Art, Fashion and Breast Cancer Awareness Event

Tell our mothers, sisters, daughters and aunts! Tell our brothers, uncles, fathers,sons, and friends!

Did you know that...

* Breast Cancer is the most common cancer among African American Women
* African American women are more likely to be dianosed with larger tumors and more advanced stages desite a lower incidence rate?

PREVENTION and EARLY DETECTION IS POSSIBLE!!

Please come out and join us THIS SUNDAY, October 30, 2004 at Busboys and Poets from 2pm-4pm to conclude Breast Cancer Awareness Month! We will be celebrating awareness with a fashion show by RAKIYT ZAKARI (http://www.theoriginaldavid.com/), vocals by TAMARA WELLONS http://www.tamarawellons.com/, Poetry by Def Poet BASSEY http://www.basseyworld.com/ and Goddess Art and photography by MELANI N. DOUGLASS http://www.dnstar.org/ . Our host LISA PEGRAM will guide us through an Sunday afternoon of awareness and art.

Come learn more about Breast Cancer prevention and learn about local and national resources. Project Early Awareness Sisters Network, Inc. will join us and give a special presentation. Some lucky participants will win gift bags and certificates from local merchants.

This event is free and open to the public! This community awareness event is brought to you by Seshat Walker & Melani N. Douglass.

HURRICANE LIBRARY RELIEF featuring Kalamu Ya Salaam

HURRICANE LIBRARY RELIEF

A CONFEDERACY OF WRITERS AND MUSICIANS

Friday November 4, 2005 / 6-9 pm

Enoch Pratt Free Library, Central Branch (Main Hall)

400 Cathedral Street / Baltimore MD 21201 / 410-396-5430

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 100 school libraries and 25 public libraries along the Gulf Coast. Many academic libraries were also severely damaged. Join us for an evening celebration of the literary and musical heritage of New Orleans in support of the The American Library Association's Hurricane Library Relief fund to help them rebuild.

Readings by New Orleans writer and activist KALAMU YA SALAAM and local poets and writers, plus jazz and muffalettas!

KALAMU YA SALAAM is a professional editor/writer, movie maker, educator, producer, and arts administrator. He is the founder and director of the Neo-Griot Workshop, a New Orleans-based black writers workshop and co-director of Students at the Center, a writing program in the New Orleans public schools. His books include 'From a Bend in the River: 100 New Orleans Poets' and '360 degrees: A Revolution of Black Poets.' Mr Salaam has traveled the world as a journalist, activist and arts producer. He evacuated from his home in New Orleans and is living temporarily in Nashville.

Local poets and writers invited to appear include

Madison Smartt Bell, Reginald Harris, Clarinida Harriss, bassey ikpi, Rosemary Klein, t.p. Luce (Ellis Marsallis III), Olu Butterfly(Woods), Michael Salcman, and WYPR radio jazz show host Andy Bienstock. Music by the Lionel Lyles Quintet

Admission is free. Donations to the Hurricane Relief Fund of the American Library Association (https://secure.ga3.org/03/alakatrina) are encouraged.

Presented in Partnership with CityLit Project, Maryland State Poetry and Literary Society, Poetry for the People Baltimore, and Pozativ Change.

Enoch Pratt Free Library / www.epfl.net

big ups....

I just wanted to give some props to a few people on the move:

1.Leah Shields- She just recently launched her own photography site where she sells single greeting cards, note/greeting card sets – with color-coordinated envelopes, single prints, matted & framed print(s), canvas print(s), etc. She will be adding pictures all the time so go to her site often to check out what she is doing.
www.leahshields.com

2. Thad WIlson- Jazz trumpeter extraordinaire (Jersey represent) has just landed a gig as the Artistic Director of the Jazz Programs over at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. His website is www.thadjazz.com
By the way he plays every night Thursday at JoJo's there is no cover but i think a $10 minimum.

updates and stuff

It been really hectic for me over the last few days or so, but the weekend is almost here.

A few things going on around here (in DC) and all around that i wanted to highlight.


First of all BusBoys and Poets (BBP), if you have not been you should go. period. I am excited about BBP for many reasons not the least of which is that its name is a tribute Langston Hughes (read here)


I am very excited about what BBP is and what it will become, DC has needed another venue where poets and other serious artists could come and exchange ideas, critique and grow their respective arts as well as try to find their place in the continuum of literary and artistic tradition of this city. Many of the other venues have become craft lacking, ego driven , hustle and flow, slamming and spitting fests, that is why many of the more experienced and elder poets and artists do not frequent those venues anymore, because they don't leave inspired or are not inspired while there.
BBP is a move to change all of that, i see it as venue to reclaim poetry for the craft that it is and for the beauty , thought and idea exchange it promotes. Every poetry event i have been to at BBP has been of a high quality, a quality that will draw more poets and poetry patrons to our venues once again. New York for along time has had places like Nuyorican, Bowery Poetry Club, and now we have BusBoys and Poets. i am excited. poet on....write on!!!
****Note: BusBoy and Poets', poetic legitimacy was further confirmed two days ago by the fact that both Sonia Sanchez and Amiri Baraka, not only showed up but blessed the BBP mic with their wisdom. This is just two examples of Anas (Andy) Shallal's efforts to reach out to poets and other artists but also to the prominent poets who view BBP as somewhat of a sanctuary and a home for their work by supporting BBP on a regular basis (i.e E.Ethelbert Miller, Sarah Browning, etc)...


Second i would be remiss if i did not mention Pookie's Gallery, the reason i think this is important is because as a stated in my post about Renee Stout, there was a time when there was more synergy between artists in DC there were cross-pollinating each others work and ideas...it was great. But for some reason it seems that some segmentation began to happen. Recently however i ahve noticed a major shift in this artists of different mediums are starting to jam togther again (ie Raheem Devaughn and Demont Peekaso, i saw Jati and Rhome building at BusBoys and Poets last night, I am sure there are others, so maybe the tide is changing).
Why Pookies Gallery is so important is because it brings all the artist together in one space so the audience can see and feel how all of the art is having a dialogue, and how integral each piece is to what is going. I am not saying that every artists work is going to find some divine synergy, but i think Pookies Gallery definitely makes the potential for such a thing to be demonstrated by participants and witnessed by fellow artists and patrons.


Third, is the Gwendolyn Brooks Conference going on right now on the campus Chicago State University.This is a very important conference that happens every year where black poets and other writers come together for fellowship and to talk about issues on the "black" writing world. check it out.


Fourth, is a gathering i just heard about coming up next week called Drumvoices Festival of Black Arts at the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville & Metro East Saint Louis; featruing Katherine Dunham, Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez, and Haki R.Madhubuti (damn , what a line up), click here for more info

Fifth, internationally famed, DC based artist Sam Gilliam has a retrospective of his work being presented at the Corcoran, it is imperative that we support this showing being that it is "the first full-career retrospective of Sam Gilliam and the most extensive presentation of his work to date."

and

Mama Sonia Sanchez will be in conversation with Ruby Dee and Sheryl Lee Ralph in Philly at the Church of the Advocate hit here for more info


and it looks like on October 19-21, 2005 the prolific writer Ngugi Wa Thiongo will be at Case Western Reserve University out in Cleveland, Ohio to do a public lecture and scholarly discussion on the topic "The Power of Words: Literature, Politics, and Facts". Sounds dope! click here for more info


anyway my two cents is done...check back later for links to stuff i mentioned in this post.

Great Streets Corridor Meetings, get involved in your neighborhood of DC

Great Streets Corridor Meetings

Georgia Avenue - 7th Street NW - H Street NE - Benning Road - Nannie Helen Burroughs - Minnesota Avenue - Pennsylvania Avenue - Martin Luther King - South Capitol

Great Streets are coming to your community. The District Department of Transportation has targeted $100 million to improve six Great Streets identified by Mayor Williams, but you need to tell us how. Where do you need new sidewalks, lights, trees or public art? Do you want a typical streetscape? Something historic? Something completely different? What do you see?

Georgia Avenue / 7th Street NW [Mt. Vernon Square to Eastern Avenue]
Tuesday, Oct 25, 6:00pm - 8:30pm : Raymond Elementary School, 915 Spring Rd., N.W (off Georgia Avenue)
(GA Ave/Petworth Metro or bus routes 70, 71)

Martin Luther King Jr. / South Capitol / Minnesota (south) [ Good Hope Road to Southern Avenue]
Wednesday Oct 26, 6:00pm - 8:30pm : Thurgood Marshall Academy (Old Nichols Avenue School), 2427 Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, SE
(Anacostia Metro or bus routes A4, A8, A48, B2, U2, W9)

Pennsylvania Ave / Minnesota Avenue (middle) [Sousa Bridge to Southern Avenue]
Thursday Oct 27, 6:00pm - 8:30pm
St. Frances Xavier Church 2800 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
(Bus routes J11, J13, K11, M6, V11, 35, or 36)

Nannie Helen Burroughs/H Street NE/Benning/Minnesota (north)
Saturday Oct 29, 9:00am - noon : Friendship Edison Academy at Carter G. Woodson, 4095 Minnesota Avenue, NE
(Minnesota Ave Metro or bus routes U2, U5, U6, U8, X1, X2)

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Karina Ricks, Great Streets Project Manager Phone 202-671-2542 or karina.ricks@dc.gov
District Department of Transportation
2000 14th Street NW, Washington DC 20009 <http://www.greatstreetsdc.com/>

DBR & THE MISSION presents 24 BITS: HIP HOP STUDIES AND ETUDES, BOOK 1

Yo, if you happen to be in NY this weekend you go to the Chelsa Art Museum and check out my man (Dr.) Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR). I had chance to see him a few years back when he did a residency at the Kennedy Center and did a free unadvertised show and jam session at the Warehouse Theater on 7th Street. He mixes funk, rock, hip-hop and classical music to create some good creative, fresh music.

DBR will be here (in DC) in November (Nov 17 - 19, 2005) with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company at the Kennedy Center, so look out for that too!

check out his website at DBRMUSIC.COM

Here is a press blurb about the show: Click here to read more

A Glimpse of Heaven: The Legacy of the Million Man March

Advanced Screening
A Glimpse of Heaven: The Legacy of the Million Man March
A Documentary
Produced by Stacey Muhummad/Rashida Saadiq
of Wildseed Films
Reginald F. Lewis of Maryland
African-American History/Culture
830 E. Prat St.
Baltimore Maryland 21202
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
7-9 PM Cost: $5.00
For more Information: 202-465-5087
http://www.wildseedproductions.org/

big ups....

Big ups to Kalamu and Mtume Ya Salaam for highlighting Asheru and Fertile Ground in this week's installment on Breath of Life


here is a direct link to the story...click here


This is actually the second time Fertile Ground has been featured or mentioned in this column check here for the first time


Also be on the lookk out for Kalamu's neo-griot new orleans project go to www.kalamu.com for more details

SoulJahRebels

click the picture below to see the a list of performers for this event

This is event is fundraiser for a sister who is film student at Howard U, trying to do a documentatry on her parents homeland of Dominica (I think.... ask her to be sure). Anyway, support the even if you can

$10 in advance
$15 at the door

Tickets sold at:
Duke' City 202.986.9400
Sankofa 202.234.4755
Deaf Eye Nation: Fiona 202.412.0531 or Kim 301.646.2005

9th Ward: History, Yes, but a Future?

Originally a cypress swamp, the community of 20,000 is overwhelmingly black; more than one-third of residents live below the poverty line, according to the 2000 census. The people of the Lower Ninth are the maids, bellhops and busboys who care for New Orleans tourists. They are also the clerks and cops now helping to get the city back on its feet. The ward is home to carpenters, sculptors, musicians and retirees. Fats Domino still has a house in the Lower Ninth. Kermit Ruffins -- a quintessential New Orleanian trumpeter whose band likes to grill up some barbecue between sets -- attended local schools. About half the houses are rentals.


from an article in today's Wash Post about the possibilty on NOT rebuilding the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
Click here to read the whole article

RIP..August Wilson

August Wilson Bio

August Wilson, 60, whose plays about 20th-century black life were among the most celebrated of modern dramas, died yesterday at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, his city of residence. He disclosed in August that he had inoperable liver cancer.

Read the whole article here