How Nelson Mandela’s
Autobiography Was Smuggled
Out Of Prison
Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu in prison on Robben Island
Mac Maharaj (pictured below) tells the BBC’s “Witness” how he smuggled Nelson Mandela‘s autobiography out of Robben Island prison in 1976. Mandela wrote the manuscript by night in his cell, and Maharaj, one of Mandela’s closest allies in prison, painstakingly transcribed it the next day so there would be two copies. Bravely, he hid his copy among his study materials when he was released from prison. Maharaj is arguably the single reason that Mandela’s international bestseller “Long Walk to Freedom” exists today – especially because the original draft written by Mandela was eventually discovered by prison guards. Maharaj tells the BBC about the importance of the political autobiography:
We were living in a society where the history of our struggle was not covered anywhere – not even in academia. Everything in history was the history about the white man. So that in itself was an exciting exercise to put down on paper the life of one man who was so central [to the struggle], and whose autobiography was really a political autobiography. One had a sense that Mandela had already become a national and international figure and that it would be an inspiration to read our history.
via okayafrica.com
Films We Love ::
Orfeu Negro
Orfeu Negro (1959), Marcel Camus’ depiction of a sweet romance between Orfeu and Euridyce and its inevitable tragedy, evokes a deeply felt longing we all have; of finding a lover whom we share a connection that is timeless and transcendent. Camus uses the Morro da Bibilonia, a favela in the Leme neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro as a backdrop for the magical explosion of costumes, classic music by Jobin + Bonfa and stunning views of this iconic city. -Izzy Romero
__________________________
The Reimagining
of Black Orpheus
In Greek mythology, the prophet Orpheus was known for his magical way with music. Ancient poet Simonides of Ceos said Orpheus could charm the trees to dance, the stones to awaken, and the rivers to divert their course with his music. Although Hermes invented the lyre, it is said that it was Orpheus who perfected it. The most famous of all of Orpheus’ stories is his tragic love affair with the virginal, beautiful Eurydice. Originally set in Ancient Greece, the story deals with universal themes of life and death, love and loss, archetypes of bad and evil, and the music that brings it all together.
For the classic 1959 film Black Orpheus (Orfeo Negro), French director Marcel Camus reset the Greek myth among the Carnaval and West African traditions of Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro. Bursting with color and music, the film is a love letter to a whimsical, lively Brazil. The film’s ability to capture the mood and music of Carnaval started America’s love affair with Brazilian music and caused the film to become the international representation for Brazil abroad. Although the film received some slack for not tackling the subtleties and complexities of the Brazilian people and culture, Black Orpheus is mostly an ‘atmosphere’ movie that sweeps you into the sights and sounds of a dream-like version of Brazil. All of the music for the film was composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfa, with Bonfa’s gorgeous ballad “Manhã de Carnaval” becoming a run-away hit and a jazz standard. Just as the Ancient Greek myth was reinvented for Black Orpheus, “Manha de Carnaval” has been re-imagined over and over again. Everyone from Joan Bez to Stan Getz to Cannonball Adderley have put their spin on this gorgeous classic. Join us as we see how different arrangements and instrumentations affect the mood and flavor of one of our favorite Brazilian songs. First, check out the original and the English translation
Manhã de Carnaval (Lyrics)
Will true love come my way,
On this Carnival day,
Or will I be alone with my dream?
I’ll sing to the sun in the sky,
I’ll sing ‘till the sun rises high,
Carnival time is here,
Magical time of year,
And as the time draws near,
Dreams lift my heart!
I’ll sing as I play my guitar,
I’ll cling to a dream from afar,
Will love come my way,
This Carnival day,
And stay here in my heart?
( Will true love come my way,
On this Carnival day . . . )
Or will I be alone with my dream?
Orfeo Negro – “Manha De Carnaval” – Original
Stan Getz, Big Band Bossa Nova, arranged by Gary McFarland
Gerry Mulligan
Cannonball Adderley
Joan Baez
As an added bonus, here’s one of our favorite clips from the movie.
Compiled and Written by Nora Ritchie
>via: http://revivalist.okayplayer.com/2011/11/03/the-reimagining-of-black-orpheus/
OF SPECIAL, RARE, OR UNUSUAL INTEREST
Submission Dates: March 15-December 31, 2011
Entry Fee: Fiction-$8 online/$7 mailed; Photography-$8 for 3 entries.
Word Count: Max 8,000
Winners Announced: March 1, 2012
Stories Published: March 15, 2012 (Spring 2012 issue)
Prizes: Four 1st place prizes of $250 each; 1 photography cover winner $250PHOTOGRAPHY SUBMISSIONS WILL OPEN IN fall.
2012 Theme: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
What does it mean to be "LGBT"? We seek short stories of fiction that either include LGBT characters/elements or are written by LGBT authors. We're looking for an honest representation of the joys, challenges, triumphs, and desires of the LGBT population. We implore you to show us something we've never seen before.Additionally, we are seeking exceptional photography that captures the LGBT spirit. You may submit up to three photographs per entry. Photography and fiction submissions are separate.
Guidelines
» Online entry fee is $8 per story and $8 per three (3) photographs.
» Mailed entry fee is $7 by check or money order payable to Carve Magazine. Mail to: PO Box 701510, Dallas, TX 75370. Clearly mark envelope as CONTEST ENTRY.
» There is no limit to the number of stories one may submit.
» No genre fiction; literary fiction only.
» Stories must be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions accepted if notified promptly that story is accepted elsewhere.
» All submissions must be formatted as follows:
-double spaced
-at least 1" margins
-ONLY story title and page numbers (no author info) in upper right cornerIf submitting online: do not include a cover page or letter in the manuscript/file you upload. Submishmash provides room for this on their upload form and we do not see it until after the contest is over.
If submitting by mail: please include a cover page with name, address, phone, and email. Do not include any identifying information in the manuscript except story title and page numbers.
» Not following the above guidelines may result in disqualification. There is no refund if your story is disqualified.
» For additional questions about the contest guidelines, please email the editor at contest@carvezine.com
via carvezine.com
Guidelines for Submission to
The Tampa Review Prize for Poetry
Manuscripts should be mailed to:
- Manuscripts must be previously unpublished. Some or all of the poems in the collection may have appeared in periodicals, chapbooks, or anthologies, but these must be identified.
- Manuscripts should be typed, with pages consecutively numbered. Clear photocopies are acceptable. Manuscripts must be at least 48 typed pages; we prefer a length of 60-100 pages but will also consider submissions falling outside this range.
- When sending by mail, please submit the manuscript as loose pages held only by a removable clip or rubber band and enclosed in a standard file folder. Do not staple or bind your manuscript. Online submissions should follow guidelines provided there.
- Printed entries should include a separate title page with author’s name, address, phone number, and e-mail address (if available). Online submissions guidelines are posted.
- Entries must include a table of contents and a separate acknowledgments page (or pages) identifying prior publication credits.
- Submissions must be postmarked (or electronically dated online) by the postmark deadline of Dec. 31, 2011. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but the University of Tampa Press must be notified immediately if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
- Include a nonrefundable handling fee of $25 for each manuscript submitted. Make check or money order payable to “University of Tampa Press” when sent with mailed submissions. Online submissions are not complete until this fee has been sent using any major credit card via our secure online service, CCNow. (A small processing fee is added to online submissions.)
- The winning entry will be announced in the subsequent spring, usually by May 15. Enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard for notification of receipt of manuscript, and a stamped, self-addressed envelope for notification of contest results by mail. No manuscripts will be returned; the paper will be recycled. Online submissions will be acknowledged by email. All contestants enclosing SASE or email address will be notified following the final selection of the winning manuscript.
- Judging is conducted in accord with the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Contest Code of Ethics by the editors of Tampa Review. Submissions are not accepted from current faculty or students at the University of Tampa. Editors will recuse themselves from judging entries from close friends and associates to avoid conflicts of interest.
The Tampa Review Prize for Poetry
University of Tampa Press
401 West Kennedy Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33606-1490Online submissions should use this link: Tampa Review Prize Online Submissions
We subscribe to the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) Contest Code of Ethics:
"CLMP's community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to (1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors; (2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and (3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage."
via ut.edu
Announcing the
The 2012 Third Coast
Fiction & Poetry Contests
Postmark Deadline: January 15, 2012
2012 Jaimy Gordon Prize in Fiction: $1,000 & Publication
2012 Third Coast Poetry Prize : $1,000 & Publication
Final Judges
Fiction: Jaimy Gordon Poetry: Major Jackson
Complete Contest Guidelines for Online Submissions
1. Submit one previously unpublished story of up to 9,000 words or three (3) previously unpublished poems under the proper heading (Fiction Contest or Poetry Contest). Multiple contest entries in one or more genres are permitted, but you must submit each piece separately.
2. There is a $16 reading fee for each entry, and each entry fee entitles entrant to a 1-year subscription to Third Coast, an extension of an existing subscription, or a gift subscription. Please indicate your choice in the "cover letter" box and include a complete address for subscription.
3. All manuscripts should be typed (fiction entries should be double-spaced). Please include entry title(s) and page numbers on all manuscript pages. Since the judging is blind, the author's name and identifying information (including address, telephone, and email) should appear only in the "cover letter" box; identifying information must not appear anywhere on the manuscript itself.
4. Simultaneous submissions are permitted; if accepted elsewhere, we ask that work be withdrawn from the contest immediately. If a poem or story is chosen as a finalist, Third Coast requires that it be withdrawn from any other publication considerations until the winner is selected. If the poem or story is scheduled to be published elsewhere before September 2012, please do not submit it.
5. Winners will be announced in April 2012 and published in the Fall 2012 issue of Third Coast. All contest entries will be considered for regular inclusion in Third Coast.
6. Writers associated with the judges or Third Coast are not eligible to submit work to the contest.
7. No money will be refunded. Submissions will not be returned.
To submit to the contest online, please click HERE.
Complete Guidelines for Mailed Contest Submissions
1. Submit one previously unpublished story of up to 9,000 words or three (3) previously unpublished poems with a $16 reading fee payable to Third Coast. Please clearly mark whether it is a poetry or fiction entry. Multiple contest entries in one or more genres are permitted, but you must submit each entry separately and include a $16 reading fee for each submission.
Send entries to:
Third Coast 2012 Fiction or Poetry Contest Department of English Western Michigan University 1903 W. Michigan Ave. Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331
2. Each $16 entry fee entitles entrant to a 1-year subscription to Third Coast, an extension of an existing subscription, or a gift subscription. Please indicate your choice and enclose a complete address for subscription.
3. All manuscripts should be typed (fiction entries should be double-spaced), and accompanied by a cover letter with the author's name, contact information (address, telephone, and email address), and entry title(s). Please include entry title(s) and page numbers on all manuscript pages. Since the judging is blind, the author's name and identifying information should only appear on the cover letter; identifying information must not appear anywhere on the manuscript itself.
4. Simultaneous submissions are permitted; if accepted elsewhere, we ask that work be withdrawn from the contest immediately. If a poem or story is chosen as a finalist, Third Coast requires that it be withdrawn from any other publication considerations until the winner is selected. If the poem or story is scheduled to be published elsewhere before September 2012, please do not submit it.
5. Winners will be announced in April 2012 and published in the Fall 2012 issue of Third Coast. All contest entries will be considered for regular inclusion in Third Coast.
6. Writers associated with the judges or Third Coast are not eligible to submit work to the contest.
7. No money will be refunded. Submissions will not be returned. Send SASE for results only.
About the Judges
Jaimy Gordon's fourth novel, Lord of Misrule, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2010, and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award; it also won the Tony Ryan Award for the year’s best book about horse racing. Gordon’s previous novels include Bogeywoman, a Los Angeles Times Best Book for 2000, and She Drove Without Stopping, which brought her an Academy-Institute Award from the American Institute of Arts and Letters. Among her other books are Shamp of the City-Solo and Circumspections from an Equestrian Statue. Born in Baltimore, Gordon teaches at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo and in the Prague Summer Program for Writers. .
Major Jackson is the author of three collections of poetry. His first collection, Leaving Saturn (University of Georgia: 2002), was the winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Hoops (Norton: 2006) was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literature-Poetry. Jackson's most recent collection is Holding Company (Norton: 2010).
Congrats to last year's contest winners!
Poetry Winner: Jennifer Perrine
for her poem "On Fallibility"
-Selected by Poetry Judge Natasha Trethewey
Fiction Winner: Sarah Elizabeth Schantz
for her story "Cut-Out"
-Selected by Fiction Judge Brad Watson
First Trailer For “Safe House”
Starring Denzel Washington
& Ryan Reynolds
Surfaces & It’s Bristling!
Aaaaand… here ya go! Still image from film…first official poster… now first official trailer a day later.
Quickie recap… Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds in the thriller Safe House , in which Ryan plays a CIA agent who must protect a rogue ex-agent (Washington) from assassins.
The film, directed by Daniel Espinosa, is expected to be in theaters in February 2012.
I gotta say folks, I’m not familiar with the young director Espinosa’s past work, but this looks like it should be good! At the very least, good fun and entertaining. Looking forward to seeing Denzel in renegade mode!
Watch the madness unfold below (by the way, anyone know what the music track that’s playing in the background is titled, and by whom?):
Black Feminist Love
and Amber Cole
3 Nov
The last time I was speechless after seeing images of a young Black woman on the internet was June 2009 when John at The Smoking Section ( a rap blog) posted what were then believed to be nude images of Rihanna Fenty. I contacted him and asked him why he did it, we had a conversation, and he then refused to give me permission to blog about the conversation. To this day, I still find it problematic that he published what is believed to be images of singer Rihanna Fenty. I always ask permission to write about conversations. Consent. Get it?
I was also speechless nearly two weeks ago when I saw the images of Amber Cole. I knew that I was going to write something, but I wanted to sort out my thoughts first because sometimes being quick to speak doesn’t do anyone any good. I also took my time to read what other people had written.
In these last week weeks Latoya Peterson has written about how the boys participation in this assault has been framed, and on how boys are taught that treating a woman or girl like a piece of shit, like an object to be used is perfectly legitimate. I would add that part of the reasoning behind this is that this behavior is legitimate and acceptable because implicitly, women are put here to be protected and dominated. There is a thin line between protection and domination.
Mark Anthony Neal has written about how Amber Cole is “his daughter” and the importance of Black communities examining “the politics of respectability that go hand-in-hand with Black collective shame, that often keeps us from having honest discussions about sex and sexuality in our communities—often to the detriment of our children. “
Lastly, Bianca Laureano has written about the politics of naming Amber’s name, the history of sexting, and the importance of consent. Consent, get it?
Side bar: Ms. Laureano was very deliberate in not using Amber Coles name in her post because she did not want to add to the plethora of searchable posts and I understand that. I am deliberate about using Ms. Cole’s name because I aggressively track and archive how “black feminism” is searched on the internet. By adding “black feminism” to the title I am inserting our Black feminist voices into “The Google” and it’s searchable archive.
Now, having read the others work, I want to address three things which are Black women’s sexuality, the internet as a gendered and racialized space and the role of patriarchy in the Amber Cole conversations.
Black Women’s Sexuality
In doing research on Black women’s sexuality I have come across an incredible quote by Mierelle Miller-Young’s in her dissertation “A Taste for Brown Sugar: The History of Black Women in American Pornography”. Miller-Young quotes a veteran Black woman pornography worker who states,
“You are not suppose to talk about liking sex, because you are already assumed to be a whore.”~Jeannie Pepper
This is the quote that came to my mind when I saw the images of Amber Cole on social media sites and the comments left on social media sites, which lectured Cole, admonished Cole and talked about the “general nastiness” of young women.
Gendered, Racial and Sexual Images
The posting of those images of her are racial, sexual and gendered violence. It is also cyberbullying. Because Black women are assumed to already be whores the images of this fourteen year old girl takes on special connotations.
Historically, in the US Black women were raped and Black men were lynched, publicly, as an act of power. I reason that the videotaping of Amber Cole and the posting of images from the video was an act of power as well. I am not saying that these acts are the same. What I am saying is they both constitute an act of power.
Patriarchy
While I can appreciate the sentiment of “Amber Cole is all of our daughters” there is something profoundly patriarchal about this idea. What I am getting at here is, for me the issue is not whether or not Amber Cole is my sister or my daughter, the issue is when will black girls be seen as full human beings?
By being seen as a human being, and not an automatic whore, there is a basic intrinsic level of respect and love that is shown.
#Blackgirlsarefromthefuture.
To say that a person, a girl, is entitled to care because she is related to me creates a system where some women are worth being cared after, and the others….oh well.
If we are only interested in protecting “our daughters” and “our sisters” then does that mean that the women and girls who we don’t classify as being “belonging” to us or are “related to us” are shit out of luck?
Black Feminist Love and Amber Cole
What does Black Feminist Love look like in the face of digital, racialized, sexualized violence? I honestly don’t know. What I do know is preparing to write this entailed me sittting, listening, think and reading on what I felt. It also meant trying to write something that was meaningful.
I am not sure what can be done in the future if this occurs again. We can involve the state by contacting the FBI regarding child pornography charges? But, how does that shift our culture?
We can decide to teach young people, consistently about cyberbulling.
I am thinking about writing a short weekend curriculum on cyberbullying that addresses race, sex and violence.
There are also a couple of organizations doing work on consent such as The Line Campaign.
Any other thoughts on what we can do, and what Black feminist Love looks like within this context would be appreciated.
Chart: One Year of Prison
Costs More Than
One Year at Princeton
By
One year at Princeton University: $37,000. One year at a New Jersey state prison: $44,000.Prison and college "are the two most divergent paths one can take in life," Joseph Staten, an info-graphic researcher with Public Administration, says. Whereas one is a positive experience that increases lifetime earning potential, the other is a near dead end, which is why Staten found it striking that the lion's share of government funding goes toward incarceration.
The comparison between higher education spending and correction spending highlighted in the following chart is not perfect. Universities have means to fund themselves; prisons rely on the government. So it makes some sense that a disproportional amount of money flows to the correction centers. Also, take note, comparing African Americans in college and African Americans in dorms is not completely fair. For one, college implies an 18-22 age range, and incarcerated adults can be of any age. Also, it doesn't take into account African Americans who commute to school.
Despite these shortcomings, this chart helps illustrate a large discrepancy in this country: America has the highest incarceration rate by population, but is only 6th in the world when it comes to college degrees. Our government's spending reflects that fact accordingly.
Created by: Public Administration
via theatlantic.com