Queen of Sorrow

Like all queens, Sade realizes that her power is derived as much from her absence as from her presence. She is as much imaginary as real, as much real as imaginary. She is of the people but not among the people. She stands close enough to be be seen but never to be touched. Just when we suspect that she might not exist she makes an appearance at the window, lightly teasing the almost sheer curtain with her fingertips to let us know she's coming. And when she arrives her gift is that she allows us to enter the sacred space of the Witness: an open, closed space -a temple- defined by her chilly passion where she projects the fruits of her labor, of her love, of her loss, of her longings. It's in this space that Sade sings us her new songs. It's nighttime. It is not hot. It is not cold. It's the climate of reflection.

Sade has been smart enough to repeat herself without shame. She's possessed enough by her vision that she wants you to remember what you feel when you're with her. Each time you feel that prick the point edges closer to the bone. For 25 years her project has been mapping that area of the heart and the mind that we usually identify as feminine. Not a hysterical femininity, but the kind that will let you see her cry but will never let you see her sweat because the beads are tinged with a bit of blood. Faceted. The color of young rubies. They are quietly stunning like her voice which sings of secrets in secret, in spite of itself. In the chasm that occupies the space between her desire to scream but willingness to only whisper is the doorway to her story which in turn is the doorway to our own. She becomes a catalyst for communion with the part of ourselves which give births to life through suffering, melancholy and experience.

I've lost the use of my heart
But I'm still alive
Still looking for the life
The endless pool on the other side.

Soldier of Love is the latest installment in an extended song cycle which began with Diamond Life. We already know what it's about which makes us listen even closer. Very little to decipher. Much to love. In the absence of her doing anything radically different there's no need to talk about the specifics. Listen with your own ears and process in private. Privacy is the territory of Sade's music. Together alone.

Question from a friend about perceptions of Black masculinity...

If for the sake of argument we said that gender identity/roles are socially constructed, and that there is a "script" of sorts -or a number of scripts or roles, or archetypes- that define womanhood or manhood within an our american cultural context. What would be some metaphors (or metaphoric images) that for you -based on your observations and experiences- would be representative black men or black masculinity? (i.e. "Lone wolf", " "raging bull", "Bread winner", "stone cold")

Note that I understand that the metaphors may not be exclusively associated with Brothas/men, as a woman can be a "Lone Wolf", but I'm curious...

Roland Barthes on Readerly And Writerly Texts

These two ideas are important for locating yourself in relationship to any "text." Today, on Columbus Day, the "text" that I am speaking of specifically is History. If my history isn't a writerly text, it's worthless. If I'm not a writerly text, I'm not doing the work required of me as a thinker.

Readerly Text

A text that makes no requirement of the reader to "write" or "produce" his or her own meanings. The reader may passively locate "ready-made" meaning. Barthes writes that these sorts of text are "controlled by the principle of non-contradiction," that is, they do not disturb the "common sense," or "Doxa," of the surrounding culture. The "readerly texts," moreover, "are products that make up the enormous mass of our literature." Within this category, there is a spectrum of "replete literature," which comprises "any classic (readerly) texts" that work "like a cupboard where meanings are shelved, stacked, safeguarded"


Writerly Text

A text that aspires to the proper goal of literature and criticism: "... to make the reader no longer a consumer but a producer of the text." Writerly texts and ways of reading constitute, in short, an active rather than passive way of interacting with a culture and its texts. A culture and its texts, Barthes writes, should never be accepted in their given forms and traditions. As opposed to the "readerly texts" as "product," the "writerly text is ourselves writing, before the infinite play of the world is traversed, intersected, stopped, plasticized by some singular system (Ideology, Genus, Criticism) which reduces the plurality of entrances, the opening of networks, the infinity of languages." Thus reading becomes for Barthes "not a parasitical act, the reactive complement of a writing," but rather a "form of work."

Molly Bloom's Soliloquy from last page of Joyce's Ulysses:

...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

A Thought from Adrian Piper

“As we feel the strength of our numbers and the significance of our creative potentialities, we approach a readiness to drop out of the zero-sum game and claim our roles as player in a very different kind of game, in which the payoffs are not competitive but, rather, cooperative. In this kind of game, no one has to lose in order for someone else to win, because the payoffs -- self-expression, personal and creative integrity, freedom, resourcefulness, friendship, trust, mutual appreciation, connectedness—are not scarce resources over which any player must be attacked, negated, or sacrificed. Nor are the rules of this game—mutual support, honesty dialogue, sharing of resources, receptivity, self-reflectiveness, acceptance – of such a kind as to butcher the self and cheapen one’s central commitments. It does seem, in so many respects, to be a more appealing game to play. The only question is whether we are all wise enough to be willing to play it.”

-Adrian Piper

Letter From A Friend

I went to see the much buzzed about sci-fi alien south african film.
District 9. Truly impressive amongst everything else, in its magnitude of pure
xenophobia and racism.Had the makers of this film actually possessed any grain of shame,they
would have affirmed their feelings of white supremacy in a more
sophisticated way,but alas ,it is the same old mundane.An absolute disappointment of Evil’s
boring ways.I did not expect that I was about to see the most regressive, racist
stereotype-perpetuating display of classic self-indulgent colonial
white-manism.And set in a country with such a turbulent recent history
of human relations,this film is dangerous.

And it’s wild success makes me feel a great pity for those who saw it
as some charming foreign film,makes me feel a great pity at the fact that something so
obviously backward and damaging to human relations could be
entertaining.Though I realise the world is old, and people’s impulse
for justifying acts of invented fear have hardly changed ,I imagined
that at least tactics would have evolved to being a little more
refined. Having in mind the film is entirely based on District 6 – a desolate
Johannesburg area to which 60 000 black south Africans were
forcefully moved to during Apartheid,the conscious mirroring of this
painful recent reality is beyond insensitive and irresponsible.

Here is a film that chose to shamelessly occupy itself in a grandiose
40-million dollar white supremacist drama at the expense of
Africans,on African land,and what upsets me most is that at the helm
of it all is a young member of a new south African white generation,a
generation which as a young person, I have expressed empathy to,for
being the unfortunate inheritors of the effects of horrific actions
carried out by their parents and grandparents.40 million dollars would
have helped immensely to relieve the overwhelming population of HIV
patients,most of whom still live in dire poverty in post-apartheid
S.A.40 million dollars spent would have been justified if the film was
socially progressive and attempted at healing the many psychological
wounds.But 40 million dollars instead has been spent on yet another
exercise in playing God.If there was one golden opportunity to
display a progressive outlook on Africa,and African-European
relations,considering the recent history ,this was definitely a lost
one.
From its disgusting portrayal of Nigerian people , who in District 9
are allied with the aliens with whom they engage in ‘interspecies
prostitution’ and have secret desires of becoming like by eating their
alien flesh,to it’s portrayal of black south Africans who are either
just some backdrop or like in the scene where the main white
character’s black assistant who at realising there are no bulletproof
vests left, says he’ll be fine without one,even though his white
supervisor has one,indicating his life is not as precious and that as
a black man he’ll be okay in the alien shantytown anyway.
If the absolute shamelessness wasn't enough ,it then goes further by
casting an all
south African cast to play the ‘Nigerians’, who talkless of having not even
a vague west African or Nigerian accent also speak amongst themselves
in Xhosa- a south African and not Nigerian language.
I will save my rage at the Africans who agreed to depict other
Africans in such a degrading way for another letter,which will
stretch much longer than this.
Some African men are still selling each other for a momentary stuff of
their shallow pockets.
And yes,global human values towards kin and spirit have been replaced
by solely a dollar sign,but still,I will wail it out to the wind,and
if we all do ,the wind may carry the wail till it rings.
To wrap this up – my feelings regarding District 9 do not come from
mere feelings of
African patriotism,since as an African and so called Nigerian I know
that Nigeria does not exist,and is only theatre for those who continue
to benefit from such a hopeless chaos of a society.Knowing this fuels
my reaction at the slandering of humanity ,mine or anyone elses.I am
in parallel to this experience reeling at another in which
I was expected to not feel anything about a native American gathering
,in which native Americans were reduced to selling a cheap parody of
themselves for visitors to capture on their cellphones and digital
cameras.I was expected to not see it at as tragic and offensive,and an
insult on someone else’s humanity.
Because,apparently I am not native American.
And by that logic I suppose I am not a human being either.
And If I am to go further along that logic I am to assume that those people
who had fun watching District 9 have totally numbed their own sense of humanity.
I hope that my logic is wrong.
Thank you Sarahjane Blum for your protest on District 9.
To read her brilliant article ,pick up the Latest free Brooklyn Rail,p 76.
Well done Sister!

Love,

K

The Three Graces

This is my new favorite photograph that I've taken. Too cool for school....