"Take Five"
Super Rare - from a German TV BroadcastLine up:
tom canning - piano, rhodes
jerome rimson - bass
nigel wilkinson - drums
"Midnight Sun" (live, 2004)
Live In AVO Session, 06 November, 2004, Basel, Switzerland
LARRY WILLIAMS - keyb, sax, JOE TURANO - sax, keyb, voc, CHRIS WALKER - bg, ROSS BOLTON - g, MARK SIMMONS - dr, DEBORAH DAVIS - voc
"Spain"
"We Got By"
James Baldwin: Black Queer Genius / Genius Queer Black
I have been thinking of James Baldwin for a while now and am just waiting for a copy of “The Price of the Ticket“. I decided to spend August immersed in Baldwin. Today is his birthday [August 2nd 1924 - November 30th 1987] and to honour this beautiful Queer Black Man and Genius whose words are as pertinent today as 30, 40 years ago, I am publishing excerpts from his writings, interviews and anything else I can find, every day over the next month. Note: I made a mistake in publishing this on the 1st instead of the 2nd.
“I write to describe.. ….. If you can describe it, you can control it. If you can control it, you can out wit it, get beyond it. In order to describe it you have to face it.”
James Baldwin - interview - pt. 2
Everything written by James Baldwin
Contest/Submissions
All submissions that include an e-mail address are automatically eligible for the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Honorarium. The honorarium is a cash award of $30.00 that is awarded to a writer whose flash fiction story epitomizes the kind of “show don’t tell” fiction The Gazette is looking for. The honorarium will be awarded on November 1, 2010. The contest ends on October 1, 2010. The judgement of The Gazette is final. The contest is open now, 02-17-10. All stories published in The Gazette before this date are not eligible. The winning writer will be sent the award by PayPal. So, the winner must have a PayPal account.
The Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette is calling for short story submissions. Submissions should be between 300 to 700 words long. The words will be counted. Type or paste the story in an email. Attachments will not be opened. Put ‘Flash Fiction” in the subject line or the email may be rejected as spam. In the body of the email include the title, name of the author, word count and your email address. At the end of the story add a one to three sentence bio in the third person and the URL to your homepage if you have one and want a link back to it.
Only send one story and wait for a reply before sending another story.
Submission does not mean acceptance. Read a few of the stories in the sidebar on the right under “Great American Flash Fiction Stories To Read” to get an idea of the quality of the writing. Be sure to format the story correctly for The Gazette: alignment to the left, single spaced, no indentations and one space between paragraphs. This also means one space between dialogue that is spoken by different characters. Rigorous proofreading counts. Not following submission guidelines is enough reason for rejection. Authors retain all rights. The only payment is exposure in the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette which publishes some of the best flash fiction on the Internet; and a chance of being awarded the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Honorarium. Good luck.
Send submissions to hoganpitt@aol.com
Guy Hogan
Editor/Publisher
Call for submissions: micro-fiction and prose poetry
June 1, 2010 2:23PM
Calling all y'all with gnat-sized attention spans! PRISM international's Winter 2010 issue will be micro-fiction- and prose poetry-themed. Check out our genre guidelines and definitions below, but don't freak out if you're finding your footing interstitially. Keep on the path, friend. We're into genre-bending.
Micro-fiction
Alternatively referred to as postcard stories, short short stories, and flash fiction, micro-fiction is like fine dark chocolate: effective in small doses. For the purposes of this issue, the cut-off is 1000 words.Prose Poetry
Prose poetry usually features full sentences and no forced line breaks. The difference between prose poetry and micro-fiction is up for discussion — generally, prose poetry focuses more precise attention on language. It's less narrative than micro-fiction, and asks readers to make larger jumps than micro-fiction might demand. Our word-count limit for prose poems is 250 words.Check out our submission guidelines and send us your best small works.
Deadline for submissions: August 31, 2010.
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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
- Send original, unpublished material in short fiction, poetry, translation, literary non-fiction, and drama. We do not consider work that has appeared on the Internet unless it has only been posted to writers' forums for discussion.
- Include a brief cover letter with a short bio and publications list.
- If you have submitted your work to another magazine for consideration, please let us know in the cover letter.
- Note: we do not return manuscripts, so please ensure that you retain a copy of your submission for your files.We strongly prefer to reply via email. If you do not have an email address, include a self-addressed envelope (SASE) with sufficient Canadian postage, or an International Reply Coupon if you are submitting from outside of Canada. NOTE: if incorrect/insufficient postage is provided, we cannot reply to or return your material.
- Along with your submission, please provide complete contact information, including an email address. Please indicate in your cover letter if you would like to receive a reply to your submission via email rather than mail.
- Manuscripts must be typed and double-spaced (in the case of prose) on letter-sized paper. Poetry should be single-spaced. We cannot accept email submissions.
- Send only one piece/genre at a time. 1 story/piece or 5 poems per submission. Maximum submission length: 25 pages. Note: for this year's theme issue, we will accept up to five prose poems or five micro-fiction stories (1000 words max) per submission.
- Non-fiction pieces should be creative, exploratory, or experimental in tone. Accompanying photographs will occasionally be considered for publication. We do not publish rhetorical, academic, or journalistic non-fiction.
- We do not publish genre writing such as romance, horror, or science fiction. Please read back issues of PRISM as a guideline.
- Translations are sought in all genres and must be undertaken with the permission of the original author. Wherever possible, include a copy of the original work.
- We purchase first North American serial rights, and pay $40/printed page for poetry, $20/printed page for prose. Contributors receive a one-year subscription to PRISMinternational. The editorial board awards an annual $500 prize to an outstanding poetry contributor each year.
INSTIGATORZINE THEME CONTEST
Short StoryDeadline: August 25, 2010Words: 1,000-3,500Theme: HalloweenEntry Fee: $10 per entryGrand Prize: $100 American Express Gift CardSecond place prize: $50 American Express Gift CardThird place prize: $25 American Express Gift CardFirst, second and third place winners will have their pieces presented in the October issue of Instigatorzine.
We are looking for Halloween stories. This includes horror, thriller, suspense, and Halloween related stories. No limitations on content!
*Contests each require at least 20 participants. If the number of participants does not reach 20, all payments will be refunded. Authors may submit up to two pieces for each contest. Works submitted without making payment will not be considered for contest.Step 1: Click Buy Now button.Step 2: E-mail submission to contest@instigatorzine.com with subject: Your name: Prose (or Poetry): Title of PiecePoetryDeadline: August 25, 2010Theme: HalloweenEntry Fee: $10 per entryGrand Prize: $100 American Express Gift CardSecond place prize: $50 American Express Gift CardThird place prize: $25 American Express Gift CardFirst, second and third place winners will have their pieces presented in the October issue of Instigatorzine.
We are looking for Halloween poems. This includes horror, thriller, suspense, and Halloween related poetry. No limitations on content!
"Animal connection" helps separate humans from other species
For centuries, people have tried to pinpoint what makes humans unique. The most current scientific theory suggests that three main qualities separate Homo sapiens from other animals: the construction and use of complex tools, the use of symbolic behavior including language, art, and ritual, and the domestication of other plants and animals. However, in a new paper in Current Anthropology, Dr. Pat Shipman suggests a fourth trait unique to humans.
Shipman cites humans' long history of learning about and understanding animals as a unique trait, calling this tendency "the animal connection." She claims that this relationship is the common unifying factor that underlies each of the other three previously recognized human traits, and has played a major role in human evolution over the last 2.6 million years.
It’s undeniable that humans have a very close relationship with animals. Here in the US, we spend $41.2 billion on our pets every year. Over 60 percent of Australian households have animals. There are more dogs in Japan than there are children under 12. In tribal societies, there are reports of women breast-feeding young animals. Humans' intimate connection with animals is nearly universal across cultures, yet interspecies relationships are extremely rare in other animals.
Among nonhumans, there are very few instances in which a member of one species has been observed adopting the young of another species, a behavior scientists call "cross-species alloparenting." Most reports of this type of adoption are the result of human involvement; cross-species alloparenting occurs incredibly rarely in the wild but instances have occasionally been observed, such as a female capuchin monkey nursing a young marmoset.
Shipman asserts that humans' invention and use of stone tools about 2.6 million years ago helped them successfully hunt and quickly dispatch large carcasses, allowing them to become major players in the predatory guild. As a result, humans became much more in tune with animals for two reasons: the better they understood their prey, the more efficient hunters they would be, and the better they could evade and outcompete other carnivores. Thus, the animal connection began; because it enhanced survival, learning about animals' anatomy and behavior became a very advantageous pursuit.
The animal connection is strongly evident in another trait that is considered unique to humans: symbolic behavior, specifically art. Animals were the main subject of prehistoric art. Incredibly specific details can be recognized from early cave drawings, including animals' colors, particular behaviors, and dimorphism between the sexes.
Other topics that one would expect to be important to early humans, such as landscapes, shelters, weather, and water sources, are conspicuously absent from prehistoric art. Early humans not only spent a great amount of time learning about animals, but they also saw the value of depicting them in images and communicating information about them.
Finally, Shipman claims that by domesticating animals, humans used them as "living tools." Evidence shows that dogs were the first animals to be domesticated, suggesting that the first domesticates were not used as food sources. In early societies, animals served many purposes, such as carrying heavy loads, providing raw materials such as wool, producing fertilizer, protecting people, hunting game, and transporting goods. By using their accumulated knowledge and understanding of animals, humans were able to transform other species into "living tools" that enhanced their own fitness.
According to the author, each of these three uniquely "human" qualities—learning to make and use stone tools, engaging in symbolic behavior, and domesticating other species— illustrates the adaptive advantages conferred to humans by having a deep understanding of animals.
However, the paper is not without its shortcomings. Shipman discusses the divide between animals and humans as if the differences were a dichotomy, rather than a spectrum. For instance, chimpanzees are extremely adept at making and using tools, and some ant species can be said to domesticate fungi; however, Shipman has drawn a firm line between the abilities of humans and those of other animals without sufficient time spent justifying it.
Similarly, while Shipman acknowledges that domestication is a "reciprocal" process, she fails to fully flesh out the consequences of this reciprocity. If domestication is a result of humans' supposedly unique animal connection, yet domestication is reciprocal, it follows that animals also have some innate ability to relate to and understand humans as well. Dogs, for instance, are very skilled at interacting with humans, and this ability has certainly enhanced their fitness and influenced their evolution. However, this line of reasoning goes undiscussed in the article.
Despite these issues, the evidence in the paper is persuasive, strongly suggesting that humans' inclination and ability to understand animals have had major implications for our evolution. It remains to be seen whether or not these four qualities are actually unique to Homo sapiens, but "the animal connection" is a novel and interesting way to consider the implications of the long and intimate history between humans and animals.
Current Anthropology, 2010. DOI: AM/CA300269/2010/51/4 (About DOIs).
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Archibald Monteath
( Maureen Warner-Lewis )
ISBN: 978-976-640-197-9
Price per Unit (piece): $40.00
Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Award
Caribbean Studies Association, 2008Best Academic Book (co-winner)
Book Industry Association of Jamaica, 2009Best Adult Non-Fiction (co-winner)
Book Industry Association of Jamaica, 2009This reconstruction of one of the rare Caribbean slave narratives is an amplification, interrogation, and modification of its original texts by crossreference with official documents, contemporary diaryentries and reports, presentday oral sources, and secondary analyses of plantation society. Accessing a variety of primary records, Maureen Warner-Lewis meticulously reconstructs a biography of enslaved Archibald Monteath, an Igbo, who was brought to Jamaica around 1802, became active in the Moravian Church and later purchased his freedom. Through Monteath’s biography she explores the sociology of slavery from 1750 to the 1860s. Fieldwork conducted in Africa brings an important dimension to the work, and scholars of Caribbean history, church history, diasporic studies, Atlantic studies and Jamaica will find it of significant interest.
Video: Black Brazilians from the Diaspora meet Africans
Because it’s always interesting to see how black people from different countries connect with each other, here’s the video: "Na nga def: Diasporics Encounter Africans".The video is about a meeting in 2008 between young black Brazilian women from the Diaspora and young African women from various countries. Most interesting remark: "I thought Brazil was all white."
The video is a promo of a documentary that's going to be released soon, referring to the encounter of young activists from the African Continent and its Diaspora who got together at the Gorée Island in Senegal - one of the three main slave-shipping point from where enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas for three and a half centuries. Na nga def? (How are you?) was a greeting in wolof, which youngsters from Diaspora repeated daily while in Gorée during 30 days of July 2008.
Delacroix was insulated from history by wetlands: Part two of four
Published: Monday, August 02, 2010, 6:30 AM Updated: Monday, August 02, 2010, 8:05 AM
As children Henry Martinez, Lloyd Serigne and Thomas Gonzales never questioned why their home village of Delacroix was located deep in a wetlands wilderness 30 miles south of New Orleans. It wasn't just a great place for children -- with woods and bayous, marshes and swamps, fishing, hunting and hundreds of friends and neighbors -- it also seemed like a logical place for a growing, bustling community.
"We didn't feel isolated or anything," Serigne said. "To us, living there seemed the way life was supposed to be. It just seemed like someone made a smart decision."
History has another story, one that involves national ambitions in the age of global imperialism, royal decrees, civil wars and traumatic social upheavals.
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Related stories
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It turns out the wetlands community of Delacroix, which thrived on the banks of Bayou terre aux Boeufs for 200 years, was never meant to be.
"The people who left the Canary Islands never intended to live in the area around what would become Delacroix," said William de Marigny Highland, St. Bernard Parish historian, and president of Los Islenos Heritage and Cultural Society. "This is a complicated story."
It begins in the late 1777, a period when the Canary Islands were not the vacation mecca they are today. The archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa was a strategically important staging area for Spain's colonial ambitions in the New World, but it was a hard life for residents. They struggled to scratch out a living on a dry, rocky landscape, with disease and famine constant companions.
So when King Phillip III offered houses, a stipend and -- most important -- free holdings on fertile land in the far-off colony of Louisiana, it was no surprise the response was overwhelming. The government had sought 700 volunteers; more than 2,000 would eventually make the trip.
King Phillip had a specific demographic in mind, according to historian Gilbert Din. "The recruits were required to be from 17 to 36 years old, healthy, without vices, and at least 5' 1/2" tall. Butchers, gypsies, mulattoes, and executioners were not permitted to sign up."
The offer of new homes and land to this group was not an act of charity by the king, but a move to protect his ambitions.
"Spain had acquired New Orleans from France and knew that holding that city was the key to checking England's ideas for expanding its dominion west of the Mississippi River," Hyland explained. "Whoever controlled New Orleans, controlled the Mississippi River valley from the Gulf to Canada.
"Only about 4,000 people -- Europeans and slaves -- lived in New Orleans at the time. Spain knew it needed more residents and settlements to protect its claim."
New Orleans was vulnerable to attack via the high ground next to the river, Hyland said, so Spain wanted to develop communities to address that vulnerability.
A PARADISE LOST
The first Canary Islanders stepped off the Santisimo Sacramento in New Orleans on Nov. 1, 1778, and by July of the next year almost 1,600 had made the crossing. The newcomers would start four new settlements. Two would be north of the city: Valenzuela, at the point where Bayou Lafourche left the Mississippi River, near present-day Donaldsonville; and Galveztown, on the Amite River off Lake Maurepas. Two would be south of the city; one on the west bank of the river at Barataria, and the other on the east bank south of the city at Saint Bernard -- San Barnardo to the Spanish newcomers.
"St. Bernard would become an area of plantations growing everything from indigo and sugar cane to rice and vegetables, and raising livestock," Hyland said. "Most of the Canary Islanders would settle in that area and work on those plantations, as well as producing some of their own crops and goods on their own properties."
The plantations occupied prime property along Bayou Terre aux Boeufs, which at that time flowed directly from the Mississippi River. Centuries of annual floods had spread rich alluvial soils and created high ground. The plantation names are carried by many current communities: Poydras, Toca, St. Bernard, Creedmore, Kenilworth and Contreras.
"This became a very prosperous area." Hyland said. "One of the first railroads in the country would be built down there to carry goods to New Orleans markets. Many of the residents would speak Spanish at home, but learned French so they could do business in the city."
And Bayou Terre aux Boeufs was the main thoroughfare. The waterway flowed south and east all the way to Chandeleur Sound, twisting through the wild wetlands on the edges of the great delta. Trappers, fishermen and hunters had outposts there, but otherwise the area was the domain of runaway slaves and a few Native Americans.
The Civil War would change all that."The war destroyed the plantation culture," said Hyland. "Many of the Canary Islanders no longer had jobs. They also didn't have property.
"So when they began looking for a place to settle -- to squat -- they already knew about this area down Terre aux Boeufs that was owned by a Frenchman who had never come to Louisiana."
The property was called La Isla du de la Croix -- the island belonging to Francois du Suau de la Croix. It was a large section of high ridges, swamps and marsh along both sides of Bayou Terre aux Boeufs, about 10 miles from the plantations.
It was known simply as La Isla -- The Island -- because bayous, small lakes and swamps surrounded a large tract of high ground. Sugar had been planted in the area, but little else. It was still wild land, yet nature had plenty to offer.
Los Islenos -- The Islanders, as the new settlers would become known -- could fish for shrimp, crabs, trout and turtles. They could trap fur-bearing animals like mink and muskrat and otter, hunt ducks and geese and deer and pick moss for furniture. They had plenty of high, dry land to grow vegetables and crops, raise livestock, and build their homes from the cypress and oak they also harvested.
They could consume everything they took from the land and they could also sell it to markets in the city.
"They developed a subsistence lifestyle, but they weren't poor," Hyland said. "They flourished."
The success of Delacroix led to other settlements, and by the 1930s a string of communities were growing on the high bayou ridges on the St. Bernard delta, including Reggio, Ycloskey, Shell Beach and Hopedale.
Even as world wars and economic upheaval ignited profound changes in the nation and in New Orleans, life on the bayous, insulated from history by the wetlands, changed little. Residents, spoke Spanish, married, started new families and built new houses.
"My parents and my grandparents only spoke Spanish because they didn't know English, and they didn't know English because they didn't need it," Gonzales, 72, explained. "And none of us kids spoke English until we went to school -- if we went.
"I didn't know that made us any different from people on the outside, 'cause we hardly ever went outside!"
Few residents ever left because, as Henry Martinez explained, there was no reason to leave. They had everything they wanted in the world of Delacroix.
Bob Marshall can be reached at rmarshall@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3539.
Israel modifies plans to deport migrant worker families
Little Eustace Uzoma plays happily in a Tel Aviv park, near the home in which she has lived ever since she was born.
The shy five-year-old speaks fluent Hebrew and is already in the school system.
But she is almost oblivious to the fact that there are some people in the Israeli government who want to deport her and other children who are fully assimilated into Israeli society, because their parents are here illegally.
Israel has approved plans to deport the families of illegal migrant workers, and government spokesman Roei Lachmanovich told the BBC the plan would affect some 400 children and their parents.
Vincent Uzoma says Israel should recognise the birthright of children born within its borders
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the move was made because the country faced increasing illegal migration, which was a threat to its Jewish character.
Eustace's father, Vincent, is originally from Nigeria but came to Israel 14 years ago on a legal tourist visa.
Having outstayed his official welcome, he settled down here and a job, got married and had children.
"It's unfair and unjust," says Vincent of the deportation plan as he carefully watches his youngest daughter on the swings.
"These children are born here and speak the language. Israel should recognise their birthright."
For years Israel encouraged foreign workers from the developing world to come here and do the poorly paid, menial jobs that Israelis did not want to do.
Now, wanting to reduce its dependence on overseas labour, Israel says many of those workers must leave even if they have children who were born here.
'Bringing disease'Campaigners like Noa Kaufman from the organisation Israeli Children says the recent sight of immigration inspectors conducting spot checks on people in the street is tantamount to persecution.
They live here, they have friends here but now the government wants to separate them from everything they know” — Noa Kaufman Israeli Children
"You can't simply put a child and its mother, against their will, on a plane out of the country to somewhere the child doesn't know," says Ms Kaufman.
"They live here, they have friends here but now the government wants to separate them from everything they know."
Some Ministers in Israel's coalition, including Interior Minister Eli Yishai from the religious Shas Party, say they cannot grant more than 1,000 families permanent residency simply because their children were born in Israel.
Mr Yishai caused an outcry last year when he accused migrant workers of bringing with them "a profusion of diseases... and drug addiction".
In need of reformAccording Mr Netanyahu, controlling immigration is largely about preserving Israel's Jewish character and his government intends to deport all illegal immigrants by 2013.
Immigration laws in Israel make it extremely hard for people to stay if they are not Jewish, but the scale of protest against these controversial proposals appears to have brought about a compromise of sorts.
Under pressure the government will now allow many children who have assimilated into Israeli society, those who go to school and speak Hebrew, to stay.
Hundreds of others - who do not fit into that category but who were still born here - will have to leave along with their families.
While there may be good news for five-year old Eustace and her family, others of a similar age will be sent to countries they do not know, with languages they do not understand.
By the government's own admission, Israel's immigration policy is unsatisfactory and is in need of reform.
