SATC?

i think NOT! i saw the good negro instead, and i'll let you know that my ten dollars were much better spent.

i am a little drunk, so i won't say much now, but you should check out tracey scott wilson. and when the good negro is produced again (though, admittedly, tickets probably won't be 10 dollars then) you should see it. and you should hope the talent is as amazing as it was today (two words- anthony mackie). if it's not, though, that's okay because the writing was just amazing. A-MA-ZING. 2 hours and 45 minutes and i would have stayed for another hour if she would have answered my questions. straight up.

a quickie

i have to have children so i can read ta-nehisi coates' the beautiful struggle to them as a bedtime story.

tnc is kind of amazing. i saw him read at mcnally robinson in soho tonight. tears flow to my eyes easily, especially in the presence of beautiful words, and the author's eloquence moved me tonight as only beautiful prose can.

get a copy.

the to-see list

i'm finally starting to get my love of movies back. it's one of the things i lost in the ex-aftermath, and the loss itself has kinda baffled me. i used to love seeing movies, alone or otherwise, and something about always having to go alone to slightly weird indie movies just never really put a smile on my single face. anyway. i'm back! and have a desire to see one (or five) movies that are out right now-->

1. the visitor's trailer is REALLY CHEESY, but somehow i still think it's worth going to see. i just hope i won't come out with a weird need to play a djembe with an old white man.
2. the edge of heaven just got a great review in new york magazine. so shoot me.
3. indiana jones features one of my many boyfriends, shia labeouf. and yes, we have been together since even stevens ;).
4. iron man. because i have to see it, right?
5. and a jihad for love because my job deals quite a bit with islam, and i find myself wanting to learn more and more to counteract my previously deep ignorance of the religion and the culture that comes with it.
   

sukh aur dukh ki kahani

the title of this post is also the title of a show i saw yesterday at the culture project as a part of women center stage. "sukh aur dukh ki kahani, a journey of love, risk and loss," brought on a sense of unknowing and/or not understanding was part of the entire process at the show yesterday. andolan, a non-profit founded by and for low-wage south asian women workers, brought five women together to tell their stories of struggle and to empower themselves through performance. the result of their own self-explorations is a powerful show that exposes the truth of the variety of immigration and u.s. living experiences of south asian descent. i think (and i know in my own experience as an imperfect and often ignorant person) that south asians often are placed in the model minority pool along with east asians. it is very rarely (if ever) that we see s. asians portrayed as financially struggling unless the movie or film is actually set in s. asia and the character is a beggar or servant, or it is wartime. in u.s.-set movies/t.v. shows/novels, south asians most often suffer from being overlooked in the professional sector, or are mocked for accents and cultural differences, but there is, as far as i know, no real portrayal of low-wage domestic workers of south asian descent. south asians are also often seen as legal immigrants, not illegal ones.
"sukh aur dukh ki kahani" explodes all of those stereotypes. there are four languages spoken in the show- english, bangla, hindi and marathi, and of those languages the director only speaks english. two teenage interns provided translation for the women across their language barriers, and the show was created by the women across their differences to speak out against violence. at the beginning of the show the director made a point to welcome the audience to fully experience the discomfort of not understanding, and to try to connect to the emotion in the women's performances without full translation. key phrases and words were displayed on a screen in english, and the program provided basic english translations for the five stories shared.
in the q-and-a, one man asked whose stories the women were sharing, and whether or not they were written collaboratively. it was explained that all of the women were sharing their own experiences, and the courage it took for them to get up in front of all of us became all that much clearer. to speak of being in the country illegally, to speak of escaping from your abusive former employers' home, to speak of losing two infant children to hunger in front of 100 strangers is, i'm sure, terrifying, and the grace and strength the women brought to their words was beautiful. andolan will be trying to take the show other places in the future, so keep your eyes open. they also take donations, so if you're looking for a place to share your resources, check out the website.
i thought of this poem by audre lorde as i left the theater yesterday, so i'll share it with y'all~

the brown menace
or poem to the
survival of
roaches

Call me
your deepest urge
toward survival
call me
and my brothers and sisters
in the sharp smell of refusal
call me
roach and presumptuous
nightmare upon your white pillow
your itch to destroy
the indestructible part of yourself.

Call me
your own determination
in the most detestable shape
you can become
friend of your own image
within me I am you
your most deeply cherished nightmare
scuttling through painted cracks
you create to admit
me into your kitchens
your fearful midnights
your values at noon
into your most secret places
hating
you learn to honor me
by imitation as I alter
through your greedy preoccupations
through your kitchen wars
through your poisonous refusal
to survive.

To survive.
To survive.

(1973)

ladies and gents, fr. michael pfleger

l'heureux did his piece with bill o'reilly, but father michael pfleger is a force to be reckoned with. the fox news reporter didn't have a fucking chance. there's definitely a reason they aren't streaming this one on the main homepage...

h/t to JJP

oh, and also, on the same night

the roots. stephen colbert may have the hottest show on tv right now. i'm just sayin'.

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.

children draw the presidential candidates

ah, stephen colbert. a white guy i like.



reasons why this video rocks:

1) i love "super obama." he's larger than the earth!
2) ummmm, did you know who the presidential candidates were when you were in 2nd grade? there is something so. amazing. about this race. i can't believe that children who have just learned to write can articulate the positions of different politicians. maybe this means we will have a truly engaged electorate in the future? let's hope, shall we?

jay-z and mary. live performance. eat it up.

he's through with white girls?

haha. those of you who know me thought this post was about someone we know, eh? nope. that will never happen :). read on after the jump...

"i'm through with white girls" is a movie, and one that i think i may want to see? just for the kitsch factor? just to be able to say i actually heard those words come out of a blipster man's mouth (even if it is for a script)? ;p. whatevs. check out the site!

lauryn

i posted this video a loooong time ago, back at the old blog, because it is one of my absolute favorites. i was reminded of it today via feministing, and i thought i'd share it again. she never gets old. ever.

i am a feminist. and so is ugly betty.

h/t to feministe on this one.

this is a little long, but it makes happy even though it is, as most mainstream discussions of feminism are, overly white. whatever, i own a "this is what a feminist looks like" shirt, and i owe my sudden urge to put it to use to this video.



:)

liberty city= a havestrength homecoming

i saw april yvette thompson's play on sunday night, the night before my aunt deedee's wake, and it fed my soul.

my great-grandmother largely raised my grandmother and her brother, my uncle george, in liberty city. uncle george and his wife, dee dee, made her house their second home throughout my childhood. it was in my great-grandmother's bathtub, while drying off from a bath, that i asked aunt dee dee to be my second grandmother (because my father's mother passed away soon after i was born). liberty city holds a special place in my heart.

i love seeing/reading/hearing/experiencing expressions of other people's loves for the places i love. i love having that venn diagram moment when you realize that there are things about yourself that you share with others. i took a friend to the play, someone that doesn't know me or my rituals very well yet. afterwards he commented on the way i reacted, audibly, to the references to homemade corned beef hash and hamburger patties with green peppers and onions and cornflakes, wrapped in foil. the way my eyes lit up with recognition when she spoke about a woman's husband taking the boat back and forth to nassau every weekend. the tears in my eyes as she recounted the mcduffie riots, and i imagined my parents, my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, and where they must have been during that crazy time.

i called my mother on monday morning to tell her about the play. as i explained what thompson addressed, my mother began asking questions about her name and where she went to school- "did she tell you her mother's name? i bet momma knows her family!" it was a homecoming for her through my telling as much as it was a nostalgic journey for me. my mommy wants to take her mommy to see the play. we're just waiting for it to make the journey to liberty city.

you should see the show if you can. it's playing at the new york theatre workshop. 20 buck tickets for all seats on sundays at 7, cash only.

for more information, check www.libertycityplay.com.

blogs about me?

hmmm.

double hmmm.

latoya over at racialicious did some numbers on herself to figure out how she shapes up based on all of these "identity" sites. i kinda want to, but as you all know, i already have issues with my blackness. ;)

check it allllllll out.

amazing woman

okay, first of all, i'm not sure what's going on with my template. i'm going to work on that.

also, went to this conference on black feminism yesterday. i'm feeling rejuvenated and refocused; i've relocated those goalposts and re-oriented myself. i wrote this yesterday during a presentation on lucille clifton and sonia sanchez, and just the sight of all of these amazing women's names in one place still puts a smile on my face and a lift in my heart. i am so thankful to have had the opportunity.

amazing women
nzadi keita
nicole watson
sherie randolph
rose afriyie
sala cyril
ashley lewis
toccara
robyn spencer
adrienne kennedy
lucille clifton
safiya bandele
assata
barbara omolade
nadine
sonia sanchez
women panthers

asian american/african american poetry reading on thurs

co-spo'd by cave canem and the asian american writer's workshop. details after the jump. are you as excited as i am?

Thursday, March 6, 7:30 pm
Third Annual Asian American/African American Poetry Reading
Curated by Tracy K. Smith and Tina Chang
Cosponsored by Cave Canem

The Asian American and African American communities gather for a night of brilliant poetry. Readings by Meena Alexander, Jeffery Renard Allen, Regie Cabico, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, R. Erica Doyle and Bakar Wilson.

Meena Alexander's poetry includes Illiterate Heart, winner of a 2002 PEN Open Book Award, Raw Silk (2004), and Quickly Changing River (2008) all published by TriQuarterly Books/ Northwestern University Press. She is the editor of Indian Love Poems (Everyman's Library/ Knopf, 2005) and author of the memoir Fault Lines (Feminist Press 1993/ 2003) She is Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY.

Jeffery Renard Allen is the author of two collections of poetry, Stellar Places (Moyer Bell 2007) and Harbors and Spirits (Moyer Bell 1999), and a novel, Rails Under My Back (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000), which won The Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for Fiction. Born in Chicago, he holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is currently an Associate Professor of English at The City University of New York and teaches in the graduate writing program at The New School. He is the Founding Director of the Pan African Literary Forum. Allen's book of short stories, Bread and the Land, will be published in 2008. He is presently at work on Talking Talk, a book of interviews and conversations with fiction writers of African descent from around the world, and the novel Song of the Shank, based on the life of Thomas Greene Wiggins, a nineteenth century African American piano virtuoso and composer who performed under the stage name Blind Tom.

Regie Cabico is a spoken word pioneer having won the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam & has appeared on two seasons of HBO's Def Poetry Jam. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including Spoken Word Revolution & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. He is the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, The Barnes & Nobles Writers for Writers Award, A Larry Neal Prize for Poetry and a 2008 DC Commission for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. He is the artistic director of Sol & Soul, an arts and activist organization & co-sponsor of Split This Rock's Poetry Festival: a celebration of Poetry of Provocation & Witness in Washington, DC March 20-23 2008.

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs was born in Won Ju Si, South Korea. Her debut collection of poetry, Paper Pavilion (White Pine Prees 2007), is the winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in 5 AM, Crazyhorse, Cimarron Review, MiPOesias, Poetry NZ, among others and have been anthologized in Echoes Upon Echoes (The Asian American Writers' Workshop, 2003) and Language For A New Century (W. W. Norton 2008). She is a fellow at the University of Southern California and founding director of the USC SummerTIME Writing Program. Currently, she lives in New York City.

R. Erica Doyle was born in Brooklyn, NY to Trinidadian parents. Her work has appeared in Callaloo, Ploughshares, Ms. Magazine, Black Issues Book Review, Blithe House Quarterly, Utne Reader, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire and Sinister Wisdom and has been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2001, Voices Rising, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Gumbo: Short Fiction by Black Writers, Gathering Ground, Best Black Women's Erotica 2, and Role Call is forthcoming in Bloom, Our Antilles: Queer Writing from the Caribbean and Quotes Community: Notes for Black Poets. She is the recipient of various grants and awards, including a Fellowship in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund Award in Poetry and a Hurston/Wright Award in Fiction. She received her MFA in Poetry from The New School and works as a teacher and literacy coach at Vanguard High. Her manuscript, proxy, was selected by Claudia Rankine as a finalist for the 2007 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

Bakar Wilson's work has appeared in the Vanderbilt Review, the Lumberyard, and three Cave Canem anthologies. He is a native of Tennessee and currently teaches at Medgar Evers College.

@ The Workshop
16 West 32nd Street, 10th Floor
(btwn Broadway & 5th Avenue)

$5 suggested donation

just in case you're wondering what my saturday will be like...

it will involve "the brother from another planet."

just fyi.

barack the vote

i'm up to go to the gym. yes, i know it's 5 a.m., but i had to get up and erase some drunken posts (appletinis are $5 until 9 on weekdays at moca, AND they have the best chicken tenders EVER) about obama and my ex and haters and cake (wtf, right?!) from last night. god, i'm a weirdo sometimes.

anyway, i went to a debate-watching party last night and i left the party, fell asleep, and woke up this morning feeling really pessimistic. i don't know what the root of my pessimism is, so i'm going to try to figure it out here.

things i know:

• i love barack obama. i like his presence, i like his position papers on his website (well enough), i like his wife (and want to be her one day).
• i trust michelle more than i trust barry. i think this comes from my general distrust of men? and i think it's weird that it carries over into politics. but then the personal is political, right?
• i don't trust america. i don't trust this nation to elect the right candidate for the right reasons.
• i don't trust politicians. i feel that there is always spin, and i hate spin. i like straight talk. i am pretty straightforward in my life, which sometimes doesn't serve me too well, and i think that's why i like michelle. she seems to be about straight talk, even when people don't want to hear what she has to say.
• i know that my viewpoints are way too far left to be represented by an "electable" candidate in this country.

all that being said, why can't i let go of this negativity? maybe i just want more, like kameelah does. or maybe i wish i could have real hope. i dunno. off to the gym to try to shake it off.


random side note: why did i see one of lisa turtle's old outfits at H&M on wednesday? crazy!

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.

this won't make me look good,

but i'm okay with that. i LOVE these cards. very pretty cards that say pretty funny/not so nice/ kinda sweet things. they remind me of a card i sent sonj once regarding a lack of emails... :) and while you should totally buy paper cards, since i'm all about mail and pretty things you can actually feel, you can send JunkMail Greetings as e-cards too! cool!

check out JunkMail Greetings!


image courtesy of hatemailgreetings