apple stores celebrate black music month

yay!

too bad we don't get janelle monae... :(

a history poem

this is not nearly as meaningful/heartfelt as it seems. i was just moved to write because i'm starting to realize how long i've been here, and how many love misadventures i've been through- crazy!

i've been kissed here before

he kissed me tonight
in a place i've been kissed before.
this time
there were no
fireworks.
no tingle in my belly,
no disbelief in the giddy
happiness
imparted.
there was, though,
a bittersweet memory of
you
and the milk-chocolate-sweet
beginning of
us--
that first bright sunny kiss
at astor square.

see you saturday?

come be liberated with me. the liberator live, featuring, among many others, sarah white, who i met last weekend along with her daughter isa. good shit.

two quick things-

1) corcoran's representation of interracial bliss
this corcoran ad is interesting to me. what do y'all think? is this the new wealthy manhattanite story? black men are completely written out of the script? also interesting to me, beyond the white dude-black woman thing, is the four kids. really? and she still looks like that? i'd love to hear what y'all think on this.

2) my coworker hd sent me this link to a write-up on eboo patel's memoir. if you don't eboo patel, you should google the man and find out. he's definitely up and coming. read his blog at the washington post, if nothing else.

reading the feministing post made me think, madly, this: obama-patel 2008. no, obama's not a muslim, but eboo is! that would get our republican friends' riled up, no? too bad eboo isn't crazy enough to be a politician :(.

maybe spring?

so last week was insanely busy in havestrength's world, and i'm woefully behind in terms of keeping up with the news of the day. the weather is also getting warmer, and that alone makes it harder to spend evenings/afternoons/mornings in front of my computer browsing google reader rather than out and about, sitting/walking/laughing/eating in the sunshine. i have a feeling that as weather improves my current event-tracking is going to become quite feeble. i will have to depend on some of my more informed friends to keep me on track. :)

a few things that i've found out there in the world, though, that may be of interest:

• alice walker on obama @ the root
• an old post of mine, consisting of one of my favorite love poems, "salt" by lucille clifton
• great post @ afrobella on the benefits of the "pre-poo." i used oyin handmade's whipped pudding and some olive oil on saturday, with great results!
• aichlee over at brave star is doing wonderful things with videoblogging and women's poetry. check her out.
• the posts (cord's and lauren's) on blackness at stereohyped are pretty smart. read up! and then if you're in nyc come to the theorizing blackness conference on friday. i'll be there, playing hooky from work, because theorizing blackness is totally worth a vacation day?
  
• lastly, will smith's kids are too fucking adorable. damn.
  

ailey barbie. i'm feeling a little uncomfortable.

in honor of the 50th anniversary of the alvin ailey american dance theater (one of my favorite cultural offerings in this city), mattel will be producing an ailey barbie?

Ailey Barbie doll on sale

In the fall of 2008, Mattel will release an Ailey Barbie® doll that was designed by Judith Jamison. The doll represents a dancer from Alvin Ailey’s masterpiece, Revelations.


BARBIE and associated trademarks and trade dress are owned by Mattel, Inc. © 2008 Mattel, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

umm, okay. i'm more excited by the free performances and classes that will be happening in august:

Free Dance Classes and Performances Throughout NYC (8.5-8.12)

In August, 2008, Ailey will conduct a series of free performances and dance classes in all five boroughs of NYC, sponsored by Bloomberg. Venues include Celebrate Brooklyn, Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture, New York City Center, Queens Theatre in the Park, and The St. George Theatre.

and the spring season at BAM (anyone want to get tix with me?):

Spring Season at BAM

The Joyce Theater will present Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for a week-long engagement at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) from June 3-8, 2008. This will be the first time in 38 years that the Company has performed at BAM.

as usual, i'm late on this

can you believe this?! and what happens when the money gets old? or the lazy kids start kicking the smart kids' asses for their money instead of earning it themselves?

um, mr. klein? mr. fryer? when was the last time you actually went to a struggling middle school and observed behavior? and when was the last 30 bucks impressed a kid that would rather be out on the streets selling weed? and how do you think this incentive money will be spent? buying new notebooks?

i want to start my own school really, really badly until i read things like this...

***

on a slightly different note, whoa. $125,000?

i'm sad i missed this

on tuesday. did anyone catch it? if so, please tell me how it was...

Harlem Renaissance Revisited
With John Keene, Mendi + Keith Obadake, and Evie Shockley

Tribeca Performing Arts Center
Borough of Manhattan Community College
199 Chambers Street
New York, New York

Four poetic innovators explore representations of race, sexual identity and class in the revolutionary literature of the Harlem Renaissance poets — including Sterling Brown, Langston Hughes, Anne Spencer and Richard Bruce Nugent — and later generations of writers inspired by their work.

friday night=

...a long walk along 14th street
...an hour at the strand, and buying 4 books for less than 25 bucks (including a yummy soup cookbook! comfort food, anyone?)
...a manicure
...potato skins and drinks with two smart people in a diner
...more drinks at perks
...getting glared at for over-exuberance in the magic johnson theater
...good time spent with a friend.


not a bad night. not a bad night at all.

the roots? at the apollo?!

too bad i don't have $41.50 for much of anything this month :(. and considering that i saw the roots thrice last year, i should probably get over it.

but the apollo?!?

oh, also, if anyone is interested in attending "amateur night at...," holler at me. 11 bucks. wednesday nights. you and (the crazy person who is) me. let's do.

naked dudes making jokes, pushups

so i went to a naked comedy show last night. notable moments:

1. when the kinda funny-looking dude in the picture made about 50 tiny penis jokes. the jokes brought on chuckles, nausea and pity. his penis is tiny. and he knows it. and then he did a yoga handstand and opened his legs, and my eyes began to ache.
2. when the nerdy black dude on stage third started to seem a lot like my ex, except with ugly glasses and a need for a razor around the special parts. and then he made a joke about "uppity" homeless people who "have more friends that he does on myspace," and my eyes again began to ache.*
3. most notably, perhaps, when i noticed the hot dude with really nice locks working the front desk for whom i later, somewhat sillily (is that a word?), left a message on the p.i.t. answering machine. my eyes are still aching from that one.

as for the second part of the title, it simply refers to my new fave exercise! pushups make me feel powerful. the end. :)

*note: i get the sense that the joke was based on actual lived experience, which makes the whole situation almost sadder than the tiny penis...

things that rock about today

1. today is the day after the second meeting of my ItAG (and the first that everyone attended). we played games from "games for actors and non-actors," introduced ourselves, and started to get a taste of what we all bring to the super-positive, awesomely radical educators' table. i left at 9:15 feeling radiant and expansive, and exhausted. good talk about good books is like crack to me, without the horrible post-hit crash :).
2. my promotion (as lukewarm as i felt/feel about it) was announced at work today. it's good to have it finally out in the open. it's also good to have a great officemate to make sense of it all with.
3. restaurant week dinner at amalia with heather and nicole. FAB! from caldo verde to balsamic-glazed short ribs to warm chocolate cake with vanilla foam and caramel ice cream, fancy dinner was worth every single penny. add the pinot/cabernet/syrah blend to that, and you've got near-perfection. good eats and good conversation-- a great way to end a wonderful 48 hours.

what's up next in this oh-so-blissful week?

• a pan-african literary forum reading at the new school tomorrow featuring our friend c. n. adichie
• maybe first fridays at the bronx museum?
• maybe first saturdays at the brooklyn museum?
• maybe a kinda silly obama-love event at piano's on thursday?

i dunno. but having to decide between this many awesome choices is priceless.

i am.

busy, in the best possible way,
excited about possibilities my near future holds,
content with the way things are shaping up,
boldly imagining/molding my life into a much better "place" to be.

january is working out quite nicely.

5 reasons to ride the city bus

1. spotting cool graf/murals around the city that you miss when you're underground:

i was on the bus yesterday down lex. ave. (a route that i've ridden many, many times before), and noticed a mural on 111th that i've never noticed before. it's a de la vega homage to picasso, and it's beautiful. one of the many, many pieces of art that make east harlem a more beautiful place to live that i miss when i ride the train.

2. checking out hot dudes' booties:

there was a dude on the sidewalk yesterday whose booty made me smile. :D and i didn't have to worry about him turning around and seeing me stare, nor did i have to worry about his ass being pressed up against my face during a sharp, unexpected turn. sweet and simple admiration, another bus plus.

3. spotting and coveting other people's clothing:

a woman had the CUTEST BOOTS ON. they were hot. i broke that 10th commandment and coveted the hell out of her footwear. all without her giving me that weird "what the fuck you lookin' at?! fuck outta here!" look that i get so often on the train! (yes, i get the look often. no, i won't tell you why.)

4. hmm maybe i only have three reasons:
   

oh well. fresh out of shit to say. that's what i get for getting up at 8:30 to "work" when i didn't get home 'til 3:15. stay up, my friends.

oh, and happy mlk day tomorrow! i will be at BAM's annual event, maybe you should be too!

the sisses are coming

my sisters will be in town from today until tuesday. they are 18 and 20 years old, and i don't really know what to do with them.
i bought tickets to the dave eggers/valentino achak deng/chimamanda ngozi adichie reading at the 92nd street y on monday, and all they had to say was, "god, you always have to make us do educational stuff!"
bring on the education! i mean, it's not like they drink...

alvin ailey and my commitment to nyc's beauty

went to see that alvin ailey american dance theater tonight. for those of you that may not know, alvin ailey is a premiere dance company that was founded by an african american man in 1958, focused on the promotion of the african american through modern dance.
i saw alvin ailey last year and was blown away by the beauty and uniqueness of the performance. as a casual modern dance/ballet fan, i wasn't sure how much of the performance i would truly understand, but i found that the african american perspective reflected in much of the company's work spoke to me in a way that other performances have not. many of the dancers are of color, and the themes of the pieces, as well as the musical scores, were relevant to my life, specifically. that being said, i was TRES EXCITED for my attendance this year. i took my almost-bday twin, jac, and we spent two wondrous hours enjoying choreography by the likes of camille a. brown, robert battle, alvin ailey, and shonach robles. increible. the end of firebird almost brought me to tears--one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen.
i've been craving beautiful things as of late. i think my focus for my 25th year is on developing my beautiful things collection- jewelry especially- because i am surrounded by some of the most creative people on the earth in this city, and i don't take advantage of that enough.

upgrade you

gotta love that beyonce jam. the upgrade chain in the mouth is a little nasty, but hey, why can't a girl have a little fun, right?

my boss asked me today what my top three personal goals are for the next two years. she wants to be my fairy boss and grant me three professional wishes (and thereby keep me from running off to grad school/back to the classroom/off to a position that actually pays). that, of course, made me think. what are my top three personal/professional goals for the next two years? what would i really like to accomplish?

1. publishing something would be nice, i think. a book with my name on it, and learning how to do some press for such a book would be ideal.
2. honing my management skills, and adding a major management project to my resume. not sure what the project would be, but i really want something that proves that i know how to manage people and not just information.
3. #3 is up in the air, folks, and baffling me just a little. any suggestions?

gift for the 4th (i open them before i go to bed because i am a 5 year old in a mid-twenties, quickly widening body ;)): two pairs of socks. cute. striped. but still not an ipod. :(

new musica

fell in love with nola darling tonight.
funny, sassy, loud, feminist, sexy, smart, stylin'. good. part of the all female hip hop show put on at the knitting factory tonight, c/o network edutainment group. the show was a lot of fun...one performer, prettyhoneydark, even had terry shaking that ass.

not a bad way to spend a saturday night.

mani-pedis, scarves, and stanford law boys

this week has been interesting. good, busy, tiring, overwhelming, and...not over...

it's only thursday, and i'm already reflecting, which shows you how crazy a week it's been (being).

i'm back in the big apple, and winter seems to have arrived all of a sudden. i went from being warm last week to having to pull out all of the layers this week and start to try to remind myself of how to pull a warm-weather outfit together. my preliminary attempts are always unvariably preppy-- today i'm wearing a gray wool sweater over an oxford. i look like i'm back in high school, fulfilling dress code. :/ the boy that i met on monday didn't help-- a bit of a stuffy lawyer type, i almost felt self-conscious for being so "casual." then, last night, did a meetup with other young black professional women from the five boroughs, and out of 6, 4 were singers/songwriters/actors/filmmakers, and one was a moneyed accountant at morgan stanley. joy-- poor, non-profit-working, trying-to-make-the-world-a-better-place young black woman that she is-- stuck out a little like a sore thumb at first. things got better, but it has definitely been a week of remembering the breadth of this big, wide world.

it's amazing, in a place like new york, how many different "yous" you can be. i can be grungy me, i can be southern/caribbean me, i can be intellectual me, i can be sexy me, i can be political me, i can be apolitical me, i can be recovering baptist me-- not all in the same place or at the same time, necessarily, but there are places for all of those parts.

the rest of this week brings more mind-expansion: a play tonight at the public (apparently my favorite theater), seeing an old coworker tomorrow, and then cooking and baking and sangria-ing up a storm for a little housewarming on saturday. then maybe kara walker @ the whitney on sunday, if i can swing it.


ha. you wouldn't know i was at work right now, would ya?

these are the moments when i love new york

when cabbies are nicer than they need to be, and offer to take you farther than your money will take you to make sure you're safe...

when you know where to get fucking taste-tastic nachos at 1 a.m....

when getting away from a man is the best thing you've done all night...

when you have friends you can trust and enjoy without holding back.

new york can be pretty incredible, every once in awhile.