Kathleen Cleaver and husband, Neal Cleaver.
Howard L. Bingham, Black Panther Rally (Kathleen Cleaver & Bobby Seale), Oakland, CA, 1967Someone sweet told me I looked like Kathleen Cleaver. What an honor.
29 November 2010
Muse.
Kathleen Cleaver and husband, Neal Cleaver.Howard L. Bingham, Black Panther Rally (Kathleen Cleaver & Bobby Seale), Oakland, CA, 1967Someone sweet told me I looked like Kathleen Cleaver. What an honor.
Jamila Capitman Interview on "Love, Queens..."
My partner in crime, Jamila Capitman, being interviewed about "Love, Queens...". Peep!
http://lovequeens.eventbrite.com
http://lovequeens.eventbrite.com
28 November 2010
24 November 2010
Muse.
Doris Patterson's dance class, Washington D.C. circa 1947-1948. Addison Scurlock Studios, National Museum Of American History. Vintage African American photography courtesy of Black History Album.
22 November 2010
Ntozake Shange is coming to Philadelphia!
Saturday, December 4th 11 am-1 pm
A Laying on of Hands: An Afternoon with Ntozake Shange
A Laying on of Hands: An Afternoon with Ntozake Shange
The playwright and author of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” and the newly released "Some Sing, Some Cry" will be on hand for an afternoon of literature, learning and love. Through performances, a discussion and readings we will explore the ways Ms. Shange’s work has touched so many lives.
Panelists include:
Dr. Imani Perry (Moderator) - Prof. of African American Studies at Princeton University
Aishah Shahidah Simmons - Documentarian, "No! The Rape Documentary"
Bassey Ikpi - Poet, Writer, contributor to TheRoot.com, Essence.com and The Huffington Post
Dr. Kimmika Willama Witherspoon - Professor of Theatre at Temple University
Also featuring: The Elder Choir of Immanuel Lutheran Church and Mem Nahadr from the "For Colored Girls" Soundtrack
Book signing immediately following
For more information visit: http://ntozakeshangeevent.eventbrite.com/
Tickets are also available at the door on the day of the event.
What It Feels Like to Love a Poet
Your words have a mind of their own.
They dance suggestively with my wounds,
Irritating the scab of decisions I've made up in my own mind.
Last night,
I was a fly,
Who tripped in the same place I fell before. Trapped,
In a web of memories.
Of who we used to be.
Two women,
Laughing so hard our guts would cry out in protest.
Companions.
These days,
I feel silenced when you speak,
Less likely to shout praise.
While you hold the crowds' attention
Like a promise
Made to those who came before you.
But they couldn't possibly see you like I do.
Solider.
But woman,
With deliberate glances.
And magic in your smile.
Holding my heartbeat in the cracks of your hands,
Soft and delicate.
You harness a power here.
In this dimly lit room.
Where the shadows dance
On paintings of Black artists,
Surely to be mishonored in time.
Their legacy,
Blending into the backdrop of your skin.
You illuminate.
There is no one else in this moment but me.
Reliving what it felt like to be loved by you,
Whole.
You have a different love for me now.
All jokes and no hard feelings.
But I am messy and careless with my ego.
Looking for pieces of our love that was lost,
When you were broken.
I can't remember life when I didn't feel broken.
But it is the cross I bear,
Because my love is too expansive,
To be thrown back in my face.
And I can't understand why you never realized that.
Or how you could question the love felt for you.
There is royalty,
But you,
Are the earth that keeps me grounded and spinning.
Your truth,
On that stage,
Is proof that even though change is constant,
Everything comes back to the beginning.
And we can exsist where we started.
Differently.
You are still my compliment.
They dance suggestively with my wounds,
Irritating the scab of decisions I've made up in my own mind.
Last night,
I was a fly,
Who tripped in the same place I fell before. Trapped,
In a web of memories.
Of who we used to be.
Two women,
Laughing so hard our guts would cry out in protest.
Companions.
These days,
I feel silenced when you speak,
Less likely to shout praise.
While you hold the crowds' attention
Like a promise
Made to those who came before you.
But they couldn't possibly see you like I do.
Solider.
But woman,
With deliberate glances.
And magic in your smile.
Holding my heartbeat in the cracks of your hands,
Soft and delicate.
You harness a power here.
In this dimly lit room.
Where the shadows dance
On paintings of Black artists,
Surely to be mishonored in time.
Their legacy,
Blending into the backdrop of your skin.
You illuminate.
There is no one else in this moment but me.
Reliving what it felt like to be loved by you,
Whole.
You have a different love for me now.
All jokes and no hard feelings.
But I am messy and careless with my ego.
Looking for pieces of our love that was lost,
When you were broken.
I can't remember life when I didn't feel broken.
But it is the cross I bear,
Because my love is too expansive,
To be thrown back in my face.
And I can't understand why you never realized that.
Or how you could question the love felt for you.
There is royalty,
But you,
Are the earth that keeps me grounded and spinning.
Your truth,
On that stage,
Is proof that even though change is constant,
Everything comes back to the beginning.
And we can exsist where we started.
Differently.
You are still my compliment.
ROCKERS! Closet Photo Shoot
Little ole me tryna be a model...
Photoshoot for ROCKERS! Closet: International Thrift Couture.
Photoshoot for ROCKERS! Closet: International Thrift Couture.Visit the following link to purchase the items seen, and more!
11 November 2010
Pharrell Williams, Cover of Paper Magazine, Nov 2010
Shepard Fairey interviews Pharrell for the cover story of the latest issue of Paper Magazine. These two collaborators (Shepard Fairey designed N*E*R*D’s brain logo) discuss skateboarding, branding one’s image, collaborations with FriendsWithYou and Louis Vuitton, his new projects with Brooklyn Machine Works and Artist.com, and pushing the commercial/art movement forward.
In the excerpt below, Pharrell discusses meeting BAPE founder Nigo and starting up BBC/Ice Cream.
SF: I’m curious about your relationship with [Bathing Ape designer/music producer] Nigo, who I feel is like the Japanese Warhol. In Japan, in terms of the crossover between commercial projects and high-end art, there are fewer boundaries. How did you get into what he was doing with the [clothing and shoe lines] Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream?
PW: Well, he basically just gave me a shot. I came to his studio, he showed me some of his stuff, and I told him I wanted this, this and this. He told me to take it. I wore a lot of it, and finally he was like, “Hey, you wanna do your own line?” I was like, “Hell yeah,” and so the rest was history.
Muse.
Antwuan Dixon. One of the best skateboarders of all time. Going sour due to drugs. Brilliant insanity at its finest. 09 November 2010
Incubus- Stellar
"Meet me in outer space. I will hold you close, if you're afraid of heights. I need you to see this place. It might be the only way, that I can show you how, it feels to be inside of you..." -Incubus
08 November 2010
Love, Queens who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The NEW flyer for my play. Support Black art!
Wednesday, Dec 1st and Friday, Dec 3rd
7pm.
See flyer for details.
Purchase tickets at lovequeens.eventbrite.com
07 November 2010
5 Things My Exes Owe Me
1. My womanhood.
The night I confused my heart for my hymen and offered it to you, we laid on an air mattress in the living room. It deflated along with my dreams by morning. The sun screaming silently behind North Carolina horizons, and the smoke had cleared. It was clear. I had given you what I knew of woman. Sticky, soft. You came too quickly to understand the depth of this situation. I became a situation. Before I had time to collect myself and place her neatly under my skirt, you had casually moved me to the corner. Where eye contact and conversation were optional. I imagine I was a nice talking piece when you had company visit.
2. Honesty.
A woman's first boyfriend always reeks of her father's habits and holds her like a faceless waist in a basement party. Our lust was a basement party. Sweaty and dark. With secrets trapped behind our innocent bumping and grinding. I always wondered if, She, got confused with My hopes on your tongue. If, She, thought your whispers were for her alone. And how comfortable She was in your arms, with My heart on your sleeve.
3. An explanation.
You and I were worn floor boards in the right places. Warm and quiet. Your heart was always too heavy to acknowledge. And your silence was louder then any sobs I could muster when I heard of your secret departure. You left without warning. No note tacked to my door. I was left loving you, in memories. You could've had the decency to at least, text me. Let me know how our future looked without me.
4. Respect.
You have always been ignorant feet in my temple. A knock banging on the door. Heavy soles wiping dirt each step. You never quite learned how to clean up after yourself. And left apologies in the empty spaces your whirlwind created. You never had the patience to learn the scriptures on my walls. You would've noted that I never wanted to pick the grit of another woman from your fingernails. Never considered myself a saint, willing to forgive your indiscretions. You were just a man I saw God in once. And we deserved to be more then an avoided relationship status change.
5. An orgasm.
Soft hands smelling of incense and Shea butter, you asked more of me then I ever asked of myself. Giving into demands I was forced into a place, uncomfortable. In your world, you are served. So I begged for scraps. Of intimacy and gratification. Concubine to your regal dreams. Your rhetoric merely double talk for your selfishness. But you forgot. That a Queen doesn't have to recieve blessings on her knees.
The night I confused my heart for my hymen and offered it to you, we laid on an air mattress in the living room. It deflated along with my dreams by morning. The sun screaming silently behind North Carolina horizons, and the smoke had cleared. It was clear. I had given you what I knew of woman. Sticky, soft. You came too quickly to understand the depth of this situation. I became a situation. Before I had time to collect myself and place her neatly under my skirt, you had casually moved me to the corner. Where eye contact and conversation were optional. I imagine I was a nice talking piece when you had company visit.
2. Honesty.
A woman's first boyfriend always reeks of her father's habits and holds her like a faceless waist in a basement party. Our lust was a basement party. Sweaty and dark. With secrets trapped behind our innocent bumping and grinding. I always wondered if, She, got confused with My hopes on your tongue. If, She, thought your whispers were for her alone. And how comfortable She was in your arms, with My heart on your sleeve.
3. An explanation.
You and I were worn floor boards in the right places. Warm and quiet. Your heart was always too heavy to acknowledge. And your silence was louder then any sobs I could muster when I heard of your secret departure. You left without warning. No note tacked to my door. I was left loving you, in memories. You could've had the decency to at least, text me. Let me know how our future looked without me.
4. Respect.
You have always been ignorant feet in my temple. A knock banging on the door. Heavy soles wiping dirt each step. You never quite learned how to clean up after yourself. And left apologies in the empty spaces your whirlwind created. You never had the patience to learn the scriptures on my walls. You would've noted that I never wanted to pick the grit of another woman from your fingernails. Never considered myself a saint, willing to forgive your indiscretions. You were just a man I saw God in once. And we deserved to be more then an avoided relationship status change.
5. An orgasm.
Soft hands smelling of incense and Shea butter, you asked more of me then I ever asked of myself. Giving into demands I was forced into a place, uncomfortable. In your world, you are served. So I begged for scraps. Of intimacy and gratification. Concubine to your regal dreams. Your rhetoric merely double talk for your selfishness. But you forgot. That a Queen doesn't have to recieve blessings on her knees.
06 November 2010
A Text Conversation
You ask,
"What are you wearing?"
Texts weigh heavy with loneliness
And there aren't enough new ways for me to say that I'm missing you.
That answer is complex.
Or rather,
My pride too egotistical.
I answer,
"Your sweater,
Black leggings,
My 'fancy' brown ankle boots,
A reluctant smile,
And your breath...
You know,
The usual."
The words come easier then our kisses in empty rooms
Or our laughter in crowded restaurants.
You answer,
"I wanna see a pic."
Lost words trapped behind my teeth,
I want to tell you a picture couldn't proclaim enough.
Couldn't show how I laid last night,
In the palms of my bed,
Curled up into myself,
Barely allowing my body to be held by a strange man.
His hands weren't strong enough to store me by his side.
But his back would've been my support in another life.
His kisses could've licked my wounds clean if I would've laid them open.
But I was too woman for that.
Too strong to be open.
And I will never love him like that,
With expectant smiles and future plans.
Don't know if I can ever be that soft space for a man to call home again.
He is shy touches and deep glances.
Soft spoken.
And almost comfortable.
But I am uncomfortable.
Wondering if I stink of the women I allow to move through my throat,
Or if he can spot your flowers on my alter.
I am moving with secrets.
Covering up old lovers with open legs and closed arms.
My secrets,
This magic in my eye,
Your prescence,
Couldn't be seen in a picture I'd send with my phone.
"What are you wearing?"
Texts weigh heavy with loneliness
And there aren't enough new ways for me to say that I'm missing you.
That answer is complex.
Or rather,
My pride too egotistical.
I answer,
"Your sweater,
Black leggings,
My 'fancy' brown ankle boots,
A reluctant smile,
And your breath...
You know,
The usual."
The words come easier then our kisses in empty rooms
Or our laughter in crowded restaurants.
You answer,
"I wanna see a pic."
Lost words trapped behind my teeth,
I want to tell you a picture couldn't proclaim enough.
Couldn't show how I laid last night,
In the palms of my bed,
Curled up into myself,
Barely allowing my body to be held by a strange man.
His hands weren't strong enough to store me by his side.
But his back would've been my support in another life.
His kisses could've licked my wounds clean if I would've laid them open.
But I was too woman for that.
Too strong to be open.
And I will never love him like that,
With expectant smiles and future plans.
Don't know if I can ever be that soft space for a man to call home again.
He is shy touches and deep glances.
Soft spoken.
And almost comfortable.
But I am uncomfortable.
Wondering if I stink of the women I allow to move through my throat,
Or if he can spot your flowers on my alter.
I am moving with secrets.
Covering up old lovers with open legs and closed arms.
My secrets,
This magic in my eye,
Your prescence,
Couldn't be seen in a picture I'd send with my phone.
Vandalism?! ... and other ways to make people see things, by Safia Elhillo
... is one of the best chapbooks I've ever read in my life. The writing is poignant, beautiful, elequent. There arent enough words to say how her writing has moved me. And I feel blessed to know her and experience her writing. So here is piece of a poem from her chapbook, that has changed me. Written by Safia Elhillo, a beautiful talent-filled, 19 year old, Queen.Entitled: #681- on armor and other things to hide behind.
... I've met men with ink soaked so far into their brown
that their stories cannot be ignored
Men so open that there is no healing to be found for them
Who've let me paint over their wounds with the wet of my toungue
Who leave with their eyes and sing with their hands
Men who draw fault lines on my terrain...
Purchase this phenomenal piece of art on her blogspot VIA paypal @ http://www.oddballsdontbounce.blogspot.com/
And follow her... Why not?
http://oddballsdontbounce.tumblr.com/
05 November 2010
Zap Mama- Bandy Bandy
live @ World Cafe Live
" Fill yourself full of light. Shine (shine). Until you feel your soul..." -Zap Mama
" Fill yourself full of light. Shine (shine). Until you feel your soul..." -Zap Mama
10 Things to Know About Ntozake Shange and "For Colored Girls..." Before Seeing Tyler Perry's Version
VIA: Ms. Magazine
Poet, novelist, playwright and high priestess of black bohemianism Ntozake Shange (b. 1948) is resurgent in 2010. She and her sister, Ifa Bayeza, recently released the novel Some Sing, Some Cry, and her first and best-known play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow Is Enuf has been turned into a feature film by Tyler Perry, which comes out in November.
Here are 10 things you should know about Shange and Colored Girls before you head to your nearest cineplex:
1. Colored Girls first took shape in 1974 as an electrifying performance by Shange and four of her close friends in a Berkeley, Calif., women’s bar, the Bacchanal. As they moved and danced, they recited Shange’s poems–about coming of age, heartbreak, sexual assault, redemption. The choreopoem went on to Broadway to win an Obie and be nominated for Tony and Grammy awards.
2. Colored Girls has been a favorite of college theater departments, with audiences across the decades waiting to see the actresses come out attired in signature brown, yellow, purple, red, green, blue and orange dresses–the colors of the rainbow, plus brown–calling out: “I’m outside…chicago, …detroit, … houston, …baltimore, … san francisco, … manhattan, … st. louis”
3. Poet Ishmael Reed observes: “No contemporary writer has Ms. Shange’s uncanny gift for immersing herself within the situations and points-of-view of so many different types of women.” Like Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks and Toni Cade Bambara–to name a few writers no longer here–Shange cared to feed us when we were starved for stories about women of color.
4. Tyler Perry’s black women characters—including his salty female alter ego Madea—serve up melodrama and moralism, along with some tiresome stereotypes. So it’s with reason that we wonder how his funhouse-mirror approach to black life will pair with Shange’s kaleidoscopic view.
5. Shange optioned the film rights to Perry, but she has spoken candidly about forbidding him from having Madea do a cameo as a “colored girl.” Perry’s churchified high camp is no match for a poet like Shange who can pen the line: “& if jesus cdnt play a horn like [archie] shepp/ waznt no need for colored folks to bear no cross at all.” Amen.
6. Shange loved blackness, so she shattered its conventions. Her depictions traverse class backgrounds, gender roles, sexual desires, vernaculars and geographies. She’s just as likely to reminisce about growing up in a segregated—but loving and intellectually stimulating—all-black community in 1950s St Louis as she is to imagine a girlish date with the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture.
7. Shange’s signature phonetic spellings (wd, cd, waz) pay tribute to Paul Laurence Dunbar and Zora Neale Hurston, writers who also valued the poetic genius of everyday folk who could turn a phrase or re-colonize the English language until it felt like home.
8. Shange helped us see the agency that Third World feminism brought to women of color. Colored Girls arrived during a cultural renaissance when communities of color—Black, Latino, Asian, Native American–were working in solidarity. Feminism provided the backdrop. In the introduction to Colored Girls, she discussed creating the play in an environment “inundated with women poets, women’s readings, & a multilingual woman presence, new to all of us and desperately appreciated.”
9. Her border-crossing ways, love of vernacular, diaspora and musicality lend Shange’s work both timeliness and timelessness. She crafted many representations of artists transforming the world into one they desired.
10. In a 2010 that has been filled with stories of queer boys who’ve considered and committed suicide and the media telling people of color we are destined to compete rather than share solidarities, it’s a very good time to return to Ntozake Shange and revisit her vision of reclamation and self-determination.
Support Black cinema and art and go see "For Colored Girls" debuting in theaters TODAY!
04 November 2010
Poetry Musings...
Not titled or done yet...
Evidence that you were here
Scattered mugs and ciggerette ends.
Incense falls slowly,
Burning.
All reminders of moist layers
Clenched hands around moments,
Now passed (past)...
Evidence that you were here
Scattered mugs and ciggerette ends.
Incense falls slowly,
Burning.
All reminders of moist layers
Clenched hands around moments,
Now passed (past)...
Mean Shoe Game.
The ridiculousness of it... Its almost hard to deal with. And then I realize, I could deal with it, IF they were on MY feet.
Weezy. FREE. Today!
In case you didn't RSVP on Facebook: Rapper Lil Wayne got out of jail Thursday morning (Nov 4th), leaving New York's Rikers Island after serving eight months on a weapons charge.Weezy, whose real name is Dwayne Carter Jr., was going to head home to Miami, his managers have said, where a party celebrating his release is scheduled for Sunday. A blurry picture of the free man was posted online Thursday.
The rapper pleaded guilty a year ago to attempted weapon possession, admitting he'd had a loaded, semiautomatic .40-caliber gun on his tour bus after a show in 2007. After a few false starts, he was sentenced to a year at Rikers and went in this past March, but got time off for good behavior despite being in solitary confinement since Oct. 4 after getting popped for possession of "music contraband"; headphones for an MP3 player were found hidden in his trash can.
While incarcerated, Lil Wayne hit No. 1 on the charts with his album "I Am Not a Human Being," released online on his 28th birthday in September. He also pleaded guilty to a count of drug possession, appearing via video in an Arizona court on June 21. No jail there, however -- he was later sentenced to three years' probation.
"I was never scared, worried nor bothered by the situation" behind bars, he said Tuesday through Weezythanxyou.com, a website he set up to give fans a glimpse of his life in jail. Missives from him were posted on his blog off and on during his incarceration.
-- Christie D'Zurilla
Miss Jack Davey does Fashion
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