Filed under: New Shit | Tags: busta rhymes, hollywood holt, kid cudi, miss info, Okay Player, q tip, Santogold, The Knitting Factory
Another day, another hip hop show missed. Last night Q-Tip and Busta ripped it at The Knitting Factory in NYC at a FREE show presented by Okay Player, word. I have to say, I’m really feelin all these free shows being thrown lately to generate hype and throw folks a bone amidst all the bullshit we’re going through. For all the Bay Heads, Kid Cudi and Hollywood Holt are throwing a FREE show at Vessel tomorrow night. I’ll definitely be there. Anyway, I thought I’d pass this video along via Miss Info TV from Q-Tip’s dope performance last night. I think the opening freestyle gives us a good idea of what we can expect from his upcoming album The Renaissance dropping November 4, 2008. Q-Tip will either provide the soundtrack for celebration (Obama victory) or mourning (McCain victory), we can only hope for the former. Check, check it out:
After Q-Tip’s set, Busta spit some Ra Ra nonsense before dropping his new joint “Arab Money” (trash). In other news, another track leaked off of John Legend’s Evolver featuring hip hop queen Estelle called “No Other Love” and it’s been on repeat ever since I got home. Download it and let me know what you think. Two last things: 1) I love Santogold as much as the next person but damn she’s everywhere these days and I refuse to cop tickets to her show at The Fillmore next Tuesday because they’re SO ridiculously overpriced, I mean that’s pretty effin’ wack. 2) I’m feelin’ real official today because I finally signed up for a San Francisco Public Library card! I forgot how much I love spending time in libraries and getting books out for FREE. I think the general point I’m trying to make here is that free shit is the shit! What are YOU not paying for? Also, what good books are folks reading? Let a girl know.
I’m too tired and emotionally drained to share any nuanced reaction right now but please go see Spike Lee’s new joint Miracle At St. Anna. Heads up: it’s three hours long and if you’re like me, you’ll probably cry a great deal (mostly towards the end). I’ll say this much: I truly loved it. Here’s the trailer to get y’all motivated to go see it:
***Honestly, I’m shocked at how universally bad the reviews are for this flick. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a measly 29%, possibly the lowest score I’ve ever seen on that site, not to mention it’s literally SIX points lower than the score for “You Don’t Mess with Zohan”. Can someone seriously explain this disparity to me? What is going on right now, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!!! Everyone is overly eager to cut Spike Lee down for stating the facts about director Clint Eastwood’s blatant omission of soldiers of color from his two war films, Letters From Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers. How are these claims at all controversial? I’M SO CONFUSED! Reviewer upon reviewer argue that Lee needs to “get over the race thing” and “move on”. Let’s not forget that Spike Lee is relatively moderate on the political spectrum and yet he’s continuously treated like some over-zealous revolutionary, it makes absolutely no sense. What’s everyones beef with subtitles and subplots? I’m sorry but it feels like the average American viewer can’t deal with complexity, foreign languages and protagonists of color and I can’t fucking deal with it. If you’re one of those moviegoers that lets these shithead racist (yeah, I said it) reviewers determine what movies you watch, please silence their judgment this time. Go see the movie and decide for yourself. Let’s not act like Adam Sandler as Israeli commando hairstylist Zohan is more worthwhile than the story of Buffalo Soldiers. I’m not saying that the movie/Spike Lee is perfect by any means but I find this overwhelmingly negative reaction to be completely absurd and indicative of the very problems so many Americans argue we are now “beyond”. Don’t be fooled, we are not beyond anything. Transcendence is merely a myth.
Filed under: Politricks, Rants and raves | Tags: break the chains, CR10, critical resistance, keep it movin', mccain, nora, obama, prop 5, recess, the bailout, the intersection, una osato, yuri kochiyama, zakia
I woke up with a pounding migraine to the latest news story that the House of Representatives voted down the $700 BIllion Bailout Plan. I’m not sure what to make of it (shocking) and my headache is preventing me from thinking clearly so bear with me. I’m sure I’ll hit y’all with some rant later in the week about all this financial Ra Ra. Anyway, this weekend was hectic and exhausting. It kicked off at The Intersection (dope space in the Mission!) for my friend Evan’s art opening where I enjoyed the company of good folks and compulsively checked incoming twitter messages from ?uestlove, Jay Smooth and Miss Info to piece together how the debate was playing out. I knew it got off to a rough start when Jay twittered “this really is like a group therapy session, with all the “say that directly to him” and “I wish Obama would say “wrong” instead of “objectionable”, and “stop” instead of “cessation”, etc.” and after Miss Info sent a series of messages likening McCain to The Game (“MCCAIN is the GAME of the political world….such a name dropper”) I knew something was really wrong. After watching the debate late Friday night, I understood exactly what they were talking about. It was an awkward passive aggressive therapy session and it did absolutely nothing for me. Boo to politics. Rewind: Ana and I hit up the CR10 (Critical Resistance’s 10th anniversary) open plenary at Laney after Evan’s opening where I reunited with old friends (shout out to Spiritchild and Khalil). The highlights were definitely Suheir Hammad’s reading and Destiny Arts (they killed it to MIA’s “Bamboo Banga“). Given that most folks were still jet-lagged and hungry from jumping coasts, we all retired early (only after Ana and I walked around the lake to a Burrito spot for an impromptu Wesleyan reunion, shocking). I got a late start Saturday and didn’t make it back to Laney until 3:30 just in time to meet up with the lovely Zakia. We ran in between 2 workshops (one on community accountability and the other on the war on drugs/war on kids), nothing spectacular to share. The highlight was definitely the open bar at AIR lounge afterwards (wow, I sound like a counterrevolutionary, huh?). Two beers later, I BARTed back home and grubbed hard body with Nati and Pat at our FAVORITE thai joint on Divisadero before going out with Ana. The night ended with us watching Bear Grylls on Man Vs. Wild piss on snakes, eat larva, and get attacked by bees. I want to do a Katt Williams inspired stand up routine spoofing that show. I mean, homie’s name is BEAR and he’s even more intense than Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter (RIP).
Hilarious. So, long story short, Sunday rolled around and I came to the epiphany (the same epiphany I have every month or so) that the people I know are some of the best people in the world. Instead of boring you with more details of the weekend, I’m going to use the rest of this entry to put you onto the good work of my friends. Let’s face it, this blog is primarily a hype platform for people I co-sign and who I personally believe don’t get the props they deserve. Let’s begin with the talented Una Aya Osato.
“The one-woman play, Recess,is the culmination of Una’s experiences in the New York City public school system from the early years of her education all the way to adulthood where she has been teaching for over three years.After having taught all over New York City she has witnessed the myriad of frustrations that beset both teachers and learners as they try to navigate their way through the day to day struggle of the great bureaucracy that is school.The play follows the experiences of one seven-year-old girl, Sherita from the Bronx, as she copes with life. Burdened by undue familial responsibility at too young an age, school has become the epicentre of stress and comfort. In the course of the play we are exposed to various people and relationships in Sherita’s life.We meet her mother, teacher and schoolmates. It is through the encouragement of her school peers that she is temporarily able to forget about familial strain and daily battles with school authority.” — Recess MySpace
I had the pleasure of experiencing an intimate performance of Una’s latest work “Recess” on Sunday at CR10. Ever since I saw her Senior Thesis show at Wesleyan “Keep It Movin’” I knew she had a rare gift to produce powerful and accessible performances that tell stories of everyday struggle within greater contexts and questions of war and racism. Homegirl had me full-bellied laughing in one instance and crying in the next, she has the flexibility and intensity of any strong performer. More than anything, she’s down to put herself out there and be vulnerable in front of her audiences. Check her out here and here and here. Support that good shit, ya dig?
“Break The Chains (BTC) is a non-profit organization that seeks to build a national movement within communities of color to promote reform of punitive drug policies, with the ultimate aim of enacting alternative policies based on public health, compassion, racial justice and human rights. A guiding principle of Break the Chains is that since people of color are disproportionately affected by current drug policies we must be an integral part of the movement to reform them” — BTC publications
Now I got to plug my girl Zakia. Zakia represented for her NYC based organization Break The Chains at CR10 and led a workshop examining the impact of the “war on drugs” on poor communities of color, the policies supporting it, and the politics sustaining it. The workshop provided folks with an overview of U.S. drug policy and outlined harmful strategies employed by government to criminalize certain addictions over others (illegal vs. legal drugs) and block funding for needle exchange programs. Unfortunately, the workshop took a turn for the worst when self-proclaimed revolutionaries started to get at Zakia’s co-facilitator from the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act (NORA) campaign (Yes on 5) for being “pretendo” AKA “reformist bullshit” AKA “counterrevolutionary” AKA “a white lady reading statistics”. I’m sorry but my threshold for militant people of color spitting that “revolution” “all or nothing” “black and white” early 90s identity politics shit is low these days. We tell ourselves that we need multi-faceted and dynamic movements that can respond to present day mutations but we’re simply recycling the same played out tactics/strategies and righteously preaching to the choir on our bootlegged soap boxes. C’mon now, let’s stop the nonsense. Why do Q&A’s at these radical conferences inevitably devolve into opportunities for know-it-alls to flaunt their “downness”? I mean, ask a question (not rhetorical) instead of offering the same boring critique: “Why aren’t we talking about ______ (Insert cause here)? Why are YOU leaving ME out? Why are YOU in MY space?” Worst of all, they acted like homegirl wasn’t aware she was engaged in legislative REFORM, how condescending can you get? Zakia and I are half convinced those folks are going to campaign against “yes on 5″ just to prove their point. I’m not sure what their point was/is (exactly). Thankfully, Margaret didn’t pull any defensive white people shit and maintained her cool (impressive forreal). What’s the problem with allying with white people doing good work and playing their position? You definitely don’t want her on the block so STOP hating! PHEW I had to get that off my chest. Fortunately, the rest of the day made up for any wackness when I got to meet Japanese American badass. freedom fighter and diamond dame, Yuri Kochiyama.
For those of you who don’t know Yuri Kochiyama, please take time to read up on her. In short: longtime civil rights activist, interned at a U.S. concentration camp during World War II (along with my grandmother), friend of Malcolm X and with him as he died. While she finds herself in poor health these days, she has no trouble screaming into any microphone and standing up to rock with Oakland and Brooklyn youth to hip hop. I have a difficult time containing my emotions around her, she’s always been an inspiration to me and an undeniably positive presence in this world. Also, who isn’t jealous of her political alliance and friendship with Malcolm X? Are you kidding me?! It was a great honor to meet her and I aspire to be the kind of fierce (and fly) fighter she was and continues to be for Japanese Americans and for the world. As you can see, it was a long and busy weekend and I’m only breaking you off with a little something something, there’s much more to share but I haven’t the energy to keep blogging SO look Una, Zakia, and Yuri up and watch your back for any over-zealous revolutionary types looking to call you out and/or cut you down. Now, tell me about YOUR weekends, what’d you do? where’d you go? who with? why? how? Indulge me.
FINALLY! Janelle Monae’s Many Moons video premiered and it’s as good as I would’ve guessed. I love the storyline and runway shots. She’s coming back to Frisco tomorrow but I don’t have enough $$$ to catch her twice in 2 months. Plus, I’m reserving my going out funds for Kid CuDI on Wednesday night at Vessel. Enjoy:
This one is for Austin who just made my day by putting me onto jazz vocalist, bassist and composer Esperanza Spalding. Born in Portland, Oregon (1984), Esperanza was inspired to pursue a career in music as a young girl watching classical cellist Yo Yo Ma perform on Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. I first met Yo Yo when I was a little squirt at Harvard Memorial Church (shout out to the Ma fam) and he gave my sisters and I an informal talking to about the importance of education and following our dreams. He (and his warm smile) has the ability to convert any child into an aspiring musician, it’s quite a talent. I tried my hand at classical guitar but after many years of lessons, I realized it wasn’t my calling. Fortunately for us, it was Esperanza’s calling. Peep this:
“If “esperanza” is the Spanish word for hope, then bassist, vocalist and composer Esperanza Spalding could not have been given a more fitting name at birth. Blessed with uncanny instrumental chops, a multi-lingual voice that is part angel and part siren, and a natural beauty that borders on the hypnotic, the 23-year-old prodigy-turned-pro might well be the hope for the future of jazz and instrumental music. “She is an irresistible performer,” says The Seattle Times. “She sings and plays bass at the same time and does a sort of interpretive dance as she plays…Her analysis of what’s going on in jazz today is perceptive.” Irresistible. Interpretive. Perceptive.” — Biography, MySpace
I feel like everyday I uncover another new (at least to me) artist that is doing something different and doing it well. Esperanza is one of these fearlessly experimental types who has mastered her craft at the tender age of 23. After listening to a number of interviews, I have concluded that she has that something special. She carries herself with a certain quiet confidence that doesn’t read arrogantly at all and you know what? Aside from her presentation she just makes some GOOD @$$ music!!! Check it:
For all you Bay heads, she’s performing at Yoshi’s on 10/14, who’s down?
Filed under: Rants and raves | Tags: annemarie bean, judgement day, the new york times magazine, wesleyan
“Annemarie Bean, who goes by Anna and is a distant, poorer cousin of the family that owns the L.L. Bean clothing business, is the kind of professor who draws students to small New England liberal-arts colleges like Wesleyan. She is funny, enthusiastic, devoted to her students and passionate about what she teaches. Her subject areas are offbeat and slightly avant-garde, the kind of stuff that students, and their ostensibly liberal faculties, are said to find thrilling: African-American theater, the history of minstrelsy, “whiteness studies” — essentially, the intersection of race and theatrical performance in modern America. Beyond her subject matter and top-notch education, including a Ph.D. from New York University’s acclaimed performance-studies department, she just seems like a good fit for Wesleyan. She is an alumna of the college, class of ’88; she is informal in her manner, tall and limber like a dancer, bright-eyed, the opposite of stuffy, eminently approachable; and she suggested lunch at It’s Only Natural, the pride of Middletown, Conn., a regional mecca for vegetarian, vegan and macrobiotic dining. (Nothing says “Wesleyan” like lunch at It’s Only Natural, where you eat bulgur wheat beneath paintings by local artists.) Bean knows that she belongs at Wesleyan, which is why she’s especially sad that her students fired her.” – Judgement Day
Thank you, Anna for teaching us all a life lesson in white privilege–one of your many “off beat” and “slightly avant garde” areas of study/expertise (like African American theater, duh) that we liberals (“excluding all angry and brooding white men who wear white hats on backward and secretly harbor resentment against the misunderstood WASP aficionado of blackface history”) find absolutely “thrilling”. And thank you, Mark Oppenheimer for showing the world what good reporting looks like (note to self: never take Yale seriously ever, especially not the director of Yale Journalism Initiative). I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive us for this inexcusable “miscarriage of justice” (really, Mark? you just had to be that dramatic?). The hard truth is we as students are OVER empowered by Wesleyan and the elevated role of our opinion in faculty’s fortunes is down right unfair to well-meaning, well-educated, and well-connected (not to mention “tall and limber like a dancer” and “bright eyed” white lady visiting) professors like yourself. Mark’s suggestion that “what students are really evaluating is less pedagogy than whether a professor is funny, handsome or, above all, an easy grader” is right on the money. We’re just superficial, shallow, and lazy saboteurs who have nothing better to do than write completely fictitious critiques about tokenism, disorganization, tardiness and lack of professionalism (Mark, I dare you to be more condescending and cliche next time, why don’t you say something about “voter apathy” and moral decay among our “bulgur wheat eating” youthful selves). Even if there were any grain of truth to the (articulate, well-written) negative evaluations, the fact that you are poorer than your cousin who owns L.L. Bean (gasp!) and an “It’s Only Natural” enthusiast (are you fucking kidding me?) quite obviously make up for any other relatively harmless shortcomings (like being racist or I don’t know, a terrible professor). You deserve a secure and prestigious position at an institution that will give you the respect and recognition that Wesleyan failed to provide (you are an overly dramatic and spiteful hater who needs to get over yourself and stop playing the white lady victim card and unpack that not-so invisible knapsack, girl. I’m sure Peggy McIntosh can help you out LOL). I hope that this report in the New York Times Magazine will help generate support for you and your noble cause (I hope you’re ready for the backlash and I hope you google your name and find this sarcastic as fuck blog entry and feel like a shithead). Yours truly, Isa. (Post-script: you are single handedly responsible for making me reconsider the performance studies program @ NYU, but I won’t let you determine my future so nevermind) Sorry y’all, I really had to get that off my chest, ya dig?
Birthplace: Auburn, California (1974)
Medium: Painting (with experiments in performance and mixed media)
Alma Mater: University of California @ Davis and California College of Arts & Crafts
Relevant Themes: Colonialism, torture, the racial grotesque, space/place
I had the pleasure of listening to Rajkamal Kahlon lecture tonight at California College of the Arts on “Double Consciousness: Painting and Performing the Racial Grotesque”. The title alone drew me into her work (and superficially, her fly dress). Unfortunately, I can’t locate images of my favorite paintings that she incorporated in her slideshow but I’ll keep looking. It would be impossible to summarize her evolution as an artist simply because she has such a rich, diverse and dynamic portfolio that includes working briefly with Kara Walker, participating in the Whitney Independent Study Program, and exhibiting everywhere from New York to Berlin. And while the majority of her works have been inspired by written text(s), she has experimented with numerous mediums at varying scales (everything from 25 ft installations to slightly avant garde performance art). I related mostly to her process as an artist who privileges intuition and spontaneity while maintaining an intellectualism that is often compromised at these lectures (I know, we’re used to pretension overdose). Here is CCA’s brief characterization of her body of work that talks specifically about her previous projects:
“The Brooklyn-based painter Rajkamal Kahlon investigates racial and colonial authority by engaging with historical texts, for example the massive, 1200-page Cassell’s Illustrated History of India, an ethnography published in 1875. She often actually tears out pages and paints over them, using violent, clashing colors to create images of the human body turned grotesque through traumatic encounters with colonialism, military rule, and torture. Her work has been shown in museums and galleries around the world, including the Oakland Museum of California; arttransponder, Berlin; and in New York at the Queens Museum of Art, White Box, and ApexArt. She earned her MFA from CCA.”
Here is a series of her compelling re-workings of Cassell’s Illustrated History of India (which she bought off ebay for $400). She hopes to one day publish her re-make of the text as an alternative reading of History (with a capital “H”). It would be a nice period to a long sentence, she said. Each work is acrylic on 1 of the 1200 book pages.
Algebra of Infinite Justice (72 x 95 in)
It All Started with Someone’s Lie (30 x 21 in)
Bound/Unbound (29 x 40 in)
Give ‘Em the Old Razzle-Dazzle (72 x 96 in)
Kahlon exhibited these pieces along with several others back in 2005 at Penny Pilkington and Wendy Olsoff Gallery (P.P.O.W.) presently located in Chelsea, NYC. After taking a break from satire and irony, Kahlon moved towards producing spontaneous, impulsive works that exposed the conflict between the “good, bad and ugly”. She became fascinated with the tension between the grotesque and the beautiful. Like all my favorite artists, she is interested in unearthing otherwise buried parallels between places, people, moments (etc) that seem disparate and unrelated at first (Austria and torture at Abu Ghraib) but are in fact interconnected. I hope you will continue to research her work and keep an eye out…I only wish I knew about her earlier. For more on Kahlon, check out this interview and peep more of her art.
Filed under: Friends'n'Fam | Tags: life shit, the bay area, youth speaks
“The search is what everyone would undertake if he were not stuck in the everydayness of his own life. To be aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair” — Walker Percy
If only I had a shirt that said: I hella heart the Bay Area because now that I live in Frisco, my love traverses all kinds of borders. Everytime I come back from a Youth Speaks meeting I feel the need to gush about all the good people and poets I am meeting out here. To be honest, I wasn’t prepared for how difficult the transition after graduation was/is. While I was warned by friends and family about the traumatic aspects of breaking away from 21 years of structured learning, no one can prepare you for your own life. You just have to keep it moving and have faith that things will work themselves out (while taking an active role in shaping your future). I discovered quickly that there is a whole lot of shit lost somewhere in the fine print of your unspoken contract with Wesleyan (and education at large), this life shit. This economic crisis- can’t get a job-miss my friends-awkward around strangers-broke from covers and drinks at “The Club” (sorry dudes)-forgot saying “white people” doesn’t fly-about to start paying off student loans- cereal for dinner type shit (and that’s real). But then there are moments, days, weeks when you actually feel independent (maybe it’s an illusion but still…) and ready to get to know yourself again without the comforts of WesIDs and Mac Gray cards. You just jump and let the world take you in, breathe you out. Today I really felt alive. I’m so grateful for where I am and where I’m going. I’m learning how to love people in spite of distance and never letting myself feel alone when I know how many beautiful and inspiring people are out there in orbit, doing the damn thing. But yeah, the Youth Speaks vibe is a breath of fresh air y’all. For once, I’m in a space with performers where status and “the hustle” doesn’t play and corny is cool. I need that. I think we all need that (why do you like Outkast’s “Take Off Your Cool” is one of my all time favorite bangers?). They’ve made me feel like family in under two weeks and that’s hard to come by. So yeah, I’m finally beginning to feel at home, whatever the feeling is…that sigh of relief, that proof that we’re not alone. Say word.
