……the return of the Federal Writers Project. It’s a great idea. There is SO MUCH documentation of the 20th century left to do professionally, and thousands of unemployed journalists, so there ya go.
Let’s call it the (Studs) Terkel–(Zora Neale) Hurston Writers Project, and get busy right away! C’mon, Obama! Hook up America’s literary class! 🙂
Required viewing. He makes generations look bad, and that’s good. 🙂
….and the second one is here! SEE THE SECOND ONE!!!
“Torturing Democracy” when it slipped onto public television this month? If not, PLEASE go to the site and watch it, and you’ll see why the PBS folks are not that thrilled. Of course, this level of cowardice from PBS isn’t exactly new.
This brand-new book occupies the intellectual space between Kevin Powell’s essay collections and Bakari Kitwana’s seminal work.
M.K. Asante, Jr., a filmmaker, poet and college professor, adds his name to the list of young (under 45 🙂 ) Blacks who’ve written works that seek to combine journalism, personal essays and contemporary history, using hiphop of the point of departure. He is an optimistic self-described “artivist,” a 26-year-old writing to inspire younger people who will pick up this book because of its title. It’ll be their text for Black Contemporary Socio-Political Development 101, and believe me, they need it.
Get this book for the teenager (or college-aged young adult) in your life and make him or her read it. Then make him or her look up all of the authors he mentions.
….the excellent Harlem Book Fair panel on James Baldwin? The S. Pearl Sharp discussion of Baldwin’s Hollywood adventures—trying to produce a film on El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz—was worth the time alone. And Herb Boyd’s masterful work of moderator-as-narrator. And Baraka. Damn. That’s all they wrote.
…..my nephew Andrew Burroughs Jr., who is being honored this week by the Newark Black Film Festival. His film won the Long Narrative Competition. The award, the 2008 Paul Robeson Award, is being presented by Paul Robeson Jr.
JULY 30th UPDATE: My nephew tells me last night Mr. Robeson is sick, so Richard Wesley is doing the honors. Get well soon, Mr. Robeson.
P.S. In an unrelated note, enjoyed this NPR story on Kevin Powell’s Congressional run. Congrats to you too, K.P.
P.P.S. More unrelated: Congrats to Pacifica’s “Democracy Now!” and NPR’s “Tell Me More” for actually covering what Obama said at “Unity” about reparations, et. al.
Masterpiece.
P.S. I’m off to see it tomorrow for the THIRD time, but I’ll see it again with anyone who wants to see it.
When I heard this (level of) review, I put “Wall-E” on the to-see list. So yesterday I went, and saw no exaggeration.
Another home run for the 3-D gang. It’s hard to explain the amount of, and quality of, visual storytelling in this film. The characters fit like parts of a symphony separate and attached to the music. As usual with Pixar, the emotions are raw, sentimental and direct without being sappy. “Monsters, Inc.,” “Wall-E”, et. al. continue to stand in constant contrast to today’s dual overdose of overrated hip, small-screen animated cynicism and big-screen patronizing mediocrity.Â
And the film’s Sci-Fi socio-political content….
What amazes me is that Pixar seems to be just beginning to find its storytelling-style groove. Can it really get better than this?
Not doing a good job expressing myself here, am I? Then stop reading this and just go see it! Bring your kids if you have to! LOL! 🙂
Drums in the Global Village 
