesday Cavalcade

I can't believe it's already October; once fall quarter classes start time really races by. I've been bogged down in lots of reading, an enjoyable experience so far, and my new administrative duties consume a lot of practical time (and to echo Elizabeth Nuñez, "dream time"), so I haven't really had an opportunity to blog at all, though there's so much I do want to comment on. (I remember Keguro's list of things he hadn't blogged on, which is an approach that could become almost Borgesian if you were to spin it out and play with it.) I do plan to post images of and a short commentary on C's and my visit to the Rona Hoffman gallery this past weekend to see Kehinde Wiley's huge and striking new paintings. I also will try to write up a short review of Olivier Assayas's Clean, starring Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte, which I recently saw.

I hadn't realized that the Chicago International Film Festival, the nation's oldest, I believe, is set to begin soon (Oct 5-19), so I need to grab a Reader or hit their site and see what's playing. I did read that some major international films, like Pedro Almodóvar's supposedly stunning new Volver, won't be coming to town, although oddly enough one of the film's stars, Penélope Cruz, will be here to meet and greet...go figure. Over the last few years I've caught some great films at prior runs, and this year's offerings look pretty interesting. The categories include an anime focus, Black perspectives (with films from across the Black Diaspora, including one, No. 2, featuring Ruby Dee playing a Fijian-Kiwi matriarch!), Destination Greece, Chicago/Illinois-related movies, and cinema from across the Americas.

The current series of national political dramas that have been unfolding--the shifting fortunes of the political parties in next month's elections, the House panel's damning report about the 485 Jack Abramoff visits and contacts with the White House, Bob Woodward's chatty and news-generating new book, the GOP sex-and-coverup scandal swirling around ex-Congressman Mark Foley--as well as the ongoing horrors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other domestic and international issues and crises, are all things I've been thinking about blogging about, but haven't had an opportunity to get to. I've been relying on the blogs, with doses of the mainstream media, to get a handle on what's been going on. My first response is to comment on how awful things look, until I quickly recognize that things have been a mess for a while, and that out of the current domestic debacles could come, however briefly, a moment of political renewal. But I'm not holding my breath, no matter how many more maf54 IMs or documents contradicting Condoleezza Rice make their sudden appearance.

It's baseball playoff time again, and this year's pairings should lead to some exciting games. In the NL, the St. Louis Cardinals fell into the playoffs despite a late-season collapse, and face the top West Division team, the San Diego Padres, in southern California. The Cardinals have almost no starting pitching to speak of, so if they eke out a win, it'll be a miracle (or two great starts from Chris Carpenter coupled with Albert Pujols's batwork). The other matchup pits the team with the best league record, the photogenic New York Mets, led by former Yankees star Willie Randolph, against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Mets don't have their most exciting starter, Pedro Martínez, who's out with a raft of injuries until next season, but their middle relief and closer are excellent, and their superb lineup can knock out anybody, so they have the edge. In the AL, it's the perennial playoff candidates, the New York Yankees, led by captain and top MVP candidate Derek Jeter, facing the Detroit Tigers, who under manager Jim Leyland turned around several years of mediocre play and led their Central Division for most of the season. The Tigers are a young, vibrant team, and could give the Yankees trouble, though I think the Bronx Bombers will win based on overall talent and experience. The other matchup has the Oakland As facing the Minnesota Twins. The As have good pitching and enough good hitters to fill two teams, while the Twins were steadily improved during the season and have the best starter in either league, Johan Santana. If the As can defeat Santana, they go to the Championship Series. Play ball!