Herbie Hancock
– Hang Up Your Hangups
(Live) (1976)
Off of Herbie Hancock‘s 1976 lp entitled Manchild, Herbie and crew perform Hang Up Your Hangups with a live, improvisational groove that will make any audience get up an move.
Call for Entries:
2012 Islamic Writers Alliance
Fiction Story Contest
Deadline: 31 October 2012
The IWA is pleased to announce its IWA 4th Annual Islamic Fiction (IF) Stories Contest - 2012. This year’s theme is open to any genre and topic of the participant’s choosing. All Islamic Fiction (IF) stories must conform to the following general guidelines. IF Stories that do not adhere to these standards will be automatically disqualified from the competition.
Formatting Guidelines: Times New Roman font style, 12 inch font size, 1 inch margins top, bottom, and both sides, no graphics in the essay, single spaced, 1/2 inch paragraph indent, no headers or footers and no page numbers.
- IF stories must be Islamic in nature
- There is no theme for the IF Story contest. The story may be of any genre, including but not limited to, adventure, comic, crime, detective, fantasy, family historical fiction, mystery, romance, thriller, western
- Cannot exceed 2,500 words in length
- Cannot include any graphics or illustrations accompanying or inserted within the story.
- The contest has 3 categories of submission, 1st and 2nd place winners for each category:
- Islamic Writers Alliance Members
- Adults – writers 18 years and older who are not members of IWA
- Youth – writers between the ages of 13 and 17.
- Maximum of 1 submission per individual
- Entries that have won previously cannot be resubmitted
- Your IF Story will only be accepted as an attachment in Microsoft Word or as a PDF.
- Must be submitted via email
- Must be submitted to Balqees Mohammed
- All entries must include author’s legal name, category, email address, mailing address, phone number and title of the IF story
- An IF Story submitted by youth aged 13-17 years must also include a statement in the submission email from a parent or legal guardian authorizing the IWA’s public use of the story on the IWA website
- Teachers may submit ‘class’ IF stories as individual submissions from one school
- All IF Stories are the legal property of the writer
- IWA retains the right to disqualify and reject submissions deemed inappropriate
1st place winners will receive a cash award, award certificate, gift certificate, and have their story published in the quarterly IWA Magazine. 2nd place winners will receive a gift certificate sponsored by Muslim Writers Publishing.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
For queries/ submissions: balqees.mohammed@gmail.com
Website: http://www.islamicwritersalliance.net/
Call for Submissions:
Anthology of Poems from East Africa
Deadline: 20 December 2012
The Beverley Nambozo Poetry Foundation is compiling poems from poets of East Africa for an anthology which will come out in 2013. This has been possible with the generous contribution of Prince Claus Fund.
Send up to a maximum of three original poems in English or in a local language with the English translation, from which one or two will be selected. The winners of the BN Poetry Award from 2009 to 2012, will have their winning poems published and they may submit another for consideration if they so please.
The theme is open and submissions will be accepted from 1st August 2012 to 20th December 2012 (Deadline has been extended). The copyright of these poems will belong to the poets. Payment will be made upon publication.
Send poems as Microsoft word attachments in Times New Roman size 12, include your name, email, phone contacts and nationality. Poets must be from Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, South Sudan or Uganda.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
For queries/ submissions: bnpoetryaward@mail.com (and copy to nambozo@gmail.com)
Website: http://www.bnpoetryaward.co.ug/
CFP:
Graduate Student/Junior Scholar
Workshop on
“Black Freedom in the Atlantic World”
Vanderbilt University Workshop
“The Age of Emancipation: Black Freedom in the Atlantic World”
April 26-27, 2013
Robert Penn Warren Center for the HumanitiesVanderbilt University’s Sawyer Seminar “The Age of Emancipation: Black Freedom in the Atlantic World” invites applications from senior graduate students and junior scholars to participate in a two day workshop on the topic. The workshop will provide a setting for participants to present their work in an interdisciplinary setting.
Applications must be submitted by December 15, 2012. For more information, see our website: http://vanderbilt.edu/rpw_center.Hillery Pate
Activities Coordinator | Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities
Vanderbilt University
PMB 351534 | 2301 Vanderbilt Place
Nashville, TN 37235
Phone 615.343.6240 | Fax 615.343.2248
INDIA MEETS AFRICAOctober 10th, 2012From our archives, we couldn’t resist re-posting. Created by Suresh Natarajan in October 2009, this project entitled Tanishq Aarka.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++Founder and Creative Director at African Digital Art Network
Jepchumba is an AFRICAN DIGITAL ARTIST and DIGITAL ENTHUSIAST who works hard to combine her two passions: Digital Media and Africa. Originally from Kenya, she has lived around the world developing her interest in philosophy, art and technology. An African digital artist, Jepchumba loves experimenting with motion, sound and various digital effects and techniques and has an extensive background in digital art, web design and development, audio/visual production and social media strategies.
LONDON LIFE, LAGOS LIVING
Following the book by Bob Om0tayo ( The Rennainsance Man), this short film documents a week in his life. The documentary follows a series of short stories from his book with the same title. The short film is a great introduction to contemporary Naija culture in the diaspora. If you haven’t grabbed your hands on the bock, the short film is worth a watch.
This 6-minute documentary, directed by LA-based filmmaker, Francesca Tilley-Gyado, is not so much a story of ‘the journey so far’ but more a snapshot into what a typical week is like for the author and contributors to the book. This documentary is testament that it is possible for a hopeless dreamer to dream in ‘flights of fancy’ but yet have his ‘flights’ for his singular critic.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jepchumba is an AFRICAN DIGITAL ARTIST and DIGITAL ENTHUSIAST who works hard to combine her two passions: Digital Media and Africa. Originally from Kenya, she has lived around the world developing her interest in philosophy, art and technology. An African digital artist, Jepchumba loves experimenting with motion, sound and various digital effects and techniques and has an extensive background in digital art, web design and development, audio/visual production and social media strategies.
Watch Africa.com's Documentary
Addressing The Danger
Of A Single Story:
'Africa Straight Up'
by
October 10, 2012
We alerted you to this upcoming documentary series from Africa.com titled Africa Straight Up.As a quick recap... The website's goals are: to change the way the world sees Africa, and to be the online platform for those changes.
Here's how the documentary Africa Straight Up is described:
With more than a billion people spread across 54 countries, speaking more than 3,000 languages, Africa cannot - and should not - be limited to a single narrative. Africa Straight Up is an insider's look at positive stories about Africa and its diaspora.
The film is now available online, and you can watch it in full (it's about 30 minutes) below.
One thing I'll say before you watch it, is that, while I applaud the intent behind initiatives like this, as I watched the documentary, I couldn't help but be frustrated that something like this is still necessary in 2012; It screams: "Hey - look! We are Africans and we are human beings too, living regular lives, with the same concerns and worries, trials and triumphs that the average westerner (or non-African) has; come and see for yourselves!"
To make a comparison, it reminds me of the CNN Black In America series that many reviled. There's obviously the desire to belong, to be seen as equals, to educate the ignorant; but at the same time, it's also kind of off-putting that we almost constantly feel like we have to work to acquaint and endear ourselves to the *other,* partly for their comfort.
But, like I said, I understand the motivation here. My frustration isn't so much with the documentary itself, but rather with the ignorance within this global society we all live in, which demands that a documentary like this be created, both for our benefit, and *theirs.*
Watch the full film below:
Video:
Chimamanda Adichie:
The stories that
Europe tells itself about
its colonial history
Via T.O.A-A.G.I.L.- The Only.African American Guy In London
It is not that Europe has denied its colonial history. Instead, Europe has developed a way of telling the story of its colonial history that ultimately seeks to erase that history”I blogged about the event in Amsterdam but I didn't folow up!
Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will give a reading of 30 minutes, after which she will sit and talk with Guido Snel. What is her vision on Europe?
Meet her Monday 18 April 2011, 8 PM - 10 PM in SPUI25, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The European Cultural Foundation has teamed up with SPUI25 and the University of Amsterdam in organising a series of five debates within the framework of Narratives for Europe.
The Hyperlinked
Ballad Of Jarm Logue
ByOct 10 2012
Working on my book, I've been looking at the story of Jarm Logue (what an awesome name.) Logue was born in Tennessee to his enslaved mother Cherry, and the brother of Cherry's owner David Logue. Cherry was born into freedom, but kidnapped with a group of other black children and sold South. Jarm was raised a slave and endeavored to escape North after his owner, drunk with fury, subjected him to the following brutal assault. A forewarning, the following description is disturbing:
Blazing with alcohol and Hell within, he picked up the long wedge, and swore the boy should swallow it. As if to compel him to do so, he ordered Jarm to open his mouth. Jarm instinctively demurred to the absurd proposition, but Manasseth was inflexible. So soon as Jarm hesitated, his enemy struck him a blow on the side of the head, with his fist, which brought him to the ground.
The brute, with increased passion, leaped on him, and held him down--and in that condition charged the boy to open his mouth, on peril of his life--at the same time pressing the wood against his lips and teeth. Jarm, fearing he would break in all his teeth, opened his jaws, and the wretch immediately crowded the wedge in until it reached the roof of his mouth, before he could stop it with his teeth. He began to pound it in with his heavy fist. Not withstanding Jarm held on with his teeth, the wedge driven into the roof of his mouth, and mangled it frightfully. The blood flowed down his throat, and profusely from his mouth.
So soon as Jarm found his teeth were likely all to be broken, and that there was no hope of sympathy from the intoxicated wretch, he obeyed the instincts of nature, and by a sudden and powerful effort, he seized the wedge and the hand that held it, and turning his head at the same time, delivered his mouth from the instrument, and turned it towards the ground--resolved, if he was to be murdered, he not be murdered in that way. The heartless man then commenced punching the boy with the sharp end of the wedge, on his head and mouth, making bloody gashes--Jarm dodging, as well as be could, to avoid the blows...
This experience was valuable to Jarm, for it revealed to him his positions and relations to slavery, which he ever afterwards remembered with perfect distinctness. He was now about fourteen years of age, of excellent strength and health, and saw there was no other way for him, but to bear his trials with all possible discretion --and if an opportunity occurred to escape, to embrace it at whatever peril--but if doomed to remain a slave, to die struggling with his tyrant, when driven to the last extremity. To this resolution he was always obedient--ever mindful of the occasion that induced him to make it.
Logue did escape, and renaming himself Jermain Wesley Lougen, becoming a celebrated abolitionist, and stationmaster for the Syracuse Underground Railroad. He suffered a speech impediment for the rest of his life, but he was still one of the great anti-slavery exhorters of his day. In 1851 he led the famed "Jerry Rescue" in Syracuse, New York:
Leaders of the local Abolition movement, including Underground Railroad Stationmaster Jermain Loguen and others, had organized a local committee to thwart enforcement of the recently adopted Fugitive Slave Law. The previous May, then Secretary of State Daniel Webster repeated his previous criticism of the Abolitionists and their promise to thwart the law. Webster proclaimed from a balcony facing Syracuse City Hall that the law "will be executed in all the great cities - here in Syracuse - in the midst of the next Anti-Slavery Convention, if the occasion shall arise."
And so it did. Around noon on October 1, federal marshals from Rochester, Auburn, Syracuse, and Canandaigua, accompanied by the local police, arrested a man who called himself Jerry. also known as William Henry. Jerry was working as a barrel maker, and was arrested at his workplace. He was originally told the charge was theft until after he was in manacles. On being informed that he was being arrested under the Fugitive Slave Law, he put up substantial resistance, but was subdued. Word of the arrest quickly reached the Convention, then in session at a nearby church.
There are reports that the wife of Commissioner Sabine, who would hear the case, had already leaked plans of the arrest. By pre-arranged signal, church bells began ringing, and a crowd gathered at Sabine's office, where Jerry had been taken for arraignment. An immediate effort to free the prisoner was unsuccessful, and though he escaped to the street in irons, he was rapidly recaptured.
The arraignment was put off until evening and relocated to a larger room. A large crowd gathered in the street, this time equipped for a more serious rescue attempt. With a battering ram the door was broken in and despite pistol shots out the window by one of the deputy marshals, it became clear that the crowd was too large and determined to be resisted. The prisoner was surrendered, and one deputy marshal broke his arm jumping from a window to escape the crowd. The injured prisoner was hidden in the city for several days in the home of a local butcher know for his anti-abolitionist sentiments, and later taken in a wagon to Oswego, where he crossed Lake Ontario into Canada.
Jarm Logue was later indicted for his participation. As a language geek, I just have to excerpt this denouncement of Webster published by the Liberty Party:
WHEREAS, Daniel Webster, That base and infamous enemy of the human race, did in a speech of which he delivered himself, in Syracuse last Spring, exultingly and insultingly predict that fugitive slaves would yet be taken away from Syracuse and even from anti-slavery conventions in Syracuse, and whereas the attempt to fulfill this prediction was delayed until the first day of October, 1851, when the Liberty party of the State of New York were holding their annual convention in Syracuse; and whereas the attempt was defeated by the mighty uprising of 2,500 brave men, before whom the half-dozen kidnappers were 'as tow', therefore,
Resolved, That we rejoice that the City of Syracuse- the anti-slavery city of Syracuse- the city of anti-slavery conventions, our beloved and glorious city of Syracuse- still remains undisgraced by the fulfillment of the satanic prediction of the satanic Daniel Webster.
In 1860 Jarm Logue recieved the following letter from the wife of his owner:
To Jarm:
I now take my pen to write you a few lines, to let you know how well we all are. I am a cripple, but I am still able to get about. The rest of the family are all well. Cherry is as well as Common. I write you these lines to let you the situation we are in--partly in consequence of your running away and stealing Old Rock, our fine mare. Though we got the mare back, she never was worth much after you took here, and as I now stand in need of some funds, I have determined to sell you, and I have had an offer for you, but did not see fit to take it.
If you will send me one thousand dollars, and pay for the old mare, I will give up all claim I have to you. Write to me as soon as you get these lines, and let me know if you will accept my proposition. In consequence of your running away we had to sell Abe and Ann and twelve acres of land; and I want you to send me the money, that I may be able to redeem the land that you was the cause of our selling, and on receipt of the above-named sum of money, I will send you your bill of sale.
If you do not comply with my request, I will sell you to some one else, and you may rest assured that the time is not far distant when things will be changed with you. Write to me as soon as you get these lines. Direct your letter to Bigbyville, Maury County, Tennessee. You had better comply with my request.
I understand that you are a preacher. As the Southern people are so bad, you had better come and preach to your old acquaintances. I would like to know if you read your Bible. If so, can you not tell what will become of the thief if he does not repent? And if the the blind lead the blind, what will the consequence be? I deem it unnecessary to say much more at present. A word to the wise is sufficient. You know where the liar has his part. You that we reared you as we reared our own children; that you was never abused, and that shortly before you ran away, when your master asked if you would like to be sold, you said you would not leave him to go with anybody.
Sarah Logue.
Jarm Logue, now J.W. Wesley Loguen, subsequently replied:
MRS. SARAH LOGUE:
Yours of the 20th of February is duly received, and I thank you for it. It is a longtime since I heard from my poor old mother, and I am glad to know she is yet alive, and as you say, "as well as common." What that means I don't know. I wish you had said more about her. You are a woman; but had you a woman's heart you could never have insulted a brother by telling him you sold his only remaining brother and sister, because he put himself beyond your power to convert him into money.
You sold my brother and sister, ABE and ANN, and 12 acres of land, you say, because I run away. Now you have the unutterable meanness to ask me to return and be your miserable chattel, or in lieu thereof send you $1,000 to enable you to redeem the land, but not to redeem my poor brother and sister! If I were to send you money it would be to get my brother and sister, and not that you should get land. You say you are a cripple, and doubtless you say it to stir my pity, for you know I was susceptible in that direction. I do pity you from the bottom of my heart.
Nevertheless I am indignant beyond the power of words to express, that you should be so sunken and cruel as to tear the hearts I love so much all in pieces; that you should be willing to impale and crucify us out of all compassion for your poor foot or leg. Wretched woman! Be it known to you that I value my freedom, to say nothing of my mother, brothers and sisters, more than your whole body; more, indeed, than my own life; more than all the lives of all the slaveholders and tyrants under Heaven.
You say you have offers to buy me, and that you shall sell me if I do not send you $1,000, and in the same breath and almost in the same sentence, you say, "you know we raised you as we did our own children." Woman, did you raise your own children for the market? Did you raise them for the whipping-post? Did you raise them to be drove off in a coffle in chains? Where are my poor bleeding brothers and sisters? Can you tell?
Who was it that sent them off into sugar and cotton fields, to be kicked, and cuffed, and whipped, and to groan and die; and where no kin can hear their groans, or attend and sympathize at their dying bed, or follow in their funeral? Wretched woman! Do you say you did not do it? Then I reply, your husband did, and you approved the deed--and the very letter you sent me shows that your heart approves it all. Shame on you.
But, by the way, where is your husband? You don't speak of him. I infer, therefore, that he is dead; that he has gone to his great account, with all his sins against my poor family upon his head. Poor man! gone to meet the spirits of my poor, outraged and murdered people, in a world where Liberty and Justice are MASTERS.
But you say I am a thief, because I took the old mare along with me. Have you got to learn that I had a better right to the old mare, as you called her, than MANASSETH LOGUE had to me? Is it a greater sin for me to steal his horse, than it was for him to rob my mother's cradle and steal me? If he and you infer that I forfeit all my rights to you, shall not I infer that you forfeit all your rights to me?
Have you got to learn that human rights are mutual and reciprocal, and if you take my liberty and life, you forfeit me your own liberty and life? Before God and High Heaven, is there a law for one man which is not law for every other man? If you or any other speculator on my body and rights, wish to know how I regard my rights, they need but come here and lay their hands on me to enslave me.
Did you think to terrify me by, presenting the alternative to give my money to you, or give my body to Slavery? Then let me say to you, that I meet the proposition with unutterable scorn and contempt. The proposition is an outrage and an insult. I will not budge one hair's breadth. I will not breath a shorter breath, even to save me from your persecutions. I stand among a free people, who, I thank God, sympathize with my rights, and the rights of mankind; and if your emissaries and venders come here to re-inslave me, and escape the unshrinking vigor of my own right arm, I trust my strong and brave friends, in this City and State, will be my rescuers and avengers.
Yours, &c.,J. W. Loguen.
"The unshrinking vigor of my right arm." Lovely.
One thing worth noting is that this is, among other things, a family dispute. Jarm's "owner" was his uncle. He is addressing his aunt, and she is addressing her nephew. Uppermost among the the American slave society's great crimes is that it wrecked the natural organizational structure of humans--the family. It gave profit motive to destroying and perverting the family, to making war upon the family. And it only ceased this war at gunpoint.
More on war thoughts tomorrow. I would to know if Jarm ever saw his mother again.
via theatlantic.com
K’Naan – Gold in Timbuktu
Somalian born, Canadian raised rapper/poet/musician/singer K’Naan is one of those artists that over the past couple of years, I’ve consistently heard a lot of very good songs from yet for some reason, I’m still to hear something that will totally sell him to me. Here’s his latest very good song by the name “Gold In Timbuktu”, taken from his fifth album Country, God or the Girl, which drops October 16th.
To clarify what I said above, he’s got bags of talent and I can’t put my finger on what it is but I just feel there’s a little something, somewhere that does’t quite connect and is holding him back from greatness. Anyway, take a listen above and peep the Country, God or the Girl tracklist below, there are some very interesting features:
1. The Seed
2. Gold In Timbuktu
3. Waiting Is A Drug
4. Better
5. Simple
6. Is Anybody Out There? ft. Nelly Furtado
7. Hurt Me Tomorrow
8. The Sound Of My Breaking Heart
9. Nothing To Lose ft. Nas
10. 70 Excuses
11. Bulletproof Pride ft. Bono
12. The WallBonus Tracks for Deluxe Edition
13. Sleep When We Die ft. Keith Richards
14. More Beautiful Than Silence
15. Alone featuring will.i.am
16. On The Other Side ft. Mark FosterPreviously: K’NAAN ft. Nelly Furtado – Is Anybody Out There? | Official Music Video
via lozzamusic.com