Bluesman in the life of the mind

WTF?! Cornell West and Prince? Nice!

Dear Mr. Man

Music by Singersroom.com | More on Cornell West

We tired of y’all, We tired of y’all spyin’ on fellow citizens. We tired of y’all lyin’ to justify war. We tired of y’all torturing innocent people.

Cornell on Democracy Now! yesterday (thanks Phoebe!)

A blues person is always one who keeps his funky and resists all forms of sterilization, sanitation and deodorizing of funky reality. And by sanitation, I don’t mean I’m against keeping things clean, but I don’t like those discourses that are so clean that they don’t allow the funk, like the squeegee men in New York, like the marginalized, like our gay brothers and lesbian sisters who are often dishonored and dehumanized even by some on the left, or forgetting of indigenous people.

A nice (2007) interview in The Voice

“It’s a matter of trying to present to young people a danceable education,” he says. “Or what I call a ’singing paideia.’ [Paideia means "a deep education" in Greek.] You have to get people’s attention and focus on serious issues. Then you try to cultivate their self and put a premium on critical reflection, and then you try and engage in the maturation of the soul, which has to do with courage, compassion, and just love, basically.”

The man is awesome!

VegOut Day!

I’m no PETArd, but wanted to share… go ahead! VegOut!

World Vegetarian Day

Really like this piece: Aggressive Posturing Does Not Produce Vegetarians by Mike Jaynes

No one wants to be seen as the “freak” who won’t eat turkey on Thanksgiving or hamburgers at a cookout and therefore requires some special substitute cooked on a portion of the grill the meat did not sizzle upon. This embarrassment and fear is most likely normal and should not be attacked. Also — and this is another oft unrealized fact in the AR(Animal Rights) world — a person’s view toward animals is not the only facet of his/her humanity. There are plenty of meat eaters who are much more kind and good and helpful to the world than many vegetarian ARAs(Animal Rights Advocate) and we should not reduce the whole of humanity’s existence, self identification, and essence down to eating habits.

Pineapple. On the grill. Try it – its AMAZING!

JOLT!

The BBC reports on Ritalin use in adults for productivity.

Just plain wrong!

I really liked Rafael Casal’s spoken word piece from last nights Getting Real lecture with Jeff Chang and Mark Anthony Neal.

Pay_Attention.mp3

UPDATE Brotha!

Amazon–King of the Jungle is struggling with reparations from the previously mentioned George Orwell copyright clusterf*uck.

Letter from Amazon CEO and Kindle Team:

Hello,

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received.

We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers,
Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com

As you were one of the customers impacted by the removal of 1984 from your Kindle device in July of this year, we would like to offer you the option to have us re-deliver this book to your Kindle along with any annotations you made. You will not be charged for the book. If you do not wish to have us re-deliver the book to your Kindle, you can instead choose to receive an Amazon.com electronic gift certificate or check for $30.

Sincerely,
The Kindle Team

Kinda slow putting on the band-aid huh Amazon? Six weeks?!? Hope you weren’t making annotations for a class in that time gap! AW SHIT!

Free the Future?

From today’s Times on the death of VIBE magazine:

Vibe was an arbiter of taste, a clubhouse where people could gawk, preen and dis, knowing that everyone they cared about would see it. With cover subjects rendered to convey respect and cred, it was never hard to spot on the magazine rack. Those racks are thinning with each passing month, but some gaps are more noticeable than others.

Jeff Chang on Can’t Stop Won’t Stop writes:

The only upside of this depression is that many of us no longer have a side hustle to distract us from the incredible art we gotta make.

RIP VIBE. RIP “Urban Magazines”.

and in another struggling periodical, the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell reviews Chris Anderson’s new book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price.” Anderson writes:

“In the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.” To musicians who believe that their music is being pirated, Anderson is blunt. They should stop complaining, and capitalize on the added exposure…

“Information wants to be free,” Anderson tells us, “in the same way that life wants to spread and water wants to run downhill.” But information can’t actually want anything, can it?

Anderson cautions that this philosophy of embracing the Free involves moving from a “scarcity” mind-set to an “abundance” mind-set.

and finally

Broadcast television—the original practitioner of Free—is struggling. But premium cable, with its stiff monthly charges for specialty content, is doing just fine. Apple may soon make more money selling iPhone downloads (ideas) than it does from the iPhone itself (stuff).

Hmmm! So I sit at my computer. Access is practically free. Reading free newspapers and magazines, watching free television, listening to free music (all legit-take note RIAA) and write this blather about free and look at all the ways the New Yorker (who can’t pay their writers a living wage) wants me to share their work.

What is the answer? As an artist, do I listen to Jeff and just concentrate on making my incredible art? Okay, so here you go:

Oh, and here is a really good read Greg Tate on MJ in the Village Voice.

Michael’s death was probably the most shocking celebrity curtain call of our time because he had stopped being vaguely mortal or human for us quite a while ago, had become such an implacably bizarre and abstracted tabloid creation, worlds removed from the various Michaels we had once loved so much.

Well?

art by newlow

Flickr and Twitter are the new CNN!

Streets of Berkeley

Notes from a road trip

Sign seen on side of the highway in Cozad, Nebraska

BadAssed!

M U S T    H A V E!

Another variation

A Fine Moment (2009)

Elizabeth Alexander’s poem from the Obama Inauguration. A nod to the graphic designer in all of us.

Full text Praise Song for the Day:

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

ALEXANDER: A farmer consider the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words, Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; Words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.

More on Alexander.

Poetry On Demand