VIDEO: Seun Kuti Talks Power, Politics, Africa, and American Intervention in Libya > Crossfade

Seun Kuti


Seun Kuti Talks Power,

Politics, Africa, and

American Intervention in Libya

 

SeunKutiInterview.jpg
​Outspoken and uncensored, Seun Kuti has no fear.

In a time of timid musicians who've been trained to keep their mouths shut and tow the PR line, the Nigerian sax man and heir to his father Fela's Afrobeat throne is perfectly willing to tell the raw, real truth, whether talking power, politics, national anthems, Africa, or American intervention in Libya.

See the cut for Crossfade's conversation with Seun Kuti.

Crossfade: Your music is deeply engaged on a political and social level. Why is it important to address current events and international issues?

Seun Kuti: I think the main function of art is to inspire society. So the fact that music is no longer as political as it used to be, say in '60s and '70s, is one of the problems we have with youth education and development today. Because most youths don't even care about anything. Everyone just cares about swagger and being fly. This is what the majority of art teaches.

But for me, it's important that people use music, poetry, and any form of art as a way to inspire people toward positivity. And I feel that this is the primary purpose of art, even before making money.

So do you believe songs can actually shift power and start revolutions?

Of course. Every country has a national anthem. We all identify with music. There's no escaping it. And music can definitely inspire change. It can be the fuel for revolution. If you go back to the Soweto riots, the people sang every time they marched, because music brings solidarity. It brings you together. Everyone is singing the same words. There's a spirit of unity that can be created with music. So there's no separating the music from the movement.

This is why the commercial industry, big business, and international corporations have come into music and bought out music companies. Today, I think music is selling more Dolce & Gabbana bags than it is inspiring people toward positivity.

What's your position on revolution? Do you support armed uprisings when necessary? Or do you believe in a more peaceful brand of rebellion?

Well, the thing about any kind of freedom is that it's shaped to the orientation and mentality of its people. Sometimes revolution can be peaceful. Sometimes it just has to be violent. But whether peaceful or violent, sacrifices are made. Blood must be spilled. This is what revolution is all about. And it is the blood that makes it sacred. It's the pain that the people went through to achieve this freedom that makes it sacred or almost holy. And then it is revered and respected so that the children will grow up to protect it with integrity.

You know, when people don't feel connected to things, that's when you have people with no national interest, like in Africa. Our independence was handed over to us by the West. But they thought: Well, we cannot afford to do this indirectly anymore. Let's look for a system to make them feel free while we still control most of their resources and business. We will put in our own people who support Western interest and power.

This is what we have in Africa today. There are people who don't have national interest at heart, because they do not understand this so-called nation. They do not feel that national instinct or pride that would make anybody feel, "I have to do something for my country. I have to be my country." Because, first of all, the countries in Africa are not, per se, African countries. Nigeria, for example, is not even an African word. How many countries are African words?

Speaking of Western intersts ... How do you feel about the United States' involvement in Libya? Was it necessary to become involved? Or did America make a mistake?

Well, it was not only America that made the mistake. France is out there making the same mistake. Personally, I don't believe that America or France or any Western nation gives a fuck about any African country or any African person anywhere. Nobody should tell me that they are in Libya bombing Gaddafi because they want the people to be free. If you want people to be free, bombs don't protect anybody. Bombs are made to destroy. You can't use bombs as a weapon of protection.

So the no-fly zone in Libya is not for African people. I do not support it. First of all, Libya does not even have international construction companies that can rebuild Tripoli. And once the West finishes destroying one of the best and most beautiful African capitals, they're going to bring their multinational construction companies there and they'll collect billions of dollars from the people of Libya to rebuild it.

For another thing, this is a country where the West never had any influence because Gaddafi was the only African leader who nationalized all his industries. This is the only African country I know of that's giving people social security. And now the West wants influence there. So all this Benghazi movement or whatever ... I don't even believe in it anymore. It has lost its purpose.

I don't believe that Gaddafi is more powerful than the people of Libya. If the people truly wanted Gaddafi to leave, he would leave because the majority would be against him. Like we are seeing in Syria today, the people want al-Assad to leave. But it is America and Europe that's keeping that guy in power because they believe he is a leader who buffers them from Iran. They don't want him to go and the country to fall into the hands of Iran. So they are watching people die every day in Syria.

Are the people of Lybia more important than the people in Syria? People are dying every day in Syria. And what has been done? Absolutely nothing.

Obviously, you're a man of very firm, forceful political opinions. And you've even said that you would start a political party. Is that something that you're truly committed to?

Oh, yes. Politics for me is very important. Because music can only inspire. It can't really enforce change. Power is politics, because politics is what controls our lives.

But politics is practiced by people who never use the airport or commercial jets. And yet they're making rules for air travel every day. They don't go through the stress that we go through. They don't feel what we feel. They're just making it hell while they go and take private planes. They also make decisions on housing. But they live in big villas. They've never been to any ghetto. They've never seen how people are living.

That is power and it is affecting our lives. So to be able to change things, we have to be a part of that politics. Even if it is not a ruling party, I feel that a government is only as powerful as its opposition. Either way, it is perfect for me. If my party is the ruling party, we will do a great job. And if my party is the opposition, we will do a great job.

 

 

PUB: Free contest, 15th Mildred and Albert Panowski Playwriting Competition, prize: $2,000

Free contest, 15th Mildred and Albert Panowski

Playwriting Competition, prize: $2,000

Deadline: 1 September 2011

The Playwriting Award was established in 1977 by the Forest Roberts Theatre at Northern Michigan University. From 1978 through 1993, the Shiras Institute, a prominent Upper Michigan philanthropic fund, participated in this event, which was known as the Shiras Institute/Forest Roberts Theatre Playwriting Award. Beginning with the fourteenth annual competition, Dr. James A. Panowski, director of the Forest Roberts Theatre, has provided financial assistance for the competition in memory of his parents, Albert and Mildred Panowski. In 1993, Dr. Panowski became the sole benefactor of the competition, which now bears the name of his parents. The award is designed to encourage and stimulate artistic growth among educational and professional playwrights. It provides students and faculty the unique opportunity to mount and produce an original work on the university stage. The playwright will benefit from seeing the work on its feet in front of an audience and from professional adjudication by guest critics.

Judging

Each play will be read and judged by members of a screening committee. Semi-finalists will be read by a select departmental committee and finalists will be judged by an undergraduate and graduate theatre student, the director, the designer, a playwriting instructor and an at-large play reader.

Award

* $2,000 cash award to the winning playwright.
* A fully-mounted production during the following year’s theatre season.
* The winning playwright will be flown to Marquette to serve as Artist-in-Residence the week of the show.
* The production of the winning play may be entered in the American College Theatre Festival competition.
* Room and board will be provided.
* Classroom and media appearances, along with conducting seminars and workshops will be part of the residency.
* The winning playwright may be asked to participate in a script development workshop, working with a professional dramaturge, the director, and an assembled cast. Transportation, room and board will be provided.

Winning Playwright

* Northern Michigan University has the right to produce the play for five performances, as part of the theatre season and for any additional performances if entered in the American College Theatre Festival.
* Northern Michigan University has the right to use the name of the play and the author's name in publicity and promotion.
* Northern Michigan University has the right to negotiate with the playwright for future productions of the work.
* In the event of all subsequent publications or productions of the winning manuscript (or versions thereof), and as one of the stipulations of the award, the author agrees to indicate in a footnote or in the playbill that the script won the Mildred and Albert Panowski Playwriting Award by the Forest Roberts Theatre at Northern Michigan University.
* Northern Michigan University will not make any additional claims to the use of the script.
* The winning playwright is ineligible to enter future playwriting competitions at Northern Michigan University.
* The Forest Roberts Theatre reserves the right to video tape the production for archival purposes and/or the Kennedy Center/ American College Theatre Festival

Playwriting Competition Rules

1. There is a broad theme selected each year for the competition that entries for that year must adhere to. There is no restriction to style.

1.2. Theme:

The Panowski Playwriting Competition theme for entries submitted during 2011-2012 is “environmental issues.” This includes but is not limited to sustainability, climate, biodiversity, conservation, natural disasters, environmental health, natural resources and resource depletion, population effects, land use, energy, etc.

2. The competition is open to any playwright, but only one play per playwright may be entered per year.

3. Entries must be original, full-length plays or musicals. They also may be co-authored, based upon factual material or an adaptation. The applicant must be the owner and controller of the copyright. The legal clearance of materials not in the public domain is the full responsibility of the playwright.

4.One-act plays and works previously entered in playwriting competitions sponsored by Northern Michigan University are ineligible.

5. Submission is restricted to plays that have not been previously produced or published.

6. No revisions will be accepted once a script has been submitted.

7. No written or oral critique will be given on plays submitted.

8 .Entries may be submitted starting February 15, 2011 must be received no later than September 1, 2011 to be considered for the current theme. The Winner will be announced in December.

9. Northern Michigan University reserves the right to accept or reject any play entered in the contest.

10. Paper scripts must be securely bound within a notebook, cover or folder and clearly identified. All entries must be accompanied with a synopsis, unbound from the script, of no more than one page. Scripts bound with staples or fasteners are not acceptable. They must be either typewritten or word processed. Entries not meeting these criteria will be disqualified.

11. By submitting a paper copy of the script the playwright agrees to allow their work to be scanned into a PDF.

12. Each paper script must be accompanied with a stamped, self-addressed envelope and a 3 X 5" index card with:

Name
Address
City, State & ZIP
Area Code & Phone Number
E-mail Address
TITLE OF PLAY

Index card should be paper-clipped to the script!

IMPORTANT:

13. Paper entries not accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope with sufficient postage will not be returned.

14. All entries will be handled with extreme care, but Northern Michigan University cannot assume responsibility for lost or damaged scripts. It is suggested that playwrights retain copies of their scripts.

Contact Information:

 For submissions: submit online here

Website: http://webb.nmu.edu/ForestRobertsTheatre/

 

 

PUB: Writers Afrika: British Red Cross International Day of the Disappeared Creative Writing Competition

British Red Cross International

Day of the Disappeared Creative Writing Competition

Deadline: 30 August 2011

The International Day of the Disappeared (30 August) is a reminder that a great number of people are missing as a result of conflicts around the world.

Each year, the Red Cross marks the day by commemorating those who have gone missing in armed conflicts or other situations of violence – and remembers the plight of their families.

Creative writing competition

The International Day of the Disappeared (30 August) commemorates people who have gone missing throughout the world in situations of violence and armed conflict. It is a reminder of the hundreds of thousands of families who are unaware of the fate of their loved ones, and organisations like the Red Cross who work to restore family contact between separated family members.

Give your voice to the thousands of missing people throughout the world by entering our creative writing competition.

Rules

There are only two rules:

1. Your writing should be based on the theme of ‘the disappeared’.
2. It should fit onto one side of A4 paper.

So this could be poetry, prose, a comic strip, a short story, an excerpt from your diary, a song... anything at all that you can write on the chosen theme.

Entries can be either typed or handwritten. Drawings and illustrations are welcomed, but remember – this is a creative writing competition – so these should accompany your message, not be the message. Translations from any language into English are also welcomed, either your own work or that of a friend.

The competition is open to everyone and all ages. The deadline is 30 August.

Prizes and judging

The winning entry will receive a £50 cash prize and a £50 national book voucher.

A compendium of the top entries will be compiled and published for International Day of the Disappeared 2012. All authors of published entries will receive a free copy.

Entries will be judged by a small panel of judges, including local authors and Red Cross representatives.

How to enter

You can enter by emailing your work to entries@redcross.org.uk or by posting it to:

Creative writing competition
British Red Cross
Bradbury House
Apple Lane
Sowton Industrial Estate
Exeter
Devon
EX2 7HA
Terms and conditions

1. Entries must be original, unpublished and not accepted for publication. They should be written in English.
2. The name and address of the entrant should be clearly listed separately from the entry itself.
3. Receipt of entry will be given by email if a valid email address is supplied.
4. A list of commended entries and the winner will be posted on this website, and sent out by email to addresses provided.
5. Copyright will remain with the author, but the British Red Cross reserves the right to publish any winning or commended entries after the end of the competition.
6. The winning entry will be announced within a month of the deadline on 30 August, 2011.
7. The judges' decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into regarding the results.
8. Submitted entries will not be returned.
9. Neither the judges nor competition organisers are eligible to enter the competition.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: entries@redcross.org.uk

For submissions: entries@redcross.org.uk

Website: http://www.redcross.org.uk

 

 

PUB: Submissions > Literary Laundry

Submissions

We look forward to discovering great literature and encourage all writers to submit their work. Literary Laundry rejects the belief that authors must pay in order to have their work read. We therefore require no submission fee.


Literary Laundry Competitions

Each issue of Literary Laundry is accompanied by a writing competition. All pieces submitted to us for review will be entered into consideration for our Awards of Distinction. We offer the following cash awards:

$500 for best poem
$500 for best short story
$250 for best one-act drama

In addition to considering undergraduate works for the Awards of Distinction, we will also consider them for the following undergraduate awards:

$250 for best poem
$250 for best short story

Lastly, each issue of Literary Laundry will feature the work of one visual artist. The "Featured Artist" will receive an award of $100.

Submissions for our fourth issue are due December 1, 2011. There is no fee to submit.


Novellas and Chapbooks: The Literary Laundry Series

Literary Laundry is now publishing (in print) both novellas and poetry chapbooks. Authors selected for publication will receive $250 in upfront payment and 33% of all royalties earned on sales.

Submissions for these two series are rolling. There is no fee to submit.

See the submission policies below for further details.


Literary Laundry Submission Policies

In order to submit work to either the journal or the showcase , authors must subscribe to Literary Laundry and create an account with username and password.

Click here to view submission policies for the Journal.
  1. Authors may submit only one work per category during each review cycle. Authors can, however, submit work in multiple categories during one review cycle.
  2. Poets may submit up to three pages of poetry. It does not matter to us whether we receive one three page poem or many short poems on three pages. Poems, however, must be submitted in one document. This document should not be formatted with multiple columns to a page unless such formatting is integral to the endeavors of the poem.
  3. Authors submitting prose fiction may submit one short story (or one chapter from a larger piece) per review cycle. We ask that submissions be single-spaced and kept to less than 10 pages single-space.
  4. Authors submitting one-act drama may submit one piece per review cycle. We ask that submissions be single-spaced and kept to less than 15 pages single-spaced.
  5. Submissions should be formatted using 1 inch margins and a minimum font size of 11 points. Of course, if formatting manipulation is required by the artistic aims of the piece, it is permissible.
  6. Authors must include a cover letter as a preface to their submission. This cover letter should contain a one paragraph biography and a one to two paragraph “abstract” explaining why the writing submitted is intellectually evocative or of interest to a contemporary audience. This cover letter should be included in the document submitted.
  7. Undergraduates should indiciate their school, year of study, field of study, and undergraduate status beneath their signature on the cover letter.
    The Signature should be formatted as follows:

    Name
    University, Class of (Year)
    B.A./B.S. Candidate in (Field of Study)
    Undergraduate

    Failure to provide such details in the cover letter signature may jeopardize consideration for undergraute awards.

  8. We welcome work that does not conventionally fall in one of these three genres. Please submit the work to the genre of your preference and explain its form in the abstract.
  9. All submissions must be previously unpublished.
  10. In order to submit work to Literary Laundry, authors must subscribe to the journal and create an account with username and password.
  11. Literary Laundry is committed to ensuring that authors retain full rights to their submissions. We request that pieces selected for publication not appear in other literary journals within 18 months of online publication by Literary Laundry. If a work published on Literary Laundry is published again in the future, we ask only for an acknowledgment that the piece first appeared in Literary Laundry.
Click here to view submission policies for our Featured Artist.
  1. Featured Artists should submit between 8-10 works in their portfolio. Not all works from the accepted portfolio will be published.
  2. Images should be submitted as JPEG files.
  3. All artists must provide a biography of approximately 1-2 paragraphs.
  4. All portfolios must be accompanied by an "abstract" of approximately 250-350 words. The abstract should describe the artist's inspirations and aspirations, style and substance. The abstract presents an opportunity for the artist to explain the intricacies of his/her work to the Literary Laundry readership. It will be published in the journal on the "Featured Artist" page. 
  5. The Editors reserve the right to modify abstracts before publication on the "Featured Artist" page.
Click here to view submission policies for our Author Showcase.
  1. Authors must include a biography (picture is optional but would be preferred).
  2. Authors must include an “abstract” explaining both the aesthetic character of their writing in general, and why the particular pieces submitted for showcase exemplify their endeavors. This "abstract" should also detail why submitted work is intellectually evocative or of interest to a contemporary audience. It should be approximately 300 words.
  3. Authors submitting only poetry for showcase should submit between 8 and 10 works. At least 3 must be previously unpublished.
  4. Authors submitting only prose fiction for showcase should submit between 3 and 4 short stories (or chapters from larger works). At least one must be previously unpublished.
  5. Authors submitting only one-act drama may submit between 3 and 4 pieces. At least one must be previously unpublished.
  6. Authors wishing to submit in multiple categories may submit a total of 10 pieces. Of these 10 works, no more than 4 can be prose-fiction or one-act drama. At least 1/3 of submissions must be previously unpublished.
  7. Authors must indicate which pieces are previously published and which are previously unpublished. Authors must identify the place and time of publication for previously published work.
Click here to view submission policies for our Chapbook Series.
  1. Please submit your chapbook as a PDF. The book interior should be formatted exactly as the author (you) would like to see it published.
  2. Files should be formatted to trim size 5.5'' x 8.5''
  3. Chapbooks should not exceed 50 pages. This count includes table of contents, prose introduction, author biography, and any necessary appendices.
  4. Each chapbook should contain a 5-10 page, single-spaced prose introduction that reflects upon the book's aesthetic aspirations. (Note: Because this introduction will be written in 5.5'' x 8.5'' trim, it will be much shorter than a 5-10 pages in a standard document).
  5. Chapbooks should contain a table of contents.
  6. With the exception of the introduction, authors are free to format the remainder of their chapbook however they choose.
    • Chapbooks may contain images, in either color or black and white
    • Poems may be formatted in any fonts, colors, justifications, etc.
    • Authors may include appendices as they see fit.
  7. Chapbooks must contain at least 10 previously unpublished poems. Previously published poems should be noted on an appendix page that lists which poems were previously published and where.
  8. Chapbooks must include an author biography at the end of the book. This biography should be less than a page in length. Personal photo may be included (though this is optional)
  9. Books selected for publication will receive $250 in upfront payment and 33% of all royalties earned on sales.
  10. Please do not query until 6 months following submission.
Click here to view submission policies for our Novella Series.
  1. Please submit your novella as a PDF. The book interior should be formatted exactly as the author (you) would like to see it published.
  2. Files should be formatted to trim size 5.5'' x 8.5''
  3. Novellas should be between 10,000 and 30,000 words in length.
  4. Each novella should contain a single-spaced prose introduction that reflects upon the intellectual/aesthetic aspiration of the book. Introductions should be between 5 and 10 pages in length.
  5. With the exception of the introduction, the author is free to format the remainder of the novella as he/she chooses.
    • Novellas may be formatted in any fonts or justifications. They cannot, however, contain color.
    • Authors may include appendices as they see fit.
    • Please include a table of contents if the novella is divided into multiple sections..
  6. All novella submissions must be previously unpublished.
  7. Novellas must include an author biography at the end of the book. This biography should be less than a page in length. Personal photo may be included (though this is optional).
  8. Books selected for publication will receive $250 in upfront payment and 33% of all royalties earned on sales.
  9. Please do not query until 6 months following submission.
Frequently Asked Questions.
  1. Does Literary Laundry accept submissions from authors of all ages?

    Yes. Though we receive many submissions from students (both undergraduate and graduate), a substantial portion of our submissions come from non-students. We understand that masterful writing transcends age. As such, we encourage all writers to submit.

     

  2. Does Literary Laundry accept submissions from outside the United States?

    Yes. We love to read these works as well.

     

  3. Does Literary Laundry accept work written in languages other than English?

    No. We will, however, accept work translated into English. If we select for publication a poem translated into English, we will happily publish the original text beside it.

     

  4. How strictly should submissions adhere to the submissions guidelines?

    Quite simply, the answer is strictly. Submissions that lack cover letters or submissions that flagrantly violate page length/formatting regulations risk disqualification from our competition.

    The Literary Laundry Editors want, first and foremost, to facilitate literary exchange. Poetry submission that run 3.5 pages or short stories that run 11 pages, for example, are unlikely to upset anybody. That said, authors enter such waters at their own risk.

     

  5. Many of Literary Laundry's editors hail from Stanford. What is the relationship between the journal and the school?

    Literary Laundry is not affiliated with Stanford University in any official capacity. Many members of our editorial team possess personal connections to the university because the Executive Editors created the journal while studying together at Stanford.

    Literary Laundry operates independently of any external affiliation. It is managed entirely by its editorial team.

Deadlines and the Literary Laundry Calendar

 

The submission deadline for our next journal issue (and fourth round of competitions) is December 1, 2011.

Click here to view our submissions calendar.


A Note:

Literary Laundry strives to be accessible and writer-friendly. Nonetheless, our primary aims are fast turn-around and the production of a high-quality journal. We do not intend to hold your work for longer than one journal cycle. All submitters to issue 3, for example, will be notified within 6 months following the release of issue 2.

If you submit work to Literary Laundry, you will receive either an acceptance e-mail or a notification that the new issue has been published. We attempt to announce publication releases within 24 hours of loading the journal online. We assume that our submitters support Literary Laundry's desire to showcase masterful and intellectually engaging works of creative writing. Rather than "reject," we invite our submitters to read the journal and discuss it on the site.


Last, but not least…

Literary Laundry wants to help promote your writing. Periodically, we will nominate works published in our journal for consideration by:

  • Best of the Net
  • Best American Poetry
  • Pushcart Prize
  • Poetry Daily
  • Verse Daily


Click here to submit


Click here to subscribe to Literary Laundry and create an account for submission

 

EVENT: Atlanta—The Black Girl Project

 

 

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The Black Girl Project partners represent a diverse community working together to empower girls.

Our partners are central to the success of The Black Girl Project, and include such groups as foundations, youth organizations, and media outlets.

If you are interested in becoming a Black Girl Project partner, please contact hello@blackgirlproject.org for more information.

 

 

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INTERVIEW: John Edgar Wideman - The Art of Fiction No. 171 > Paris Review

John Edgar Wideman,

The Art of Fiction No. 171

 

Interviewed by Steven Beeber

 

 

Spring 2002
No. 161

 

John Edgar Wideman is a big man. Though slightly stooped at sixty, he still has a basketball player’s body—long arms, huge hands, legs that seem to rise nearly to his chest.

Long admired for its lyricism, Wideman’s work carries with it the rhythms and cadences of black vernacular and music. In his acclaimed Homewood trilogy—the novels Hiding Place (1981) and Sent for You Yesterday (1983), and the short-story collection Damballah (1981)—he evokes the spiritual and physical life of the working-class black community in Pittsburgh where he grew up. Although he left Homewood to attend the University of Pennsylvania on a basketball scholarship, the legacies of family and community remain a rich source of material for his work. In Brothers and Keepers (1984), he writes about his brother, who is serving a life sentence in prison. In Philadelphia Fire (1990), he writes about the revolutionary organization MOVE and about his son, who is also imprisoned. Most recently, in a collection of pieces titled Hoop Roots (2001), he has returned to a childhood passion: basketball.

Wideman sat down for a first interview in his small, book-lined office at the University of Massachusettes, where he has taught since 1986. A second conversation took place last fall at a crowded restaurant in Boston. In both meetings, Wideman spoke for hours, only occasionally raising his voice above a near whisper.

 

INTERVIEWER

I wanted to start at the beginning, so to speak. Many of your novels are set in Homewood, where you grew up. What was life like for you there?

JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN

I lived with my mother and father and brothers and sisters some of the time; some of the time my mother and father were feuding, so my mother would take us to live in my grandmother’s house. When I went to my grandmother’s house, not only was my grandmother around, but her mother lived in Homewood, and then there were great aunts; and, of course, there was my grandfather and his friends. So there I was a little kid and I was around every age bracket and not only seeing them, but hearing them talk—being taken around the neighborhood by my grandfather and meeting his cronies. It was very rich in that way.

 

INTERVIEWER

What sort of stories did you hear?

WIDEMAN

My aunt Geraldine was the unofficial historian and storyteller. She had all the information about family members and the gossip that came out of the church, because we were very much part of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. At family gatherings, the older folk had the floor, had pride of place, and it was their stories I remember.

 

INTERVIEWER

Could you give me a brief example of one or two of the stories?

WIDEMAN

Brief examples of family stories that I heard when I was three or five or six or seven? I wouldn’t have a clue where to start. They weren’t so much set pieces—though there were some of those. They were more stories about family peculiarities, and characters in the family or in the neighborhood. Part of it was just hearing. You had to be there to appreciate it, you had to be part of the fabric of the history for them to have real meaning.

One character was Aunt Fanny, who went to everybody’s funeral. She always carried an umbrella and she always was dressed up because she always was on the way to somebody’s funeral. Didn’t matter whether she knew them or not. She was going to go to the funeral and she would talk about the person and half the time make up the story because she didn’t know, really. My grandfather on my mother’s side told stories about his work and working with the other Italian paperhangers. The stories also changed as I got older. They got bawdier; they got raunchier. Sometimes they just changed because people change. Part of what would happen is that other people would add little bits and pieces to the story. Or they would amen it or somebody would say, Well that’s not the way it was. What really happened was x, y, and z. You would get competing versions, and it became like dueling banjos. People would try to out talk or over talk or loud talk one another.

The stories were performances. It was how somebody told it, not the content. Just to reproduce what was actually said wouldn’t do it at all. There isn’t the energy, there isn’t the call and response. They are not set pieces, but folk art, folk performance.

 

INTERVIEWER

Since there are competing oral versions, where do truth and imagination combine to create a full story?

WIDEMAN

Truth becomes a function of the choral nature of the exchanges. Stories are told over time, and so they naturally accrue meanings. The stories were common property. And so you weren’t after a version of truth. You were after the most entertaining version.

In Haiti, as I understand it, storytelling and history itself are not a business of necessarily elucidating facts or the truth of an incident, but finding the version that is most entertaining and therefore will get retold and live in immortality. When I read that about Haitian folklore and history, it struck home—it’s exactly what I observed in my own family.

 

INTERVIEWER

What were you reading growing up?

WIDEMAN

Anything I came across. Pretty eclectic, pretty happenstance. I read all the books that were in the Shadyside Boy’s Club library—books about submarines, dogs, grizzly bears. There were a lot of books in my house, so that was another source. My mother was a reader, my father was a reader. Not anything particularly sophisticated. My mother read fat historical or romantic novels; my father liked to read Westerns, Zane Grey, that kind of stuff. Whatever they brought in, I read.

 

INTERVIEWER

Did you read any African American writers then?

WIDEMAN

No. Those didn’t come my way. Frank Yerby was around, but I didn’t even know Frank Yerby was African-American. I liked stuff that had an adventurous edge to it, that took me to places I had no experience of. Movies and TV were much less a part of daily life—there was nothing to grab the imagination. Books were my Internet, my TV, my movies all rolled into one.

 

INTERVIEWER

It wasn’t a sense of escape from something unhappy, then, but simply a longing for something exotic?

WIDEMAN

I think I was kind of melancholy as a kid. I spent a lot of time inside my own head, a lot of time sort of staring into space wondering what the hell was going on. I had solitary instincts when I was very young, and reading was a way to make that time a little more entertaining.

 

INTERVIEWER

Did you write back then?

WIDEMAN

Not particularly. I always liked to write and had fun writing, but I didn’t have any pretensions about being a writer. I liked to read and liked to putz around and write little stories or poems, but my thing was sports.

 

INTERVIEWER

You went to the University of Pennsylvania on a basketball scholarship. Was sports something you pursued simply for the love of it, or was it a kind of ticket out?

WIDEMAN

The main appeal of sports was you got away from the adult world, you got into the kid world. That’s still what I like about it, that’s why I still watch basketball on TV, why I hold onto that basketball dream, because I associate it with no responsibilities—you’ve just got to put the ball in the basket, beat the other guy. It’s an instant feel-good when it goes right. So no, it wasn’t an escape. I didn’t have anything I wanted to get out of, that I wanted to escape from. My world was my world.

At Penn, if it hadn’t been for basketball, I would have bombed out. It would have been just too weird. I did leave a couple of times during my freshman year, but my coach Dick Harter came and got me and said, Nah nah nah, it will get better, John, just wait till practice starts. And sure enough, once basketball practice started and I had a very secure subculture—the basketball subculture, the coach’s office, the other players—then things were a lot easier. A lot more natural.

 

INTERVIEWER

You’ve written that being at Penn, being in that environment was like being inside of your body, yet watching yourself from without. Can you elaborate?

WIDEMAN

The world of the University of Pennsylvania, and maybe even the world I’m in today—because they are so different from the community, the people, the values where I grew up—don’t seem quite real, never seemed quite real, which, yes, put me in the position of an outsider. At Penn, I was like an anthropologist traveling in the Congo, but without the power the anthropologists presume in their writing. I was very centered in my own culture as I observed all these things, but I knew quite well the power of the foreign world that I was in. I always felt that I was there, not exactly on loan, but as a kind of test case, and that created a lot of pressure.

I could see that I was being made a special case because the only other black faces were people dishing out the food in the cafeteria or cleaning up the place, or people out on the street. I had some perception of all that, but I didn’t make any kind of righteous judgment of it—that seemed the only way to me at the time. That’s the way the world was. There were no universities in Homewood. If you wanted to go to a university you went out into this foreign environment, and that’s how it was done. I didn’t think of trying to change the university, I didn’t think of trying to find a way to get more black people in school. In fact, and I’m embarrassed to say it, to a degree I’d see other black faces on campus like me as a threat because I realized I was a special case, and I didn’t know exactly how these other special cases related to my special case. There was only so much goodwill to go around. Could they screw up in a way that would hurt me, or reflect on me? So it was a hard time, it was a lonely time, and I felt very threatened a lot of the time, and I guess I haven’t gotten over those feelings to this day. I believed that I could just sort of snap my finger or some voice could come on the PA system in the sky and say, OK, it’s all over, and—poof—the buildings and the classes and the whole trajectory of my life that was embodied in this place would disappear. At times I felt like that was fine, because I would just wind up back on my home turf, but there were other times I felt, I don’t know where I will go if I lose this, if the university goes away.

 

INTERVIEWER

If basketball helped provide a more secure environment at Penn, was writing a similar refuge?

WIDEMAN

There wasn’t that much of it at the beginning. By my junior year, I began to have airs and to construct certain images of myself, and one of them that I liked was the possibility of being a writer; but it wasn’t based on writing—the writer was a kind of rebel and an attractive cultural figure. He was someone who set his—I wouldn’t have thought her—who set his own terms, who was a maverick, and I knew enough about writing to see that just my physical situation was such that I was in a writer’s position—an observer, an outsider, with a foot in more than one world. So writing was a natural pose for me. And then I got in with some people, I got to be friends with some people who thought of themselves as poets, a “literary crowd,” let’s say.

 

INTERVIEWER

A bad crowd.

WIDEMAN

Yeah, a bad literary crowd. They were the people smoking pot. Fornicating. Mixing interracially. Philadelphia’s version of Greenwich Village was Powelton Village, and that was the place where I could go to party and not stick out like a sore thumb. I felt I could go up and speak to anybody at the party. Powelton was the bohemian fringe, and being different I was attracted to it. It all kind of worked into the writing.

 

INTERVIEWER

How much time did you spend writing in those days? Did you have a kind of rule, like “today I’ll write three hours”?

WIDEMAN

Oh, no. Not at that time. It was more like most young people. Bingeing. I might spend a weekend writing, not doing much of anything else—finish practice one night, go out drinking, get home at eleven o’clock, and stay up until four writing. But not too often.

 

INTERVIEWER

When did writing begin to have a more prominent place in your life?

WIDEMAN

I didn’t start writing with any real seriousness, that is putting time into it, until I was a senior. By that time I knew I wanted to do something that would allow time to write. I don’t mean the other stuff wasn’t serious. I just simply mean becoming more like a professional. I just mean putting in the time.

Writing was important to me in earlier years because, yes, it was a refuge and it was a place where I was figuring things out. It was crucially important. I was an African American student on a campus that was ninety-nine percent not African American, in a little island of white folk in the middle of a huge black, residential community. Kids from West Philadelphia did not attend the University of Pennsylvania, so we lived in a kind of walled city. I can remember getting on a bus with one of my buddies, Darryl, and just riding and riding until we came to what looked like a black neighborhood and getting out and walking around. The funny thing is we took the bus in the wrong direction. If we’d taken one going into South Philly all we would have had to do is cross the bridge and we would have been in a huge black neighborhood.

So I was trying to keep myself in balance and make sense of things. In a sense, I needed myself to talk to. I was serious, but I wasn’t thinking in terms of publishing; I wasn’t thinking in terms of somebody else necessarily reading what I wrote.

When I went to Oxford after college and lived outside of the country, that’s when I started to spend a lot of time actually putting words on paper and keeping journals and showing the writing to folks and reading a lot with the purpose of teaching myself this art.

The writing might have been in many ways a tool to help me figure out what I sensed was missing. Who is all this stuff happening to? I was having an extremely diverse set of experiences. I was moving along a socioeconomic axis, moving along a racial axis, with access to different sorts of people, all kinds of people. The people who were around a university community. I had friends who were back in Pittsburgh who were already married and had families, and some friends who were in trouble, and then there were all the relationships with family and my siblings. So the writing was a chance to slow down. I was creating an identity, creating a persona to help me make sense of things. It was a real necessity, stepping outside of the pageant, the whirlwind, and settling down a little bit and trying to make sense of it. I didn’t have role models; I didn’t know anybody who was trying to do the things I was doing. I didn’t know what it meant. And sometimes I needed to know what it meant, how to make decisions, how to make choices. I would find myself very angry about something, or very unhappy about something and not really know why, and the writing was a way to put some perspective on those very powerful emotions that were running rampant and kind of attaching themselves to different people, to different situations and circumstances, but I didn’t know if they really belonged to me. I would say writing continues to play that role for me, that it’s always played that role for me, stepping back and making sense.

 

INTERVIEWER

Tell me a little bit about how you first got published.

WIDEMAN

It was probably not typical, because one of the first things I published was a novel. I don’t think there were more than two or three stories published in any kind of national way before the novel. I didn’t publish stories. One reason for that is circumstances. I made a contact with an editor when I was a senior in college. I was the first black kid, along with another guy from the West Coast, to win a Rhodes scholarship since Alain Locke in the 1920s. This was 1963, right at the beginning of the civil-rights movement, so I was a big news story. Look picked up the story . . . and I was famous for a minute. The guy who was to become my editor, Hiram Hayden, and his son were sitting at breakfast, and the son read a newspaper story about me—a young black man who liked to write, who wanted to be a novelist some day—and he challenged his father: Dad, you’re always talking about finding young writers and there are no black writers around and here’s a guy—and da da da. He really challenged his father, and his father wrote me a note. And Betty Wideman didn’t raise no fools. Here was a note from an established New York publisher, at that time Knopf, so I wrote back and we met in Washington, D.C., and he told me, Young man, if you ever have anything to publish send it to me. So there it was, a real opening. I kept that name, and eventually when I had a book about half finished I sent it to him and he liked it. So that’s how I got my first book published. That made it much easier than sending manuscripts out to miscellaneous editors. Nobody was publishing stuff by African American people anyway in the little magazines at that time. Or the big ones.

 

INTERVIEWER

You’ve said before that you had a kind of breakthrough in your writing after returning home for your grandmother’s wake.

WIDEMAN

My grandmother died when I was in my early thirties. I’d been teaching in Wyoming since 1974, and I returned home from there for her funeral, which was a very formal occasion because she was one of the elders of the community and very well known. So family gathered, people in the community gathered, the church gathered, and for me it was a very rich reintroduction into the culture that I had been absent from for all intents and purposes since virtually high school in 1959. That’s a big gap. It’s not like I didn’t return home for other events, and I used to return home in the summertime to work, but for years I was being reacculturated—in college, in grad school, in England, becoming a college teacher in Philadelphia. So it was quite a powerful reimmersion in my roots to come back to Homewood then.

 

INTERVIEWER

The experience of crossing lines of race, class, and culture is obviously very important to you. Some critics say that your writing after the Homewood trilogy—after you returned for your grandmother’s wake—shifted in emphasis from a white orientation to one that was primarily black.

WIDEMAN

I don’t buy that kind of bifurcation. I think throughout my writing life I’ve been looking at the people and experiences closest to me and trying to find a way to talk about them. What has happened over time is a natural growth or change or sophistication of technique and different modes of representation, which I have played around with and moved on with. But the subject matter remains essentially the same. If you look a little more closely, I think the same people keep coming up again and again in my writing. At least in my mind.

 

INTERVIEWER

Maybe what these critics mean is that the style has changed more than the subject matter.

WIDEMAN

In a way they are inseparable. In the first couple of books it was just, Gee, let’s try writing a book. And I did it. And I got published. Now I wanted to have more to say about how people talk about the books, where the books fit. I wanted that to be part of what’s embodied in the writing. So, beginning with Damballah, what’s there in the work is a kind of thoroughgoing and explicit exploration of a collective African American past in an attempt to write history from the point of view of an African American sensibility, and a kind of combativeness and a focus on the kind of struggle over the nature of reality that has been going on in this country from the very beginning.

 

INTERVIEWER

Is that why you seem to place such an emphasis on different viewpoints, different perspectives, not only in Damballah, but in all of your later works?

WIDEMAN

Story becomes a subject, I hope, in all sorts of ways. An implicit and an explicit subject. Why people tell stories, how people tell stories, who’s telling them, questions of audience, the political ramifications of stories, the survival dimension of stories, stories as a way of saving and refining and sophisticating language, stories as language, language as story, culture, how a very distinct African American culture is underpinned by a language and an attitude toward language. Not simply in the way, say, French language is related to French literature—that’s an easy one—or the way German language is related to German literature. It’s more complex when you’re talking about African American language and experience and culture, and I set out to investigate and highlight that and project some of my thinking about those things; so it’s a conscious project and I think the books express that.

 

INTERVIEWER

There’s a phrase that comes up in a lot of your books: “All stories are true.” What do you mean by that, and how does it relate to your work?

WIDEMAN

The source of that phrase is Chinua Achebe, and Achebe’s source is Igbo culture, traditional West African philosophy, religion, et cetera. It’s an Old World idea and it’s very mysterious. Rather than say I understand it, let’s say I’ve been writing under the star or the question mark of that proverb for a long time and I think it’s something that challenges. You peel one skin and there’s another skin underneath it—“all stories are true.” It was a useful means to point out that you don’t have a majority and a minority culture, you don’t have a black and a white culture—with one having some sort of privileged sense of history and the other a latecomer and inarticulate—you have human beings who are all engaged in a kind of never-ending struggle to make sense of their world. “All stories are true” then suggests a kind of ultimate democracy. It also suggests a kind of chaos. If you say, Wideman’s an idiot, and someone else says, No, he’s a genius, and all stories are true, then who is Wideman? It’s a challenge. A paradox. For me it’s the democratic aspect of it that’s so demanding, and it’s been a kind of guide for me in this sense. I know if I can capture certain voices I heard in Homewood—even though those people are not generally remembered, even though they never made a particular mark on the world—at certain times and in certain places and in certain tones those voices could tell us everything we need to know about being a human being.

If you use your imagination a little bit and think of dance or music as story, then those too fall under the spell of that phrase.

 

INTERVIEWER

The notion of music as story seems particularly true in Sent for You Yesterday, that blues seems to carry a language of its own that speaks through the generations. When Albert Wilkes, the blues musician, returns to Homewood, there is an almost magical sense of bonding that takes place in the community.

WIDEMAN

He’s also the one who opens the door to chaos by killing a cop, with all the attendant misery that act would bring down. So he has both roles.

 

INTERVIEWER

Do you see your writing as a political act? As a way to preserve black culture?

WIDEMAN

I would hope so. And I would hope I could do it in such a way that it is not simply preserving what’s passed. For me the truth of the music, the truth of the blues is immediacy. You or I can sit down and listen to Big Bill Broonzy or listen to Bessie Smith or Lightnin’ Hopkins or a singer who has never recorded, but when we sit and listen in the present tense, something can happen and that something connects us so that the past is alive again. The past and the present merge, and you merge with the blues singer, and the blues singer merges with other blues singers, and ultimately with the drums and Africa, and with something that transcends time and place that is more about the human capacity to turn experience into metaphor, into language, into music, into a particular way of holding and touching someone else. So that is the ultimate project for me—figuring out how language can perform this same kind of trick that music does.

 

INTERVIEWER

Do you feel you’ve been successful?

WIDEMAN

I think that’s a better question for a critic than for me. Have I succeeded in doing it? I know I’ve tried it and talked about it and anybody who looks at the writing could find the places where it’s successful or not—it’s up to them. Do you tap your feet? Does it have that swing?

 

INTERVIEWER

The move bombing in Philadelphia in 1985 comes up a lot in your writing—in Philadelphia Fire, in Two Cities, and then also it seems to be referred to in The Cattle Killing, with its pivotal scene of the burning of the black orphanage. What is it about this event that interests you?

WIDEMAN

I think what happened in Philadelphia in 1985 with the move business was really a watershed event that is directly connected to what’s happening at this moment in large American cities. The denial of race as a problem is a factor, the Republican denial of race, the Clinton kind of mellowing out, but still no readiness to acknowledge that things are still as bad as they were at the moment of move. Certain forces that caused move have slipped underground, and they’re not just about race. They’re about a country that’s determined to demand of its citizens a bland conformity, to say to those who don’t fit in for one reason or another, the alternative is to get out. I think that’s what MOVE was all about. MOVE was the end of the sixties, the end of live and let live, plurality, a country with room enough for everybody. I think what was said to move, what was said generally to the hippies and flower power was, Huh-uh. There’s a war to fight. Get on the bus or off. MOVE was the deadly culmination of that ultimatum. And now we’ve had a fifteen-year, seventeen-year, interim since MOVE, but no real changes. In Philadelphia Fire, I tried to show how seeds were planted, a lesson of fear taught, a warning rammed down the country’s throat, our throats, that’s still being rammed down our throats, and unless we do something pretty drastic we’ll choke on it.

 

INTERVIEWER

Do you think your writing has become less focused on the personal and more focused on the political?

WIDEMAN

I don’t see the distinction. To me these are very personal issues. If my freedom is being impinged, if I have to play somebody else’s game, if I see members of my family not allowed an opportunity to earn a decent living and see the ones who rebel against those restrictions falling into deep, deep shit—though they’re in deep shit anyway—that’s very personal to me, that’s about me. So when I write about these things, there are all these political, collective ramifications, but it’s as personal as I can get.

 

INTERVIEWER

I’d like to touch briefly on the whole issue of your brother being in jail.

WIDEMAN

I’ve written and talked enough about that and I have nothing new or different to say. I hate it. It’s terrible; he shouldn’t be there. I’ll do everything I can to help him get out. He committed a crime, but he’s as much a victim of it as a perpetrator. Justice hasn’t been done in his case. He’s a political prisoner. That’s infuriating. That’s frustrating and wrong.

 

INTERVIEWER

How does this affect your writing?

WIDEMAN

I don’t know.

 

INTERVIEWER

What about your son’s imprisonment for murder?

WIDEMAN

My son doesn’t like me to talk about his situation, so I don’t. Period.

 

INTERVIEWER

Do you have a specific audience in mind when you write?

WIDEMAN

I am my audience. Not in an egotistical or narrow-minded sense. I read a lot. I think a lot about my mother, my brothers, aunts, and uncles, I think about Ishmael Reed reading something I write; I think about William Faulkner reading something I write; I think about Virginia Woolf reading something I write. In my head there’s this whole congress, this whole auditorium—it includes my mother, T. S. Eliot, José Saramago, every place I’ve been, all the people I’ve known. That’s what I relate to when I write.

 

INTERVIEWER

Who are you reading now?

WIDEMAN

I read lots and lots of stuff. I would just say I read. I hate the idea of hit parades, number one writer, number two writer, number three influence, number four—that misses the point, at least for me. And then there’s the oral influence, the oral tradition as well. At various times in my life I’ve been very indebted to particular writers, but to list them I’d have to tell you the story that went with each name, so it would be endless. I mean, Edgar Rice Burroughs influenced me, but there are other ways that he was anathema to me and I reacted negatively to him.

 

INTERVIEWER

When you do the writing, what is the process? Do you always start at the same time of day?

WIDEMAN

It’s seasonal. In the summertime I do most of what I call the brute writing, that is, putting words down on the page for the first time. Just trying to get down as many as I can. And rereading it the next day and going on from there. That happens, say, between the months of June until about November. Then I come back and teach and revise and rethink and rework. When I’m doing the brute work, I do it early in the morning; that’s the best time for me to get the stuff down on the page. That’s been my routine for years and years. I work on many things at once. I read a lot of books at the same time, I work on different projects and that changes the schedule and style somewhat. But the pattern persists. Up early before everybody else, before I get connected, before I get bugged, before I have obligations. Get the writing done first, then be the person I want to be in other ways after that.

 

INTERVIEWER

And what of the mechanical details of the writing? Do you use a computer, for instance?

WIDEMAN

I rewrite over and over again because I don’t use a computer. I use a Bic pen and a pencil. I simply write—fill a page and write between lines and on top of lines, so my manuscripts become palimpsests. They become incomprehensible to anybody but me. That means I have to rewrite them. It’s very tedious and slow. There are many, many layers; many, many edits. And at times it seems a pain in the ass. But each one of those clarifications that is scribbled is another edit. So in a funny way, it’s like I have developed a system in which there are four or five simultaneous drafts available to me, by reading between lines and using the arrows and the different print from the ink and the pencil. It’s like having transparencies. I can almost model like you model clay, because I have a whole series of words that could be the right word. Is it dry, is it parched, is it sear? Maybe all of those words are there in one form or another.

 

INTERVIEWER

How many hours per day do you spend writing during the months you’re getting down your first draft?

WIDEMAN

My answer would be meaningless. I work all the time. I work four or five hours in the morning. When I’m really going, I may do that four or five days a week. It might be one day, two hours, another day, eight because I’m going good. But for me, rewriting and different drafts go on endlessly. If I have a two-hundred-page book or two hundred pages of handwritten stuff, it might take six months to get it out of the incomprehensible stage into something somebody could read.

 

INTERVIEWER

Do you have projects mapped out to some extent before you start or does it start with something very abstract?

WIDEMAN

Every book has its own story. I’ve had a book, Hiding Place, come to me in what I would call a vision. I daydreamed the kind of Tinkerbell character who appears at the end and burns down the house in her blue gown. I had a crystal clear image of her in action. When I saw her floating through the air touching things and those things catching on fire, I had the whole novel in my head.

 

INTERVIEWER

What about the editing? Are other people involved in the editing at all?

WIDEMAN

Hiram Hayden was the editor of my first book. We had very tough, long, and educational sessions. We had real struggles about pages and words. He was hands-on. I was young and wanted that kind of response, so in that sense I was spoiled. He would sit down and put on his vodka-drinking sneakers and break out the bottle, and we would sit and go at it. I look back on those times very fondly. After him I never really had another editor like that. In some ways I don’t need what I needed then, and the whole role of editors, I think, has changed in publishing. People are not necessarily trained to do that kind of close business. I get some of that from a good copy editor, who is looking for consistencies or will come up with a thought about a word that’s been repeated too many times. The close line editing that I did with Hiram, I both haven’t wanted and haven’t found since.

 

INTERVIEWER

In your latest book, Hoop Roots, you focus on basketball. What led you to write about that specific topic now?

WIDEMAN

I’ve always wanted to write about basketball and I’ve written about it in bits and pieces in lots of other books, and this time I finally found the strength and focus to try a whole book on the subject. Or at least a series of essays linked by basketball. I love the sport and I also had to give the sport up because of age and obsolescence. This is a way to keep my hand in it, a way to celebrate that long, long love affair and also to try to elegantly and gracefully give it up.

 

INTERVIEWER

There’s a sort of elegiac tone to the book, but at the same time it’s very celebratory. And that seems to parallel how you approach many of the ongoing themes in your writing, such as music and storytelling. In fact, if you just take out the word basketball in Hoop Roots, a lot of the time it sounds like you’re talking instead about writing.

WIDEMAN

I’m sure a lot of the usual suspects appear. This is also about a certain time of life and celebrating and elegies. It’s an interesting pairing because what I’m trying to achieve in the book is a kind of balance. It’s “growing old ain’t all bad, being young ain’t all good.” They reinforce one another, reflect one another. You can’t have one without the other. It’s really a cycle, a circle. That’s what I’m trying to get at.

 

INTERVIEWER

You recently won an O. Henry prize. What effect has that had on you, and how do you feel about awards generally?

WIDEMAN

Well, it makes you feel good. Some of them put a little money in your pocket. Very few, but some do. I like it because, particularly if I can look back over a lot of years and see that they come periodically, it means somebody is still paying attention. In terms of having a voice that matters, it still matters to some group. So they’re important milestones. I know that, like any award, it’s political and arbitrary. It’s just nice to know somebody’s listening, somebody’s paying attention. And ones that are awarded by peers, that’s pretty gratifying. For me it’s important also because I’m not a best-selling author. Why should somebody take the risk of publishing my book? It keeps my hand in, gives me a certain kind of credibility, which in a cutthroat market it’s easy to lose if you didn’t sell thirty, forty thousand books in your last hardback.

 

INTERVIEWER

You’ve talked about the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church as a center of your community growing up. How did your religious upbringing impact your writing?

WIDEMAN

I could talk about that forever. Yes, in terms of the language of the preacher, the performance of the preacher, the way he moved and talked and spun, the way his sermon was backed up by music and the testimony of prayer—all that being very emotional, very rhythmical, very intense. It’s like if I’d been in the Greek islands, if I’d been Greek, around when Aeschylus and those people ended up going through those plagues—my writing of narrative would be extremely affected by all that and it would have affected my instincts. In terms of style and language, the stories of the Bible were fascinating to me. As a kid, my mother’s faith, her beliefs, her ability to transcend all sorts of terrible things that were happening, all that she passed on to me about morals, ethics, and personal worth. It penetrates almost any level I can think of. But this is in spite of the fact that I stopped going to church with my family as soon as I was able to, soon as I was big enough to bluff or lie or find something else I could say I had to do.

 

INTERVIEWER

Much of your writing focuses on your past, the world you left. Is there a sense of indebtedness, an attempt to speak for those who can’t?

WIDEMAN

I would say that I’m constructing a letter about myself and an identity for myself that is always more complex than the immediate business at hand. The immediate business at hand, teaching, being sixty, having kids in college, living in a middle-class Amherst community, that’s the world I live in, but that’s not the world I really live in. Yes, I’m sitting here in this office talking to you, and we’re doing an interview, and I hope it’s a decent interview and will be published and somebody will learn something from it, and that’s part of my life. And then I’ll go to the grocery store, and somebody will see me in the grocery store and I’ll have a shopping cart, and I’ll get into a Volvo, which is sort of a sign of class and whatnot, and I’ll drive home to a nice house, so that’s one way you could see me. But for me that’s not adequate, not enough; that’s not where my heart is, that’s not where I put my energy and my time. Those facts and appearances are almost like a minor aura that’s thrown off by my activity while at the core, where the major action is, lives the person who is writing and investigating, who is still torn up by the death of my grandfather John French, who has a brother in prison, who, as long as that brother is in prison will not feel free, who is thinking about time, a person who’s still scarred and outraged and mystified by the experience of Europe and Africa and slavery and the relationship between those continents. A person who has a real stake in the battle of contending versions of reality. So that’s also who I am. And that’s who I’ve been for a long time.

 

 

VIDEO + PHOTO ESSAY: Revolutionary Street Art In Tunisia

Tunisia: Hanging Images

of the People

where those of their Dictators

Once Hung

 

If you can smell JR (Women are Heroes and TED 2011) all over this, then you're right. AlJazeera's Yasmine Rayan reports on  this latest street art project to replace the once all-pervasive presidential photography with mosaics of ordinary, anonymous Tunisians who rose up against their government.

H/T: Drawn

 

__________________________

Tunisia: Hanging Portraits

of the People where

Those of their Dictators

Once Hung, Cont'd

The first webisode is a more indepth look at the JR Inside Out Project in Tunisia. Earlier in the year, the team proceeded to place portraits of the Tunisian people in the same public spaces where, just months before, was reserved for only portraits of their leaders. Backstory blogged here. A new trailer below: 

__________________________

Revolutionary Tunisian Street Art

As the history books will state, after more than two decades of authoritarian rule, the people of Tunisia had enough and collectively revolted. Successfully overthrowing the government, they now find themselves in the process of establishing a democratic society. 

Algerian French street artist ZOO Project wanted to be at the epicenter of the historic movement. To celebrate the revolution, he placed hundreds of life-size figurines around the city. They represent the brave, ordinary people who risked it all to make it happen, particularly the 200+ people that lost their lives. 

 

TECHNOLOGY: Solar Sister's founder on applying the AVON model to solar energy in Africa > Dowser

Solar Sister's founder

on applying the AVON model

to solar energy in Africa


June 29th, 2011 12:02 PMBy

 

One-year-old start up, Solar Sister is using cosmetics company AVON's model to distribute solar energy in Uganda, Sudan, and Rwanda.  To learn more about the “business in a bag” model that's giving rural African women an income and a renewable light source, Dowser spoke to Katherine Lucey, Solar Sister's founder.

What was the problem you saw and how could you fill that need in a unique way?

Lucey: Problem: Gender-based technology gap in rural Africa.  When I was doing work for a nonprofit that was installing solar energy in schools, clinics and rural homes, the maintenance of the project, the adaptation of the solar wasn’t very good because we’d return a year later and find that 50% of the systems were not functioning.  It was a very high fail rate.

In rural Uganda, where 95% of the homes don’t have electricity, solar technology is a distributable energy source; so, it’s a very good solution to clean rural energy or actually, rural energy period.  It just happens to be clean as well.

Also, the technology that we were using – the solar panel, the pvc, etc., was very 'techie' and we were in homes where there was no technology.  So, the women didn’t have a comfort zone with the technology that we were bringing into their home.

We realized that the women are responsible for the solar panel – it’s a household utility.  So, there’s a gender gap there for technology.  And that’s not specific to Uganda.  It’s an issue here at home as well when you look at the gender ratio in science and math.  It leans towards men.

That’s how I started thinking about how we can close that gap.

And the solution?

The AVON model for solar energy.

At the time that I was developing this idea, the design of the solar lamps became micro-solar.  These are designed for specifically for BoP application.  They’re rugged, very intuitive to use, affordable, and readily available.  And it’s not as 'techie'; it’s really just a light.  So, the gap bridged.  All of a sudden it’s a lot easier for women to use.  You stick it out during the day; you bring it in at night; you flip a switch and you have light to read, cook, and even a source to charge your phone.

It’s also one-tenth the cost of a home solar system so it’s within the price point of these homes.  They can range from $15 USD to $50 and when you’re already paying $2 a week for kerosene, it’s an investment that will pay off in a few months because you’ll no longer have to pay for an energy source.  They use those extra funds then for better food, health care, and schooling fees.

And the price continues to drop as the technology evolves.

Did Solar Sisters pair with an micro-finance institution (MFI) to provide women entrepreneurs the initial capital needed for this 'business in a bag' model?
No. Rather Solar Sister uses a 'micro consignment' model versus micro franchise.  These women don’t have to pay the franchise cost up front and we don’t work with MFIs.

For example, we had a lady, Viola, who signed up to be an entrepreneur.  But she had just had a baby so was not able to sell immediately.  If she had taken out a loan then she would have had to start paying back within a week or so.  That would have been difficult in her situation and put her collateral at risk – her home.

Rather, we want them to sell and our intent is not to make money off the interest rates.  So, we extend a loan ourselves by providing them the inventory.

In handling the finances, do you utilize mobile banking or other forms of banking?

Yes!  In Uganda, 5% of people in rural Uganda have electricity but 80-85% have a phone.  Not only do they have one phone but four phones for different calling plans and mobile carriers to get the cheapest rates.  In fact, with solar energy, many women are able to charge the phones of their neighbors for 25 cents and provide a service.  So, it’s another source of income.

And yes, we use mobile banking and SMSs to communicate with the entrepreneurs and streamline funds.  It makes the operation much more efficient.

Have you had any default cases?

Yes, we’ve had women who have sampled it and decided it’s not for them so they’ve bought the lamps themselves that are in inventory or returned them to us and that’s alright.   That’s not a problem.  We understand.

What propelled you to focus on this particular issue – energy poverty?

My background was in energy so I was sensitized to the idea that energy is fundamental to development.  My work experience was on a much bigger scale though – developing large plants and big scale economic development.  But as I left that post, I knew that the same principles apply at the home level, the grassroots.

I was really interested in microcredit and how it was giving access to financial services.  But I saw that there was this same need on the energy side- access to energy in a way that they could do it at the grassroots level.  The will of government wasn’t there; waiting for the government to solve the rural energy problem was not the answer.  We needed a solution that was closer at hand.

Solar is the most democratic – we all live under the sun.  Energy is free and the equipment is a one time cost.  Compare that with cost of burning wood or kerosene and health issues involved. The cost is extremely high.  That’s why I went with solar.

When you come back to the States, do you wonder why can’t we do some of these ideas on a more grassroots level at home?

For those in Uganda, the cost of solar is much cheaper.  They’re paying 20-30% of their income on energy already.  We don’t pay that much.  And if we were to put in solar equipment, it would require us to spend a bit more.  So, we think of solar as a luxury, which makes it harder to implement here.

You’ve been in this startup mode for a year, any hiccups along the way?

Oh yes.

We met this one lady who seemed like a great businesswoman, had a lot of potential, and we thought she’d make a great entrepreneur.  But after the initial box of lamps she took from us, we never heard from her again.  So, we got back in touch and asked her how the experience was.  She told us that she’d sold the box and it was a wonderful opportunity.   But why didn’t she ask for more lamps?   She, responded, that she thought it was just a one-time opportunity.

So, I found myself wondering how did we not convey this correctly that this is an ongoing business opportunity, not a one time thing?

Sometimes, such simple details make you realize flaws that you couldn’t have conceived because we just assumed that these ladies would come back to us when they wanted more inventory.

With these lessons in mind, what do you say to other budding social entrepreneurs?
Be committed and open to learning.  That’s the key.  Just stick with it and be open during the process of developing your idea/organization.

You’re working with Ashoka as a changemaker.  How do you see this model as being scalable?
We’re partnering with women’s groups who have been working in the community for 10-20 years.  By doing such partnerships, we’re able to use their foundation and their local knowledge.  The biggest challenge in scaling is actually identifying funding partners: should it be a developing impact investor, philanthropic organization, or some other entity.  So, what we need to do is really become the experts in our business.  Women can sell a lot of items.  Solar energy is one of them and it’s one mode to economic freedom.

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Solar Sister eradicates energy poverty by empowering women with economic opportunity.  We combine the breakthrough potential of solar technology with a deliberately woman-centered direct sales network to bring light, hope and opportunity to even the most remote communities in rural Africa.

Investing in women is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do.  Solar Sister creates sustainable businesses, powered by smart investment in women entrepreneurs. When you invest in a woman, you invest in the future. Join us by making an investment in a Solar Sister Entrepreneur today.

 

CUTURE: Ramadan Kareem « AFRICA IS A COUNTRY

Ramadan Kareem

August 1, 2011

by Sophia Azeb

Though it remains to be seen what political, economic and social changes will happen (if any) in the “New Egypt,” its first Ramadan after Mubarak’s downfall will undoubtably be memorable. Iftar in Tahrir will be magnificent, I have no doubt. But it might also be a tense affair for all involved, considering how vocal conservative religious factions have become in spite of the call for coalition-building. While Muslims are also supposed to abstain from anger, pride and other bad behaviours during Ramadan, the realities of daily life – such as the rising price of food – is difficult to ignore even by the most faithful.

 

There are still many things about Ramadan in Egypt which rarely change, however (like the Ramadan moon-sighting fights!). We share many of these Ramadan traditions with our neighbors worldwide – Muslim and non-Muslim – but I’m homesick enough to risk breaking my fast by taking pride in some of my most treasured memories of Ramadan in Egypt.

Every Ramadan, people decorate their apartment buildings with long strings of what are more commonly used as Christmas lights in the U.S. But as this decoration also indicates a wedding, an engagement or a birth, most Egyptians show off their lanterns. These lanterns, described in the video below, are often treasured and passed down through generations. Seeing them, you might understand why:

Each morning in many neighborhoods, a self-appointed masaharaty passes through on each street with his drum and his songs, waking sleeping families for suhoor – a pre-dawn meal before the fast begins:

The traffic in Egypt, considered the worst traffic in the world (we are the best drivers comparatively, of course!), is only ever quiet during the Taraweh prayers:

Lastly, a sight seen and heard everywhere in the world during Ramadan: massive crowds of people breaking their fast to a cacophony of adhans. Usually, the outdoor tables are set up in huge orange and red tents decorated with lanterns so people can pray on covered ground. This is a more utilitarian set-up, but the sound is incredible:

A few years ago, Al Jazeera featured a special on Ramadan in Cairo that is much more thorough in its scope. You can view it here. Ramadan Mubarak everyone.

Photo Credit: /Asmaa Waguih

 

VIDEO: Miles Davis Bootleg Series

Miles Davis

 

Legacy Announces

New Miles Davis Bootleg Series

Published: 2011-07-26

Miles Davis The explosive transformation of Miles Davis' “second great Quintet" with Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), and Tony Williams (drums) is laid bare on Miles Davis Quintet: Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Volume 1. Culled from original state-owned television and radio sources in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, and Sweden, the program spans five northern European festival performances over the course of nine days in October-November 1967. The audio shows consist entirely of previously unreleased or previously only bootlegged material. The 3-CD + DVD package, an 8-panel digipak with 28-page booklet, will be available everywhere starting September 20th through Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.

On the same date, a single-disc overview of the box set will be released. Miles Davis Quintet: Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Volume 1 will feature nine tracks from the box set.

Miles' Quintet lineup of 1965 to '68 is acknowledged as one of the high reference points in 20th century jazz, and its influence continues to reverberate in small group jazz today. Their Columbia recordings represent a litany of jazz at its best—E.S.P. (1965), Miles Smiles (1966), Sorcerer (1967), Nefertiti (1967), Miles In the Sky (1968), and Filles De Kilimanjaro (1968). But it was the quintet's live performances, as they evolved into Miles' ideal of a “leaderless" jamming ensemble, that truly immortalized them.

The European tour dates brought the Quintet to Antwerp, Belgium (October 28th); Stockholm, Sweden (October 31st); Copenhagen, Denmark (November 2nd); Paris, France (November 6th); and Karlsruhe, Germany (November 7th). The tour was organized and promoted by Newport Jazz Festival impresario George Wein and also starred Sarah Vaughan, the Archie Shepp Quintet (with Roswell Rudd, Grachan Moncur III, Jimmy Garrison, and Beaver Harris), the Thelonious Monk Quartet (with Charlie Rouse), the Gary Burton Quartet (with Larry Coryell, Steve Swallow, and Bobby Moses), and Wein's own Newport All-Stars with Buddy Tate.

The paradox of Miles Davis Quintet: Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Volume 1 is the fact that all five concerts were recorded by state-owned radio and television outlets—a case of European bureaucracies preserving our American jazz heritage. Of the audio performances on CD, Belgium (an hour-plus set), Denmark and France are all full-length concert sets that are now seeing their first authorized release(s). Denmark is the rarest of the three, never released commercially (not even as a bootleg) so it is a particularly valuable 50 minutes of music.

The Paris concert is the longest of the shows in this collection, running 90 minutes across CD Two and CD Three. It includes the very rare versions of “Agitation" and “Footprints" which are not found on the unauthorized bootlegs that have circulated up until now.

The DVD contained in Miles Davis Quintet: Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Volume 1 presents two concert sets by the Quintet, one from Stockholm on October 31st, and one from Karlsruhe, Germany on November 7th (although they are sequenced in reverse chronological order). This is the only known video documentation of the “second great Quintet" from the 1965 to '68 period. The only previous authorized release of this video was as a bonus disc on the commemorative 70-CD + DVD Complete Miles Davis Columbia Album Collection, released in 2009 on Columbia/Legacy.

The enthusiastic reception for the Miles Davis Quintet is partly credited to George Wein's belief that Europe could support a wide-ranging program of jazz festivals. Since the inception of Newport in 1954, Wein worked towards that goal in Europe, which took the better part of a decade to organize. These October-November 1967 festival dates were only the second or third season of Wein's European programs.

(Sidebar: This was also the tour in which director Charlotte Zwerin shot the black-and-white footage of Monk that is seen in the documentary film completed 20 years later, Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser. The Monk composition “'Round Midnight"—heard on all four discs of Miles Davis Quintet: Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Volume 1—was a Miles Davis performance staple since the early 1950s.)

Putting Miles Davis Quintet: Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Volume 1 into historical perspective are the illuminating liner notes by Ashley Kahn, author of Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Master­piece (DaCapo Press, 2000). In addition to serving as a contributor to National Public Radio and teaching music history and journalism at New York University, Kahn is also the author of A Love Supreme: The Making of John Coltrane's Masterpiece (Viking, 2002), and The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records (Norton, 2007).

In preparing his liner notes for Miles Davis Quintet: Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Volume 1, Kahn's extensive research included articles that ran during the concert tour, and multiple interviews, including various surviving Quintet members; indefatigable concert promoter George Wein and his long-time co-producer and tour manager Bob Jones; and tour mates Archie Shepp, Roswell Rudd, and Gary Burton. They all provide eyewitness commentary, musical insights, and priceless anecdotes.

As Kahn's liner notes point out, the end of 1967 was a landmark moment for Miles Davis, as he was preparing to say goodbye to this Quintet lineup. They had started out three years before, playing the standards that Miles enjoyed, and many of those chestnuts could still be heard, such as “On Green Dolphin Street," “I Fall In Love Too Easily," “'Round Midnight" and “Walkin.'"

But as the sound structures of the Quintet opened up and were pulled apart, the musical forms were reinventing themselves on stage every night. This was reflected in the original compositions from their recent albums, which framed their sets, among them Miles' “Agitation" (from E.S.P.), Wayne's “Footprints" (from Miles Smiles) and “Masquelero" (from Sorcerer), and Herbie's “Riot" (from Nefertiti). This was also the period (starting in 1967) when Miles began to play his sets as one long jam with very little beyond opening melodic statements separating one tune from the next. This lay the groundwork for the revolutionary and scene-changing music that he would produce over the next decade, until his retreat in 1975.

Everything was driven by the aggressive, iconoclastic style of drummer Tony Williams, probably the one most responsible for opening up Miles to the possibilities that lay beyond traditional jazz. It was a way of thinking that was also being explored at the time by John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and others. One thing is certain: the “second great Quintet" was the best and most satisfying band since the great Quintet lineup of the '50s.

This box set was co-produced by Grammy Award®-winning producers Richard Seidel and Michael Cuscuna. Cuscuna and Seidel also co-produced last year's award-winning Miles Davis: Bitches Brew 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition and Cuscuna has produced all of the Columbia/Legacy Miles Davis boxed sets since 1995. Seidel produced the 2009 Grammy Award®-nominated RCA/Legacy boxed set To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story and the 2010 award-winning Ella Fitzgerald: Twelve Nights In Hollywood (Verve) box set.

Miles Davis Quintet: Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Volume 1 (Columbia/Legacy 8869794053 2)

CD One—Selections: 1. Agitation * 2. Footprints * 3. 'Round Midnight * 4. No Blues * 5. Riot * 6. On Green Dolphin Street * 7. Masqualero * 8. Gingerbread Boy * 9. Theme. (Recorded on October 28, 1967 at the Konigin Elizabethzaal, Antwerp, Belgium by Belgian Radio and Television [BRT].)

CD Two—Selections: 1. Agitation * 2. Footprints * 3. 'Round Midnight * 4. No Blues * 5. Masqualero * 6. Agitation * 7. Footprints. (Tracks 1-5 recorded on November 2, 1967 at the Tivoli Konsertsal, Copenhagen, Denmark by Danish Radio; tracks 6 & 7 recorded and broadcast on November 6, 1967 at the Paris Jazz Festival, Salle Pleyel, Paris, France on France Inter [ORTF]. Radio Program Producer: André Francis.)

CD Three—Selections: 1. 'Round Midnight * 2. No Blues * 3. Masqualero * 4. I Fall In Love Too Easily * 5. Riot * 6. Walkin' * 7. On Green Dolphin Street * 8. The Theme. (Recorded and broadcast on November 6, 1967 at the Paris Jazz Festival, Salle Pleyel, Paris, France on France Inter [ORTF]. Radio Program Producer: André Francis.)

DVD—Selections: 1. Agitation * 2. Footprints * 3. I Fall In Love Too Easily * 4. Gingerbread Boy * 5. The Theme * 6. Agitation * 7. Footprints * 8. 'Round Midnight * 9. Gingerbread Boy * 10. The Theme. (Tracks 1-6 recorded on November 7, 1967 at the Stadthalle, Karlsruhe, Germany by Südwestfunk TV; tracks 7-11 recorded on October 31, 1967 at the Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden by Sveriges Radio TV.)