Deadline: 30 September 2012(Note: Poetry Potion is South Africa based but accepts submissions worldwide.)
In South Africa, politics and poetics seem to have always been entwined. The journalists, bloggers and others can have their say about the status quo but the Poet’s response (commentary) has the ability to undress the situation and lay it bare without too many words and often with words wrapped in multiple meanings.
So now here we are in a post-Marikana, post-Spear, mid-Secrecy Bill, mid-Etoll, mid-education crisis etc, etc… The list seems to go on and never end. South Africa, indeed the world, is overflowing with senselessness which we all try to understand.
The Oct/Nov edition theme is: BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE
Between Black and White, some would think there’s grey, right? Maybe. Maybe not.
This next edition, writers may explore the extremes as well as the in-betweens of what’s RIGHT or WRONG, GOOD or BAD. We all have a sense of what it means to be right or wrong. We all have an opinion about what our leaders can do right or wrong. So let’s put it out there, as creatives our activism is in our creative output because we have the ability and the opportunity to reach people’s hearts and minds.
We are looking for poetry and prose. Challenge yourself, flex your writing muscle, submit your best work and, most of all, enjoy yourself.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
For submissions: via the online submission form
Website: http://poetrypotion.com
2012 WABASH PRIZE FOR NONFICTION
Final Judge: Mary Karr
First Prize: $1000 and publication in the Winter/Spring 2013 issue
GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS
Submission Deadline: October 1, 2012
1. For each submission, send one nonfiction piece (limit 7,500 words).
2. A $15 reading fee (check or money order) payable to Sycamore Review must accompany each submission. The reading fee includes a year’s subscription to Sycamore Review, which will include a print copy of the prize issue and an electronic copy of the Summer/Fall 2013 issue.
3. Additional pieces may be included for an additional reading fee of $5 for each additional work. If submitting more than one, please submit ALL work in a single word document.
4. Manuscript pages should be numbered and should include the title of the piece.
5. All entries will be read blind. Information that identifies the author should NOT appear on the manuscript itself.
6. All work must be previously unpublished.
7. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable only if Sycamore Review is notified immediately upon acceptance elsewhere.
8. Each piece will be read by two Sycamore staffers, with the winner selected by judge Mary Karr.
9. All contest submissions will be considered for regular inclusion in Sycamore Review.
10. When submitting, be sure to select the Wabash Prize for Nonfiction option in our Submissions Manager.
Once your work has been submitted, you will be redirected to our secure payment website. Submissions will not be considered without an accompanying payment.
If you are not redirected for payment, chances are you accidentally submitted through the regular submission channel. If this is the case, withdraw your work and resubmit, being careful to select the Wabash Prize option.
Questions may be directed to sycamore@purdue.edu.
Submit your work by visiting our online submission manager.
2012 WABASH PRIZE FOR POETRY
Final Judge: Nikky Finney
First Prize: $1000 and publication in the Winter/Spring 2013 issue
GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS
Submission Deadline: November 1, 2012
1. For each submission, send up to three poems, of no more than six total pages (all poems should be compiled into a single document).
2. A $15 reading fee (check or money order) payable to Sycamore Review must accompany each submission. The reading fee includes a year’s subscription to Sycamore Review, which will include a print copy of the prize issue and an electronic copy of the Summer/Fall 2013 issue.
3. Additional poems may be included for an additional reading fee of $5 for per poem. If submitting additional poems, please submit ALL poems in a single word document.
4. Manuscript pages should be numbered and should include the title of the piece.
5. All entries will be read blind. Information that identifies the author should NOT appear on the manuscript itself.
6. All poems must be previously unpublished.
7. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable only if Sycamore Review is notified immediately upon acceptance elsewhere.
8. Each poem will be read by two Sycamore staffers, with the winner selected by judge Nikky Finney.
9. All contest submissions will be considered for regular inclusion in Sycamore Review.
10. When submitting, be sure to select the Wabash Prize for Poetry option in our Submissions Manager.
Once your work has been submitted, you will be redirected to our secure payment website. Submissions will not be considered without an accompanying payment.
If you are not redirected for payment, chances are you accidentally submitted through the regular submission channel. If this is the case, withdraw your poem and resubmit, being careful to select the Wabash Prize option.
Questions may be directed to sycamore@purdue.edu.
Call for Papers/Panels:
Life Histories of African Slaves
(ASA 2013 & AEGIS 2013)
via The Harriet Tubman Institute:
Over the last five years, Alice Bellagamba, Carolyn Brown, Sandra Greene and Martin Klein have been involved in a project to find and publish African sources on the history of slavery and the slave trade within Africa. The most recent was a conference in Berlin that dealt with work and life cycle. We are in the process of publishing documents and papers that have emerged from these conferences. One of our central concerns has been to understand the lived experience of slaves in Africa and in the slave trade out of Africa. To that end, three of us would like to push further in one area, the quest for life histories of African slaves. Some recent work has been done in this area by Paul Lovejoy and various collaborators, by Michael Larue and by Eve Troutt Powell. Are there more life histories out there? We think so. If so, we would like to organize panels at the biannual meeting of Africa-Europe Group of Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS) in Lisbon 26-28 June 2013 and at the African Studies Association Meeting in Baltimore 21-24 November 2013. Our goal would be to eventually publish a book of such narratives. These life histories can be biographical or autobiographical.
Interested persons should submit titles and abstracts to martin.klein@utoronto.ca or alicebellagamba@yahoo.it or seg6@cornell.edu. Please indicate which conference you wish to participate in. We need proposals for the AEGIS meeting by October 10. The ASA programme deadline will be much later. We have no funds for travel.
Alice Bellagamba, Sandra Greene and Martin Klein
Getty Images
The Racial Politics of Asthma
Of all the health dangers that disproportionately impact black children, air pollution might be the worstBrowning's latest book is Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put On My Pajamas and Found Happiness
In the wake of the tragic death of 17-year old Trayvon Martin in Florida, there’s been a lot of talk about the risks to black children of being shot and by whom. Last week Harry C. Alford, the President and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, testified against the new Mercury and Air Toxic Standards during a Senate committee hearing. “Poverty brings far worse health than mercury coming out of a coal plant or utility plant. Violence, crime. These kids that I see are far more likely to get a bullet in the head than asthma. And that’s the reality of it.”
(PHOTOS: Research Roundup: Key Findings on Kids’ Asthma and Allergies)
Two days later, during another Senate hearing on the EPA budget, Alabama Senator Sessions claimed that air pollution victims are “unidentified and imaginary.”
Here is the reality: African American children are far more likely to develop asthma than get a bullet to their heads. In 2008, African Americans had a 35 percent higher rate of asthma than Caucasians. A study revealed that one-quarter of the children in New York City’s Harlem have asthma. The following national statistics are even more jarring:
African American children have a:
• 260% higher emergency room visit rate.
• 250% higher hospitalization rate.
• 500% higher death rate from asthma, as compared with white children.
Why? One likely reason is that 68% of African-Americans (compared to 56% of whites) live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant—the distance within which the maximum ill effects of the emissions from smokestacks occur.
Just as medical researchers once uncovered the link between cigarettes and lung cancer, researchers are now making the explicit connection between air pollution and asthma. Kari Nadeau, a physician at Stanford University School of Medicine physician, has been following the evidence on the asthma trail to understand the cause of the illness. Nadeau and her team investigated the effects of air pollution on children in Fresno—one of the top ten most polluted cities in the country—and reported the findings in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. “Our research showed that the effects of air pollution in Fresno are associated with genetic changes in the immune cells of children,” Nadeau told me. “In other words, the simple act of inhaling polluted air affects the immune system’s ability to do its job. The increasing numbers and severity of asthma are directly related to these genetic changes. These genetic changes are permanent.”
Reducing air pollution is a social justice issue of profound significance. But the National Black Chamber of Commerce has been playing politics with children’s health. It has received $525,000 from ExxonMobil—no champion of reducing fossil fuel pollution—since 1998. This is something that all parents—black or white—should be furious about.
MORE: How to Stay Alive While Being Black
Browning, the former editor of House & Garden, is the author of Slow Love. The views expressed are solely her own.
via ideas.time.com
S&A In Conversation:
Shola Lynch Talks
'Free Angela
& All Political Prisoners'
Shola Lynch and Angela Davis
Shola Lynch’s second feature length documentary, Free Angela and All Political Prisoners has been one of the most buzzed about films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The festival honored the film with a Gala premiere at the 1900 seat Roy Thomson Hall, a privilege usually reserved for Hollywood blockbusters.
Angela Davis’ enduring iconic status, as well as the presence of two of the film’s Executive Producers, Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith, certainly added to the event’s prestige, but ultimately, it was the film itself which drew several bouts of spontaneous applause throughout the screening as well as a lengthy standing ovation as the credits rolled.
The Director has had a busy few days, appearing on a panel the following day with her mentor and legendary documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, to talk about the making of the film as well as her approach to her craft. Later on that evening she participated in a press conference alongside Ms. Davis.
Today, we had the opportunity to sit down for a face-to-face chat with Shola as she winds down a successful stint at TIFF 2012.
Lisa: So congrats on the premiere. Obviously we’re all seeing the result, but I would imagine that the process of getting here has been arduous. Tell me a little bit about getting the film together, especially given that Angela Davis is still a contentious figure.
Shola: Oh my goodness. You have no idea, no idea, no idea. Yes, that’s precisely what was hard about it was raising money and getting people to kind of partner with a project about somebody who is a black militant and who in many ways is still regarded as dangerous. It’s crazy to me 40 years later. And being a black woman making a film about a black woman I came under that same criticism as though immediately I’m going to just simply just celebrate her or uplift her and you know, there is suspicion over what kind of things I would leave out of the story. You know the challenge in telling this story where there are a million details related to both the crime and the trial and her politics is to find a balance between what is necessary to know and what you don’t need to know and what is necessary to know is the stuff that allows the narrative to move forward and to not leave out anything that is essential, right, right? So I had somebody on the phone today with me who said, “ You know the guns were registered in her name.” And I said, “Absolutely, yes.” “But you didn’t say that one of the guns was bought several days before August 7th.”
Lisa: And therefore you’re skewing.
Shola: Right! Exactly. Exactly. Therefore you’re skewing but because I dealt with the guns in...I chose to deal with the guns in a general way because she bought guns in places that she went. And she had them in various places like the Soledad Brothers’ house, which she was setting up, but in order for me to tell that story in the film that’s ten to fifteen to twenty minutes in a ninety minute film, so you know, what stories do you decide to tell? What is necessary? And I am frankly shocked at the way...listen. As a journalist, as a historian, as a storyteller, just because somebody tells me something is true, I don’t check the facts?
Lisa: So even at this stage you’re encountering blowback over how you told the story?
Shola: It’s just beginning to happen.
Lisa: How long a gestation has this project had?
Shola: It’s seven years…a year to talk her into it. Most of it was fundraising. I couldn’t raise enough to really be 100% in production so I would do it in fits and starts. You know but in that time I also got married and had two kids and had work for hire projects. Life had to happen because the way I fund raise for independent projects I try to put as much into the actual production in the development stages. So it’s not like I raise $50,000 and it goes to my salary, you know?
Lisa: There is a risk that in making a film about someone like Angela Davis that it could end up seeming polemic but you’ve described this film as a crime thriller. How and why did you decide to take that approach to the storytelling? Why those particular years of her life?
Shola: Yes, well, so really what it is is more of a crime drama and I think those years of her life are where she’s deciding who she’s going to become. You get to see the growth and evolution of Angela Davis the professor, the young 26-year-old graduate student and into the international icon. These are the things that kind of catapulted her to that. There’s her choices and then the intended and unintended consequences of her choices and how she responds. I mean I think it’s interesting to have the weight of the state on you and to think about how you would...how you would deal with that, the pressure of that. And you know, while there are things that I admire about her there were some of the choices where I’m like “Really? That?” So along with everybody else I wanted to know what happened really. And also to get to know the woman behind the icon. You know, who is this person?
Lisa: Which brings me to my next question. With Shirley Chisholm you had somebody who was largely fading into obscurity to a certain extent. With Angela Davis you have somebody about whom there is a huge amount of information, misinformation, disinformation. There’s a mythology. She’s an icon. How was your approach to those two subjects different? Did you approach it feeling like there was a record you wanted to “correct” or things that needed to be investigated?
Shola: There were questions that I had. I mean I really wanted to investigate, particularly I wanted to know what happened around that crime and you know, what her involvement was or wasn’t because it’s really the thing, there’s Ronald Reagan and what he says that gives her this national platform and then the fact that she’s tied to the crime, it just explodes the whole thing and explodes her kind of..what people know about her and the way she’s portrayed and she becomes definitely a nationally known figure and an internationally known figure as somebody being hunted by the FBI.
Lisa: What was her take on becoming involved in the project? There is a lot that’s been said and written. I’m sure she’s probably been approached before to talk about her life. How did you convince her to become involved?
Shola: It took a long time to convince her and partially it’s that..you know it was getting to key people in her life first and getting them to talk to me and then consent and then see the film, Chisholm. And then she finally watched the film, Chisholm and what she said is “I thought I knew that story” and the way she said it made me realize that there’s so much about her own story that she doesn’t know. You know for instance the whole scene with the FBI. She had no idea about any of that. The photographs that were in the FBI file, you know, I am sure she had completely forgotten and there’s footage she’s never seen before and so in a way the story is being brought alive again, not just for her but for everybody involved in that period who lived through it, watched it happen in real time either on television or as an activist.
Lisa: What did you discover about her that surprised you?
Shola: That she is who she says she is. Yeah, that she’s kind of consistent and principled and the story hasn’t changed over the years and everything that I checked out turned out to be accurate and so..like usually...for instance with the Chisholm story, she left out many things, you know. And one of the things she left out and she would not have talked about is Ron Dellums. She talked about Ron Dellums only in the positive and when I interviewed her I didn’t know that he had...we found that out only through the archival footage because nobody would talk about it. And so there are certain things in people’s lives, certain hurts, that they won’t talk about necessarily and I think in some ways you know Angela has been pretty consistent about what she says.
Lisa: I was struck by the part of the interview that dealt with her relationship with George and her expression of the pain and anguish she felt at having their letters read in open court and printed in the newspapers. For me personally I was quite surprised to see the veil kind of lift for just a moment. How did you feel about approaching that kind of more intimate subject matter with her?
Shola: (Laughs) I was going to approach it whether she liked it or not. And you know for a long time I wanted her to...Of course we hope when we interview somebody that they’re going to be like “You know what? Let me take the mask off and just give you everything I have”. Right? But it doesn’t...we’re complicated, we’re so complicated and so it took me a while to see all of the places that she did that because you have to get to know her and her personality and there’s things you notice when she…her body language becomes really important and I didn’t see that at first. I didn’t see how revealing she was being cause you know, you listen to it, you read the transcript..so, so what? It’s not the words, but it’s everything. Seeing her response is everything. She was never going to be like Philipe Petit in Man on Wire “Oh my god! I loved it!” That’s not her.
Lisa: One of the things that stood out for me was your choice of music. Right from the pre-title sequence, we’re thrown into the chaos, thrown into the drama. It’s arresting. It’s from Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite (with vocals by Abbey Lincoln). Is that a piece of music that you had always had in mind? When did that come into the process?
Shola: (Nodding enthusiastically). Every time I thought about the crime I thought about Abbey Lincoln’s scream. I mean I’d worked on the Jazz project with Ken (Burns) so I had…you know I’m not a jazz head but there’s certain things when we were working on that that I just always wanted to spend more time with and was attracted to. And the scream, which is so beautiful and so broken and so full of emotion, it fits that because nobody was happy about that shootout. You know what I mean? Nobody wants all that death. There’s an intense political kind of battle going on and you know these events get started and nobody wants to see so many people dead or killed. There’s anguish in that. I don’t care what side of the political spectrum you’re on there’s anguish in that and sorrow. And it’s part of the reason why…there weren’t any words that I found that could make me feel enough. I said, “Let’s get the funerals. Let’s see how the communities dealt with it and it’s the sorrow on both sides.
Lisa: It works. In the liner notes for that record they talk about it being a “revolutionary re-writing of history”. You’re a black female filmmaker who has so far made two films about black female public figures. Do you feel like that statement kind of describes what you’re doing with your career – “a revolutionary re-writing of history”?
Shola: You know, I mean, I won’t fight that but I feel..Ok, my dad is West Indian. He is from Trinidad and Tobago and he studied West African, Caribbean and urban American history. In our house, we always had you all very colorful folks. (laughs), particularly the West Africans. And now listen, you don’t just come up into the house and lay down facts. You tell a story! You are the griot. You know our tradition of telling stories about each other has been lost. We don’t do it anymore in the same way and we rely on other people to tell us our stories, so we’re lost. We’re only seen in very two-dimensional ways, often, this is not always the case. And so we need to tell our stories. We need to ask our own questions. I’m not saying we all have to love each other. I’m not saying we all have to agree with each other. I’m not even saying we have to like each other but let’s respect each other enough to find out what really happened and not just take it on face value. You know that’s what I intended to do with this is find out what really happened to the best of our ability. But history is like archaeology, especially in this period. So I found new pieces. The vase is not complete. The dinosaur has not been built. There are obviously missing pieces but this is my contribution to that and it has taken us a little bit closer. Who’s to say in 10 years...I guarantee you that in ten years somebody will come along and revisit this or when the biography is written and there will be a whole new, either interpretation or a new set of facts that come out.
Lisa: So you’re just making your contribution
Shola: I’m making my contribution and I am doing it by all the standards of the practice. Plus, I want to make sure it’s a good film, so filmicly as well.
Lisa: You’ve made it quite clear that you want this film to play broadly, outside of the usual, what people consider to be the usual documentary market. What’s your ambition for it, what’s your greatest hope?
Shola: I really want it to get to the big screen. I guess part of it is that sometimes in the business there’s cynicism over whether there is audience for a story about a strong woman or a complicated woman or perhaps, an unlikeable woman in the sense that she’s not “nice”, you know? She’s controversial. I don’t think that’s true. I think that we are a little more capable of taking on a variety of characters so it would be great to have it on the big screen, it would be great to have people talking about the issues that are brought up in this and discussing them. Respectfully.
Lisa Harewood is an independent producer from Barbados, whose first feature, A Hand Full of Dirt, was nominated for Best First Feature Narrative Director at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles and won the Reelworld Audience Award in Toronto. She's back in Toronto this year as one of Reelworld Film Festival's Emerging 20 filmmakers. Follow Lisa on Twitter @islandcinephile.
__________________________
TIFF Review
- Shola Lynch's Sobering,
Candid 'Free Angela
& All Political Prisoners'
BY
SEPTEMBER 9, 2012
Question: You had a pretty bourgeois and comfortable childhood, in Birmingham; and so did your sister [Angela]; can you trace the development of someone from that kind of background into a revolutionary and Marxist person?
Fania Davis: I see in her life, the makings of a revolutionary, not a tragedy. From her time in the south (Birmingham) to her experience with white people in the north, Angela’s education is now being put into practice.
A conversation between a journalist and Angela Davis’ sister, Fania Davis, from a scene about mid-way throughShola Lynch's no-frills, candid feature documentary Free Angela & All Political Prisoners, soon after Angela’s arrest, and initial confinement, following 2 months on-the-run, with the FBI in chase.
This specific interview block really sums up Free Angela; Attempts to discredit her, countered with statements and actions that honored who she had become - an activist, an intellectual, an inspiration, a fearless leader, a communist, an African American, a woman.
For those in power, all those elements combined together in one being spelled “Dangerous;” hence the political conspiracy to ensure that Davis was imprisoned and be eventually put to death.
Fania’s reply immediately made me think of Sam Greenlee's incendiary The Spook Who Sat By The Door, with Dan Freeman, the "spook," educated under/within a system built and controlled primarily by whites, using their tools to master, inform and enlighten himself, and later turning against that very same system, utilizing that same acquired mastery, to inform, educate, enlighten, and inspire others – primarily those oppressed – to revolution.
Not to suggest that Angela’s motivations were so meticulously thought out and planned, as were Dan Freeman’s, from the first time she was introduced to the then burgeoning youth movements calling for revolution. But, like some young revolutionaries of the time, who may not have had any idea of just how bloody a real revolution can really be, allow me to romanticize the possibilities.
In October 1970, Davis was arrested in New York City in connection with a shootout that occurred on August 7 in a San Raphael, California courtroom. She was accused of supplying weapons to Jonathan Jackson, who burst into the courtroom in a bid to free inmates on trial there (the Soledad Brothers) and take hostages whom he hoped to exchange for his brother George Jackson, a black *radical* imprisoned at San Quentin Prison. In the subsequent shoot-out with police, Jonathan Jackson was killed, along with Judge Harold Haley and two inmates. Davis, who had championed the cause of organizing black prisoners and was friends (later became involved) with George Jackson, was indicted in the crime, because the guns used in the shoot-out were registered to her; but she went into hiding, becoming one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most wanted criminals; she was apprehended only two months later. Her trial drew international attention. Eventually, after about 18 months since her capture, in June 1972, she was acquitted of all charges.
Making its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Shola Lynch’s Free Angela & All Political Prisoners, relives those eventful, uncertain, transformative early years of Angela Davis’ life; it wants to raise awareness and reignite discussion on the movement she joined and eventually led, by introducing it to a new, younger generation, in a simple, straight-forward, accessible style.
The title says it all – Free Angela & All Political Prisoners. It announces its intent immediately. You know what its POV is; it’s not a retrial of Angela Davis on film - that’s not the film’s intent; rather, it tells the story of an injustice done to a young woman whose life changed completely, radically and swiftly, after being thrust into the spotlight when then Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, insisted on having her barred from teaching at any university in the State of California, due to her membership in the Communist Party; a young woman who would become a scapegoat/example for the government’s (then under Nixon’s presidency) intolerance for radicalism, the embodiment of a constructed imaginary enemy; a young woman who would soon become the prime spokes-person for the freedom of all political prisoners.
But as she herself noted in the film, despite what seemed like insurmountable obstacles at the time, the revolution was right around the corner, and they saw it as their responsibility to usher it in.
After a brief introduction to Davis, the film doesn’t waste much time diving right into its main narrative; Covering a trial that occupied almost 2 years of her life, from August 1970 when she went underground, after she learned she would be implicated in the Marin County Courthouse incident (leading to her being only the 3rd woman to be put on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list), to her acquittal in June 1972, there’s enough material here for an HBOmini-series, telling this particular riveting story, with its wealth of characters, and subplots:
- Davis’ early involvement with the Black Panther Party
- The Soledad Brothers case, and Davis’ decision to make it her cause
- Davis’ relationship with George Jackson
- The Marin County Courthouse incident itself
- Davis on the run, underground, and eventual capture
- Davis’ trial
- The zeitgeist of the period, notably what was a burgeoning anti-government movement, otherwise deemed as radicalism, after the deaths of MLK, RFK, the rise of the Black Panther Party, anti-Vietnam war sentiment, the Watts riots, etc
- Some 10 years after the second Red Scare (aka McCarthyism), COINTELPRO and J. Edgar Hoover’sattempts to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" groups and individuals that the FBI deemed subversive, including communist and socialist organizations, organizations and individuals associated with the civil rights movement, black nationalist groups, and more.
- The worldwide movement in support of Angela’s freedom.
- And even the nameless/faceless boys and girls, men and women, who may have only just then learned about, and then were inspired by this 28-year-old black woman (when she was acquitted), during those 2 years.
And more… however, there’s only so much one can squeeze into a 97-minute documentary.
It’s not an Angela Davis biography, so don’t expect a retelling of her entire life story. The film's focus is primarily on the aforementioned transformative 2-year period of Davis' rather eventful life.
But it does a sufficient job of giving the audience a sense of the setting, the era, the key figures involved, whether directly or indirectly, and all the central elements that contributed in some way to the film’s main focus. You get a good sense of the uncertainty and paranoia that plagued the country at the time.
Footage includes photos, as well as archival tape and present-day interviews with Davis herself of course, her sister, mother, attorneys representing her during the trial, journalists, Black Panther party members, and more.
Recorded audio of Nixon repulsed by Davis’ acquittal, seemingly assured of her guilt, labeling her a terrorist, was especially chilling.
Watching a mid-20s, seemingly self-assured, brilliant and articulate Angela Davis giving magnificent rousing speeches, ushering in what was felt to be imminent revolution, were invigorating, and, at times, elicited an impulsive applause in acknowledgment from this viewer; but were also sobering, as I remembered where I was, and what I was doing at that age, not-so-long ago, which certainly wasn’t leading revolutions.
Recreated scenes shot by Bradford Young help visualize parts of the narrative for which no archival footage exists, as those sequences, as well as archival footage of relevant American cities during those years, help keep the senses stimulated.
All those still and moving images are complimented effectively with a form- and content-enhancing soundtrack – notably, early on, with music from the fiery We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite album by Max Roach, withAbbey Lincoln on vocals; an album that was profoundly described as, “a record of transgressions against that body; of the anger, the hate, the sorrow, the dirt and the hope that body has known for four hundred years..."
Fitting in this case, I thought.
Free Angela & All Political Prisoners moves along briskly, touching on such matters of importance at the time, like structural racism, the Vietnam war, rapidly rising levels of incarceration (“The Prison Industrial Complex" that eventually became a cause Davis took up), government accountability, while simultaneously working to provide an education for subsequent generations, and some insight into where, in the grand scheme of things, America and Americans stand (or are headed) collectively today.
It took a worldwide movement of people to acquit Angela Davis, but, in the end, that an all-white jury acquitted a young black radical/revolutionary, in the early 1970s, on all charges against her, despite unrelenting attempts by the government to discredit and vilify her, is astonishing, if not hopeful.
Marking the 40th anniversary of Davis’ full acquittal, Free Angela & All Political Prisoners, likely won't teach much new to those already familiar with Davis’ history, as well as that of the movement she was a part of. As already suggested, the film is more of a primer for the uninitiated, and will introduce Davis and her engaged life to a new generation.
Although even for the initiated, it could serve as a reminder, and further act as newfound inspiration, and even a call to action, capable of inciting this new generation to similar acts of collective radicalism, all in the name of progressive change.
As Davis, herself, said in a recent interview on her reasons for wanting to have this film made:
“I was most interested in the film being made because I thought that it would not only capture me as a person, and it’s important that people recognize that figures that are media-produced are very different in their own lives. But what was also important to me was that people understood the power of the movement that emerged… What I’ve discovered is that many people who are around my age, a little younger, a little older . . . who experienced that moment, look back with this very interesting nostalgia and I came to recognize that they’re thinking about themselves, they’re remembering their own youth and they’re remembering all of the possibilities and potential and the creativity. That was created not by me, but it was created by the movement that came together around my case.”
Indeed.
The film’s scant 97-minute running time will leave you wanting even more.
The trailer follows below:
I Want The Earth (plus 5%)
The sole purpose of this story is to explain the simple maths of reality and the current Banking System – that is – 100 plus NOTHING does NOT equal 105 – and that charging interest on something that is created out of nothing, makes it impossible to repay, giving great power to those who do create money out of nothing – ie the Banks. This story was written by Larry Hannigan in 1971 and uses a fictional character (Fabian) in the narrative.Money is NOT a commodity, it is a system of debit-credit bookkeeping – nothing more. Banks create credit. It is a mistake to suppose that bank credit is created to any extent by the payment of money into the banks. A loan made by a bank is a clear addition to the amount of money in the community.
The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the People v. The Banks.
None of our problems will disappear until we correct the creation, supply and circulation of money. Once the money problem is solved, everything else will fall into place.
Watch the full documentary now
Can’t Get You
Out of My Head
The history of advertising jingles, a truly American art form.
Illustration by Bianca Stone.
What Midwestern childhood spent bellied up in front of the family TV set wasn’t shaped in some small but inexorable way by the Empire Carpet Man, that folksy spokesman who always managed to slip you his number before you flipped the channel? The disarming riff that teed up the “588-2300” jingle was so crucial, the copywriter, Elmer Lynn Hauldren, donned the denim himself and proceeded to invade our living rooms for the next 20 years, even if we never bought a yard.
Could Kraftwerk have made a jumble of numbers any catchier than that jingle, performed by Hauldren’s own barbershop quartet, the Fabulous 40s? And why was I protective of those manipulative notes? I still remember the shock when I heard the song in New York with “800” shoehorned at the top of the harmonized call signal, a mandatory addition once the company expanded beyond Illinois. That was my carpet jingle!
How is it that I was forced into associating the uninvited Fabulous 40s with a sense of home? And likewise, why, to this day, when I hear the chorus of the Four Tops’ classic “I Can’t Help Myself,” does an unwanted internal vocalist always sully the payoff with, “It’s Duncan Hines and nobody else”?
The unexpected effect, of course, was that kids of the ‘80s, like me, never had a chance to experience Motown before Madison Avenue introduced us to its parodies. We just thought the California Raisins knew how to move a crowd. This is not to suggest that such a practice was exclusive to the ‘80s. I doubt the kids of today, for example, will be able to slow-dance to Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” without crying into their corsages, images of exploited animals now haunting the dance floor.
Though it’s easy to be cynical about the swindles examined in The Sounds of Capitalism—the closing chapters on gray-flannel advertisers going hip provide plenty of ammo—there is actually much to admire, or at least concede, about the industry’s triumphs. Perhaps the greatest attribute of Taylor’s exhaustive research is that it awakens the reader to the ingenuity of jingle writers, especially in the frontier days of radio. Tracing their patterns of speech and melody to distant precursors like the “verse without music” that peppered print advertising in the Victorian era and the sung advertisements of wandering street merchants, Taylor shows that jingle writers of the 20th century managed to create a new, potent language of their own. As far back as 1896, a book on advertising noted, “It is astonishing how some of the things we think the silliest will stick in our minds for years.”
It’s also astonishing to discover how much restraint programmers exhibited at the dawn of the radio age. Fearful that overt pitches might sour new listeners, promoters favored “indirect advertising” to keep the medium afloat. Warnings like “the family circle is not a public place” and “the announcer is an invited guest” echoed across magazine editorials. The most effective way for advertisers to generate goodwill was to provide music programming, which dominated the airwaves in the ‘20s. Announcements and ads were carefully woven into the shows, to minimize intrusion. Behind the scenes, however, advertisers were maniacal about securing their target demographics. The choice of music was endlessly debated and test-marketed. Researchers went door-to-door to thousands of homes to pinpoint preferences. Pollsters wanted to know: Pipe organ or Hawaiian? Ultimately, the consensus was jazz—or, as Taylor more accurately defines it, “highly arranged quasi-classical dance tunes performed by white musicians.”
Listeners ate it up. By the early ‘30s, newspapers were running profiles on not just band leaders but the production men and control engineers who made the programs possible. As the decade drew to a close, producers feared that music was becoming too familiar and might fade into background noise, so they pursued radio personalities who packed maximum punch. Though this was a far cry from the shock jocks of today, the foundation had certainly been laid.
During the Great Depression, there was a “near total blackout on discussions of current problems on the radio.” Comedy shows reigned. To stretch the dollar, advertisers demanded more effective ads, resorting to “carnivalesque tactics.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that the analog pleasures of early radio would cure some of the ailments fueling our current Great Recession. The fan letters that poured into radio stations kept the USPS plump. Trade publications kept printing presses humming. Musicians and workers were unionized. Advertisers could rely on a built-in audience that couldn’t fast-forward commercials.
One commercial that couldn’t be avoided, even by those who didn’t own radios, was the “Pepsi-Cola Hits the Spot” campaign of 1939. Arguably the first jingle to go viral, long before the company torched Michael Jackson, the tune achieved saturation not just over the airwaves; more than a million phonograph records were pressed for distribution in jukeboxes across the country. Kids everywhere sang it at home, at no charge to the advertiser (and “with the added benefit,” Taylor writes, quoting a Nation article, that children “are also much more difficult to turn off”). At the Pepsi headquarters in Long Island, the proud boss even installed a set of electronic chimes on top of the plant to play the first seven notes of the jingle every half hour. (I suppose that generation of workers didn’t have much of a choice.)
The next jingle to hit it big was the 1946 Chiquita Banana spot that made Americans crazy for calypso. Reading the lyrics, I couldn’t help but wonder if that famous opening hook—“I’m Chiquita Banana and I’ve come to say, I offer good nutrition in a simple way”—wasn’t the kernel of the corny trope in which any out-of-touch jokester could rap that they were “here to say” they liked something in a “major way.” The folks at Fruity Pebbles, for one, leaned pretty hard on it.
Indeed, when rap broke through in the ‘80s, advertisers were at the ready. “Part of the appeal seems to have been that a good deal of information could be imparted by rapping the lyrics,” Taylor writes. Russell Simmons notes that the use of hip-hop in commercials wasn’t selling out, because “being a starving artist is not that cool in the ghetto.” By the time Run-DMC nabbed a sportswear line after releasing “My Adidas” in 1987, Adidas had already been slipping them shoes for years.
As memorable as “My Adidas” was, my favorite moment of brand loyalty from DMC remains his ferocious shout-out to Ronald McDonald in “Son of Byford.” And while McDonald’s is responsible for their fair share of tongue twisters (remember the “Menu Song” pressed on flexi discs?) the fact remains that jingle writers of the ‘40s were crafting rhymes with more complexity than most of today’s club hits. And taking this one step further, is it possible that jingle writers predated beat boxing? Taylor recounts a labor dispute between recording artists and record companies in 1942 that led to oddball instruments not recognized by the union like kazoos, Jews’ harps, and musical saws being used for the recording of TV jingles. Most strikingly, singers also mimicked full bands with their mouths. Said adman Robert Foreman: “Some of our people can dub in a bass fiddle by blowing a ‘puck-puck-puck’ sound close to the mic. There’s one guy who does the snare drum, trumpet, and sax by breathing through his nose. He must be making a small fortune out of TV sound tracks.”
It is innovations and improvisations like this that make for such immersive reading in the first half of Sounds of Capitalism. And though Taylor does a fine job completing the circle, there’s simply not as much material to grapple with once music licensing became the name of the game in the ‘90s and beyond. Taylor astutely targets the “conquest of cool” phenomenon and chronicles the erosion of the sell-out stigma, explaining, for example, how the once-untouchable Beatles catalog has since become commercial wallpaper, with the controversial appropriation of “Revolution” in a 1987 ad for Nike serving as Trojan horse. I also liked being reminded of the day we all rushed to snap up that Nick Drake song from the Volkswagen commercial, pretending we’d owned it all along. But it’s less fun to read about Moby’s grandma-friendly techno and the millions of dollars it reaped in licensing than it is to discover a scrappy character like the banjo player Harry Reser, who created “sparkling” music for the Clicquot Club Eskimos radio show in 1929, which in turn made listeners think of sparkling ginger ale.
I guess I simply appreciate the spirit of jingle writers, even when their creations drive me nuts. The cannibalization of the pop charts and an endless parade of kitsch may be eroding the craftsmanship that made jingles such an experimental enterprise in the last century, but the practice is far from extinct. As any Chicagoan can attest, carpeting-related earworms didn’t end with Empire, especially considering Luna, another local carpet company, has already claimed the crown of catchiest jingle in the city. In New York, the “Hatfield and McCoy-style advertising war” between Dial 7 and their rival, Carmel Car and Limousine Service, whose jingle is a little too 6-centric for Dial 7’s taste, rages on. And don’t look now, but even the Free Credit Score band is back.
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The Sounds of Capitalism: Advertising, Music, and the Conquest of Culture by Timothy D. Taylor. University of Chicago Press.
via slate.com
Saki Mafundikwa
The Intricate World of
Afrikan Writing systems
From the TED talent search:Saki Mafundikwa, author of "Afrikan Alphabets" and notable New York digital designer, founded Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts, Zimbabwe's first graphic design and new media school.
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Saki Mafundikwa
-Educationist and Author
Saki Mafundikwa is the founder of the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts:
In addition he is the author of Afrikan Alphabets described as "a comprehensive review of African writing systems"“Vigital,” a word of his own creation, refers to visual arts taught using digital tools. Ziva means “knowledge” in Mafundikwa’s native Shonalanguage.Through the school, Mafundikwa tries to illuminate graphic arts as a viable career path for Zimbabwe’s young people. He says, “It was the most natural thing for me to come home and start a school of design. Because I figured, my god, how many hundreds of young people in Zimbabwe would never know there is a field called graphic design. It was the right thing for me to do, because I felt so fortunate that I was able to figure it out.”
>via: http://africaunchained.blogspot.com/2010/11/saki-mafundikwa-educationist-and-...
See lost video of
Michael Jackson
performing "Human Nature"
On the eve of the 25th Anniversary of the issuance of Michael Jackson's Bad, Sony Music has released a video of the performance of another Jackson hit, "Human Nature," from his late 80s Bad Tour. It shows the great MJ in his prime and is a nice find.
Check out the vid below. What do you think?
Posted September 12th, 2012 by administrator
via soultracks.com
Happy Birthday Barry White
Happy birthday to the late, great Barry White, born September 12, 1944.
It is fitting that Barry White's 1994 comeback album was called The Icon Is Love, because to a generation of Soul Music fans, Barry White was an icon who represented the sensual side of love. His deep, sexy voice was mimicked but never matched by any other bass singer, and his dedication to music of love and romance achieved for him singular status among male soul singers of the latter 20th century. One of the most recognizable figures in popular music for three decades, White was both a talented songwriter and producer, but was ultimately known around the world simply as "the Voice."
Born in Texas and raised in SoCal, Barry White started his career as a notable teenage session pianist. But his real desire was to become a producer, and after a number of increasingly important roles at small record labels, he formed the girl group Love Unlimited (featuring future wife Glodean) and wrote and produced for them the sweet 1972 single "Walking In the Rain (With the One I Love)." It became a top ten smash and opened a new world of opportunity for White.
He wanted to follow with production of a romantic album for a male vocalist, and was reluctantly convinced to record it himself, using his distinctive bass voice and his penchant for lush arrangements. The result was the 1973 hit song "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby," the first of a string of smashes he recorded for 20th Century Records. For the remainder of the 70s White, working with super-arranger Gene Page, was among the hottest producers in popular music, scoring a #1 single with his Love Unlimited Orchestra's "Love's Theme" and landing a series of his own sex-charged hits, including "Your Sweetness Is My Weakness," "Playing Your Game Baby" and "It's Ecstacy When You Lay Down Next To Me." Though mostly romance-oriented, White's songs were not languid ballads, but had a danceable groove and lush orchestration to them that made them precursors to the disco movement that would dominate popular music by 1978.
White's reputation as a "loverman" singer turned into a bit of a caricature, and by the 1980s changes in musical styles and a one-dimensional view of White's contributions to popular music led to slippage in his sales. He went the entire decade without a top ten hit (save his memorable contribution to Quincy Jones' "The Secret Garden"). Then a move to A&M Records and a renewed appreciation in White's style of romantic, sensual music resulted in an unexpected comeback, hitting its peak with the 1994 platinum album The Icon Is Love and the #1 single "Practice What You Preach." Icon put White back on top both musically and as a popular figure, with him appearing regularly on television and receiving new respect for his impressive body of work.
Health problems began to plague White soon after the turn of the century, unfortunately sidelining him at a time when he should have been reaping the rewards of his near iconic status. Sadly, he died in July, 2003 of complications from diabetes, leaving behind a legacy that continues to reverberate to this day.
By Chris Rizik
Posted September 11th, 2012 by paulr
via soultracks.com
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