in case you missed it....
Sarah Godfrey (Washington Citypaper) did a great article on Laini Mataka aka Wanda Robinson and her travails as a poet.
Check it out here also
Kenny Carroll weighs in on the importance and impact of Mataka to the work that he has done with DC WritersCorp here (scroll down to the part that says "Poet Laurels"
Also, in case you missed it...
Trumpet/Composer Thad Wilson and his band of "kindred souls" and "young lions" made it real hot and cool on 18th Street last night, as they do almost every late Sunday night at Bossa. You never know who is going to drop through. While
Bassist Kris Funn is out working with Kenny Garrett, pianist Allyn Johnson has been "working the left hand" giving us the bottom sound,
Drummer Quincy Phillips (eQ.Lips) has been working the sticks. Devonte Mccoy sat in for a few and blew us all away. this one cat ( i did not catch his name) who was really nice on the tenor sax sat in, and two young brothers (Larry Mack and Chris Skecket (sp) on trumpet and alto sax respectively) sat in as well. It was dope.... it always warms my heart to young, hiphop cats playing Jass (Jazz), it lets me know that there is hope for the music to survive in the hands of other young African Americans. maybe I can persuade Jati to give a brother some of the pictures he took of the set....
around my way...
Check out Dana Hedgpeth's column
From the Ground Up she has got some really great articles about development plans in the city, including the latest one about the Waterfront development coming to Anacostia and potential condos coming to New York and Bladensburg Avenues.
Click here
BELTWAY POETRY QUARTERLY FEATURES THE “DC PLACES ISSUE”
BELTWAY POETRY QUARTERLY FEATURES THE “DC PLACES ISSUE”
Summer 2006 issue includes work by 52 poets
http://www.beltwaypoetry.com
The DC Places Issue, an on-line anthology of poems that celebrate Washington, DC, by naming specific sites in the city (streets, neighborhoods, parks, monuments, or buildings), is the first issue of the journal to go beyond the Mid-Atlantic region and include poets from all across the United States. And what a list of contributors! The issue includes former U.S. Poets Laureates Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, and William Carlos Williams, and former and current State Poets Laureates Joseph Awad (of Virginia), Fleda Brown (Delaware), Sterling A. Brown (DC), Linda Pastan (Maryland), and Baron Wormser (Maine). A complete list of authors can be found below. Hopefully it will include not only familiar names, but some wonderful new discoveries for you as well.
You can select poems to read from a traditional table of contents, or by clicking on our interactive map, a beautiful addition to the issue provided by Emery Pajer, a Pennsylvania graphic designer who specializes in custom maps.
The DC Places Issue was co-edited by Kim Roberts and Los Angeles poet Andrea Carter Brown. Brown writes in the issue’s introduction: “Every city has its history, but for no other American city is the struggle between local identity and national role so acute.” This presents both a burden and an opportunity for poets, who amply rose to the challenge to portray the city in its public and private aspects, in all its wild complexity.
Contributors: Karren Alenier * Elizabeth Alexander * Joseph Awad * Naomi Ayala * Elizabeth Bishop * Star Black * Derrick Brown *Fleda Brown * Sterling A. Brown * Sarah Browning * Kenneth Carroll * Philip Dacey * Peter Desmond * Thomas Sayers Ellis * Martin Galvin * Simki Ghembremichael * Brian Gilmore * Barbara Goldberg * Patricia Gray * Michael Gushue * Scott Hightower * Bernard Jankowski * Rod Jellema * Fred Joiner * Rosemary Klein * Joe Lapp * Mary Ann Larkin * Lyn Lifshin * Robert Lowell * Greg McBride * E. Ethelbert Miller * Sami Miranda * Miles David Moore * Kathi Morrison-Taylor * Yvette Neisser * Kathleen O’Toole * Linda Pastan * Richard Peabody * Patric Pepper * Carly Sachs * Gregg Shapiro * Evie Shockley * Dean Smith * Mark Tarallo * Hilary Tham * Belle Waring * Josh Weiner * William Carlos Williams * Terence Winch * Baron Wormser * Andrea Wyatt *
Read Beltway Poetry Quarterly at http://www.beltwaypoetry.com
Subscribe for free! Go to the “About Beltway” page: http://www.washingtonart.com/beltway/about.html
from El Segundo to Georgia.....
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I meant to post this before my vacation July 5th-14th, but sometimes it be's like dat. The blog was originally inspired after listening to the
July 2, 2006 installment of Breath of Life
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So i am preparing for a vacation to the Sea Islands and Savannah, i begin my usual travel packing procrastination, so i jump on the web and start checking out some of my favorite and least favorite blogs and such. While doing that i end up on site i don't visit every Monday (when they update their site) like i should; the site Breath of Life (website by Kalamu and Mtume ya Salaam), these brothers really break the music down.
In this week's installment they are dealing with 3 artists/group as usual, two of which mark very distinct musical movements in my life; A Tribe Called Quest (Bonita Applebum-Hootie Mix) and Dizzy Gillespie w/ Chano Pozo (Manteca-the 1957 version). I am not going to try to get into a deep discussion about these artists, Kalamu and Mtume have already done that, but I just wanted to talk a little about how these artists impacted me in a serious way.
Before I start though I have a confession to make I have not always listened to Rap and Hip-Hop music, compared to some of my friends I am a late bloomer . I was able to make up for lost time once i got started; but i was more involved in punk, hardcore, etc. Additionally my dad is a jazz musician so "the music" has always been a part of life.
I honestly say (if my 31 year old mind serves me correctly) that listening Tribe (and Big Daddy Kane) was one of the first I was jus like "yeah, I can really get into this" and no feel like i had to have a particular kind of gear or uniform on, no posturing, that it was not only ok to be "abstract" but it was cool to just be you. That is something that i had mostly experienced with in the punk community, so hear some rap cats express it really got me amped.
Click here to read more
NO $L0T$ IN ANACOSTIA
I am from Jersey , South Jersey about 30 minutes from Atlantic City. My father is a musician who played a lot of the African-American owned jazz club that existed there before they bought gambling and casinos to AC. So will say that Gambling helped not only AC, but New Jersey as a whole, I would say that A, you would had to have lived there to know and B, who did it help. I have scene very little good come from casinos and gambling.
Now here I am in DC, Southeast DC, Anacostia to be specific and some folks are trying to put slots here in my neighborhood. They tried last year and their tactics were shady at best, I sure with the onslaught of the stadium here this time it will be no different. Appearantly, they are canvasing the city, seeking signatures so beware.
Last time this signature campaign happened I was asked "would you like to help create jobs here SE?", I have also heard such as " would you like to increase the Tax base of this area, by usin gambling revenue?".
The thing i don't get is why don't they put slots in neighborhoods where they obviously have more disposable income or where demographic studies and analysis suggest higher incomes.
I hate to always examine things through the filter of race when it comes to the way some things go down in our communities, but sometimes it hard see it any other way. Why not slots on the tourist racked Georgetown Waterfront, Southwest Waterfront, foot-traffic laden Adams Morgan, or
the now uber cool U Street corridor, why Anacostia? In Maryland as well, why in Oxon Hill /Fort Washington, Pimlico and Baltimore City, but not for Timonium Fairgrounds (near where Gov. Ehrlich lives) that actually has the best facilites to support it ?
Anyway I just wanted to give you all the heads up that if someone approaches you at the supermarket, on the street, at or in the Metro, on the Bus, anywhere and starts asking you to sign something, just make sure you are clear about what you are signing. Additionally, because this is the season for petitions of people trying to get on the political ballots, I am sure that he slot signature seekers will be trying to blend in so just beware.
I have seen first hand how gambling and casinos do not help the community that hosts them (in fact in AC the homeless population increased, crime skyrocketed, and the overall AC population decreased). Anacostia will never rid itself of its reputation if slots are allowed here, reason being is because slots will not be the end of it, as the Anacostia Waterfront develops it will become more and more enticing for those invested in Anacostia to have slots, gambling and a casino-like atmosphere.
Furthermore, slots and gambling (in my opinion), let our elected officials and business community off the hook of creating and building real economic development in long-neglected, overlooked and stigmatized parts of the city.
Read more about gambling in AC
http://www.forbes.com/commerce/2005/05/05/cx_da_0505topnews.html - This a critique and brie but telling analysis of how gambling has not made good on the promises that it makes.
http://www.forbes.com/2005/05/25/cz_ao_0525casino.html- This is a piece written by Audrey S. Oswell is president of the Casino Association of New Jersey, in response to the one above. Notice how in his retort he does not address the rise in crime,or even decreasing casino employment rolls. I put this one up to show the contrast in how the issue is handled; with all the double speak here DC imagine how this piece might sound.
Read the Wash Post article about slots here
Click here to read more
