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Forty One – Hope and Art

08 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by jml78 in Miscellaneous, Music

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A Written Testimony, Ambrose Akinmusire, Black on Both Sides, COVID 19, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, Fiona Apple, Illmatic, Internal Affairs, Jay Electronica, Live! One Night Only, Mad Max: Fury Road, music, Nas, on the tender spot of every calloused moment, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Outkast, Patti LaBelle, Seven Sundays, SiR, Sleepy Brown, Southernplayalisticadillakmuzik, To Pimp A Butterfly

I’m now a bit over 41 and a half years old.

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I’ve finally reached the age when the divide between my life and the lives of those in their teens and twenties feels incredibly clear and insurmountable. I can no longer pretend to understand the perspective of young people without talking to young people. I always thought that I would have mixed feelings about this time of life, but it feels more like an opportunity to learn new things, which is kind of great.

The space between 41 and 41 1/2 feels much larger than the space between 40 and 41 (or 35 and 40). The COVID health emergency plays a large role – the days tend to blur together when you shelter in place for ninety days – but it’s also about the ways in which the basic rules of the world have shifted over the last few months. 

It’s more than the endless crises – the pandemic that caused a painful recession with Depression era food/job insecurity as we are struggling with the stress test for democracy that is the Trump administration (and his enablers in Congress) and a weeks long police riot targeting citizens protesting police violence against Black people. 

It’s the sense that I’m living in a moment in which anything is possible. This can be the moment when we can decide to confront systems of white supremacy and misogyny. I’ve spent my life reading and watching and listening to stories of women experiencing abuse in environments controlled by men (or being punished for not being the right kind of woman) and Black people enduring abuse in environments dominated by white people.

I’ve lost count of the stories about Black people abused by the police, from the murders that make the news to the demeaning, disrespectful everyday encounters that are less ‘newsworthy’ but deeply painful. This is not the first time that I’ve seen impassioned protests and powerful activist movements that have arisen in response to these incidents, but this is the first time I’ve seen so many people resist co-optation.

It’s not enough to schedule trainings on anti-racism or against sexual harassment or on de-escalation and how to be an effective ‘guardian’. It’s not enough to release a statement stating that Black Lives Matter or that you are listening. It’s not enough to write a consultant/lawyer approved note saying that you believe the woman who was raped or harassed. Crowds may cheer when you take down a statue honoring a person for the atrocities they committed, but they will not be satisfied.

They want to know how you will contribute to the project of dismantling systems of oppression. They want you to create opportunities for people, to address harm, to ensure that those who commit harm are held accountable. They want you to imagine an approach to public safety that centered the needs and preferences of people and communities (especially those who are ignored and harmed by our existing system). They want justice.

I hope that their efforts succeed, but worry about the darker possibilities, whether they take the form of a reactionary backlash that could result in a bloody reign of terror (as we stumble towards fascism and global irrelevance) or light procedural reforms and lip service to activist movements. I look back at history (both in this country and elsewhere) and think of the times when movements were undermined and destabilized or ruthlessly crushed. I know better. We are not condemned to endlessly repeat the past. This feels like a moment for truth-telling. It seems like people feel compelled to tell the truth in this moment. This country may finally be ready to stop committing the crime of innocence. In the midst of a pandemic, my sense of hope has been renewed.

The other interesting part of being 41 is that I am endlessly surprised by pop culture anniversaries. 2019 marked the silver anniversary of Illmatic and Southernplayalisticadillakmuzik, the debut albums from Nas and OutKast. Both are classic albums that don’t feel vintage or like products of their time. Neither feels twenty five years old. When Nas tells me that his sentence begin indented “with formality”, or when Sleepy Brown sings about how “niggas killing niggas is part of the master plan”, the flow and words still feel vibrant and contemporary even though the song also transports me to the moment in high school when I first popped the cassette tapes into my Walkman (with Dolby B sound).

I’m quick to identify Nas and OutKast as contenders in conversations about the “GOAT” of the genre, but I don’t spend much time thinking about their respective legacies or how they’ve influenced artists (in a variety of disciplines) over the last quarter century. I often think of them as vital, talented artists, but forget that they are icons.

This was the first year I realized that my definition of ‘recent’ with respect to culture has become fluid. It could be a reference to last week, last month or last year (or five years ago). Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road feel like they came out pretty recently, but they’re both five years old. 

I notice this phenomenon with most forms of culture, but it’s most noticeable in music. Many of the artists who I think of as ‘emerging’ or ‘up and coming’ are mainstream presences who’re firmly part of the establishment. Artists who debuted a decade ago feel as new as the artists who released their first music in the spring of 2020. Some of these ‘new’ artists have been around long enough to inspire subsequent generations of ‘new’ artists. I’m occasionally surprised to read about MCs who view Kanye West and Lil’ Wayne (post The Carter) as seminal artists. This logic also applies in other areas – I still think of an actor like Leonardo di Caprio as a youngish actor with a promising career ahead of him, but forget that people in their twenties probably see him in the way that I saw Jack Nicholson when I was young – an established industry figure who would be considered an all timer if he never made another film. 

Why do things feel so different? I think it might be because the role that art and culture play in my life has changed over the years. I used to define myself by the art and culture I loved. I listened to albums on repeat and memorized liner notes (and bought all the bootlegs and mixtapes). I saw movies multiple times and watched all of the credits. There are years and seasons I remember for the albums and films that were released as much as for the people I met and things I experienced. The Summer of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and a relationship that was reaching a bittersweet end. The Fall of Internal Affairs, Black on Both Sides, student government and drunken revelry.

 

I read all of the interviews and features (all of them) and devoured the criticism. Music and film played a powerful role in my life during the years when my aesthetic preferences were being developed, when I was deeply in the process of becoming myself. 

One day I stopped. I still listened to new music and watched new movies, but they were unmoored from any specific place or time. I still love film, music and art. They move me, entertain me and add meaning to my life. They are still part of the soundtrack of my life. I’m still fascinated by the unfamiliar, but the discovery of newly released work is less central to my experience. Over the last few months, I’ve spent a lot of time listening to music that is novel to me – from Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters and Jay Electronica’s A Written Testimony to on the tender spot of every calloused moment by Ambrose Akinmusire, Patti LaBelle’s Live! One Night Only and SiR’s Seven Sundays. They all feel equally new and vital, though some were released over two decades ago.

 

I find myself drifting away from the discourse about new culture as I get older. I enjoy reading and writing about culture, but don’t need to engage with things immediately anymore. There was a time in my life when Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday were incredibly important days of the week for me. It was a time for new music, comic books and film. At 41, I simply enjoy art when I encounter it.

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(The author, listening to a dope track from Avantdale Bowling Club for the first time in the fall of 2019). 

Rough Gabfest Thoughts (The Degrees of Blackface Edition)

13 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by jml78 in Miscellaneous, Uncategorized

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personal, politics, Race

I’ve enjoyed Slate’s Political Gabfest for a number of years, but found that I couldn’t listen after our current President was elected in November 2016. Everything had changed for me, and I feared that nothing would change for the hosts of the show. I enjoy listening to smart perspectives that differ from my own, but I feared that they would be likely to dismiss the unusual nature of our current political status quo. I still subscribe to the podcast and check in every once in a while, but it’s no longer my go-to political analysis podcast (I rely far more heavily on the NYT Daily podcast and Vox’s weekly Weeds podcast for that).

I listened to last week’s podcast over the weekend and was both fascinated and disappointed by what I heard.

The first segment of the show focused on the controversy surrounding top officials in Virginia’s state government, specifically the concerns around the governor and the attorney general’s admissions that they (separately) dressed in black face in the early 1980’s. Governor Frank Northam acknowledged wearing blackface while wearing a Michael Jackson costume during his time in medical school and AG Mark Herring admitted to dressing in blackface while impersonating Golden Age rapper Kurtis Blow when he was an undergrad. This came to public attention when some photos from Gov. Northam’s page in his med school yearbook featuring a person dressed in a KKK hood and an individual dressed in blackface were released (as part of an investigation by a conservative outlet). Gov. Northam appeared to admit that he was one of the individuals in the photo, only to retract that admission and admit that he wore blackface in a different context for a party.

The panelists (the New York Times’ Emily Bazelon, CBS’ John Dickerson and Atlas Obscura’s David Plotz) talked about the impact that the controversy could have on the two officials involved and marveled at the mistakes made by both politicians. The conversation was similar to the ones you probably heard in any number of forums. There was the requisite condemnation and disgust, but that was followed by a conversation that reminded me that many people have trouble appreciating the impact of racism that’s not driven by animus.

The three hosts agree that dressing in blackface is inappropriate, but there is some debate about the distinctions that can be drawn between the yearbook image and the examples shared by the Governor and Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Plotz describes the former as vile and grotesque and the latter are characterized as stupid and boorish, the actions of ‘stupid frat boys’. 

The suggestion is that one is mean-spirited and the other is… not. Maybe an ill-considered celebration of the impersonated artists. “An attempt to honor a cultural figure who you admire.” A comparison is made to (non-Chinese) people who wear traditional Chinese dresses to honor Chinese women.

I can imagine why a Chinese person might be annoyed by a non-Chinese person wearing a traditional garment. I would imagine that they would be even more annoyed if that person applied makeup to make themselves look like a 19th century caricature of a Chinese person.

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Neither Michael Jackson or Kurtis Blow have ever had skin tones that one would naturally compare to black shoe polish. “Black” people come in many shades of brown, but none of us are literally black.

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The discussion is dominated by Plotz and Dickerson (though Bazelon does condemn the behavior in all contexts). The two men employ the phrases used by self-styled rational/reasonable men – ‘nuance’, ‘context’, ‘continuum’ to unpack the differences between the three situations.

Context is important and I appreciate the value of nuance, but I worry when those words are used as rhetorical shields instead of tools that help us understand a situation and craft a remedy.

Context can prompt us to consider the fact that the two men (from Virginia) chose to use blackface to impersonate musicians and can remind us to contemplate the legacy of blackface minstrelsy.

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Nuance can help us think and discuss the subtle power of racism that can accommodate both virulent hatred and condescending affection disguised as love.

We can use models and the concept of a continuum to help unpack different kinds of racism (and identify strategies for undoing racism) without assuming that one’s place on the continuum is perfectly aligned with the seriousness of the behavior.

It’s important to consider the emotions that motivate racist behavior when developing strategies to address racism at different levels, but we should remember that hate and loathing are not essential components of racism, particularly in the United States. We have a long history of racist policies (and practices) created and enforced by people who had no trouble reconciling their affection for black people with a steadfast belief that we were inferior and less human. Scarlett loved Mammy, but never considered her a full person. Racism isn’t always grounded in hatred, it can simply be a failure to recognize that others are full human beings.

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The performance of blackface as an explicit reference to a history of racial oppression (by combining it with a person wearing a KKK costume) is different from a performance of blackface to ‘honor’ black artists, but both are tied to a long history of using makeup to dehumanize and shape prejudices of black people in this country. They are harmful in different ways, but both are pretty damn harmful.

 

 

These Are A Few…

31 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by jml78 in Miscellaneous, Uncategorized

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Abe Fisher, All New Wolverine, Aretha Franklin, Beneath the Dead Oak Tree, Black Panther, Black Thought, Dept. H, Erykah Badu, Feast: True Love In and Out of the Kitchen, Giovanni's Room, Green Lantern Earth One, J. Period, Janelle Monae, Kanye West, Kid Cudi, Love & Rockets, Mister Miracle, Moana, Noname, Pharaoh Monche, Prince, Rakim, Random Acts of Flyness, Rise of the Black Panther, Salaam Remi, Salt Fat Acid Heat, Shabazz Palaces, Sorry to Bother You, Steamed, Teyana Taylor, The Birthday of the World, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, The Mighty Thor, The Mind of a Chef, The Phantom Thread, The Warmth of Other Suns, Tierra Whack, Ugly Delicious, Widows, Without Blood, Young Fathers

A few of my favorite cultural experiences of 2018. The featured image is from my son’s kindergarten class performance of Arrow to the Sun (which was my favorite cultural experience of 2018)

Here are the runner ups in no particular order:

Words and Pictures

  • The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S./Perla La Loca/Penny Century/Esperanza/The Love Bunglers – Jaime Hernandez
  • Dept. H – Pressure/After the Flood – Sharlene and Matt Kindt
  • Green Lantern Earth One Vol. One – Gabriel Hardman and Corinna Sara Bechko
  • Mister Miracle – Tom King and Mitch Gerads
  • Rise of the Black Panther – Evan Narcisse, Paul Renaud, Javier Pina
  • All New Wolverine – Tom Taylor, David Lopez
  • The Mighty Thor – Jason Aaron, Russell Dauterman
  • Beneath the Dead Oak Tree – Emily Carroll
  • Did You See Me? – Sophia Foster-Dimino
  • Berlin – Jason Lutes

Words

  • The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration – Isabel Wilkerson
  • The Birthday of the World and Other Stories – Ursula K. LeGuin
  • Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
  • Feast: True Love In and Out of the Kitchen – Hannah Howard
  • Without Blood – Alessandro Barrico

Moving Pictures

  • The Phantom Thread
  • Black Panther
  • Sorry to Bother You
  • Widows
  • Moana

Radio with Pictures

  • The Mind of a Chef Season 3
  • The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
  • Salt Fat Acid Heat
  • Ugly Delicious
  • Random Acts of Flyness

Food

  • Steamed, New Haven, CT
  • Abe Fisher, Philadelphia, PA

Music

  • Room 25, Noname
  • Streams of Thought Vol. 2 – Black Thought & Salaam Remi
  • J Period Presents the Live Mixtape (#Top5 MCs Edition) – J. Period ft. Rakim, Black Thought and Pharaoh Monche
  • Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star – Shabazz Palaces
  • K.T.S.E. – Teyana Taylor
  • Piano & A Microphone 1983 – Prince
  • KIDS SEE GHOSTS – Kanye West & Kid Cudi
  • Streams of Thought Vol. 1 – Black Thought
  • Dirty Computer – Janelle Monae
  • Cocoa Sugar – Young Fathers
  • Whack World – Tierra Whack

Music + Video

  • Aretha Franklin, Full Concert, Filmore West, 3/7/71
  • Erykah Badu, NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Forty

14 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by jml78 in Miscellaneous

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personal

img_0354I started thinking about turning forty a few months ago, mostly because people started to ask me about it on a semi-regular basis. I was told that it was a meaningful milestone and an ordinary day, that I would feel unchanged and newly mortal, and that I would reflect on my past and think about the future. I was urged to do something fun, novel and extraordinary.

I spent a happy thirty minutes talking about travel with my brother, who is one of those people who always makes sure to do something interesting for his birthday. He was the one responsible for my last big birthday trip to Las Vegas about eleven years ago.

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That was a different version of me, a much younger Jamaal with locs who smoked cigarettes.img_0112

That version of Jamaal wasn’t quite sad, but very far from happy. He was starting to have trouble imagining his future. Things turned out pretty well. He found a new job (and was laid off, but quickly found another and was later promoted into one that was a perfect fit). He proposed to his long-term girlfriend and the two were married three years after the Vegas trip. Six years after Vegas, he welcomed his son into the world and learned what it was like to feel overwhelmingly happy and terrified on a daily basis. It didn’t take much effort to imagine the future anymore.

I also started thinking about turning forty because I mentioned it to people on a semi-regular basis and was hoping to find a way to figure out how I should feel about it. November is a very busy month in the life of the Thomas family, between my son’s birthday, a wedding anniversary and the tumult of Thanksgiving, and it’s extremely easy to distract myself by attending to the needs of others. I didn’t plan my son’s party this year (my wife was the mastermind of that one), but I did take every opportunity to bury myself in work and routine and story reading and writing practice and chores and games of Tayo the Friendly Bus.

Whenever I did find time to think about my fortieth birthday, I felt a sense of joy and peace. I haven’t come close to accomplishing what I thought I would’ve done in terms of my career, but my life outside of work is far more fulfilling than I ever would have imagined. That feeling dissipated when I thought about doing something for my birthday. It made me feel uncomfortable, like I haven’t done enough in my life to merit a celebration. I don’t actually believe that, but there are definitely moments when I compare who I am to who I could have been, and feel like I’ve fallen short of my potential.

So I didn’t jump out of a plane or throw a big party or go on a fun adventure. Maybe I should have. I just took a day off from work, took a walk, listened to a great talk from a journalist who covered some of the most terrifying conflicts of the last three decades and did some writing. I saw a little bit of the Criterion Edition of Terrence Malick’s New World and had lunch with my wife. I plan to see some old friends this weekend. I would like to say that I felt like I did enough, but I’m still uncertain. I genuinely believed that I would reflect on my past and plan for my future, but it felt more like I found ways to distract myself. I still have some time (hopefully!) to figure out how I feel about turning forty.

A few things I do know – I’m an older Jamaal who cut his locs (and is slowly losing his hair), who stopped smoking over a decade ago, has a pretty great wife and kid, and who’s not always happy, but pretty far from sad. As of yesterday, I’ve lived in this world for four decades. I’ve had a lot of love in my life (I’m lucky). I’ve spent the vast majority of my career helping people and organizations (who are in the business of helping people). It may not be a lot, but it feels like something.

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Here are some of the things I want to do (over the next year and beyond)

  • Write more.
  • Slow down.
  • Learn to drive. (Don’t @ me about this one – I grew up in New York and live in a small town (yeah, I said it) where a car is important, but not strictly required)

There are other personal and work related things that I won’t share (your boy’s got plans), but this is a start.

Related

Thirty Nine

Previous

Sometimes My Heart Gets Heavy (Cell Therapy Two)

Black Panther Take Three: T’Challa Is Not Excellent

Recently Revised/Reposted

The Carter: Weezy Never Takes A Day Off

Respect the Architects

Sometimes My Heart Gets Heavy (Cell Therapy Two)

16 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by jml78 in Miscellaneous, Music

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Tags

Al Ewing, Alex de Campi, Ann Nocenti, Batman, Black Bolt, Black Monday Murders, Carla Speed McNeil, Carter 5, Christian Ward, David Aja, Evan Narcisse, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles, Giant Days, Javier Pina, Joe Bennett, John allison, Jonathan Hickman, K.T.S.E., Lil' Wayne, Mark Morales, Mark Russell, Max Sarin, Mike Feehan, Noname, personal, Rise fo the Black Panther, Room 25, Saladin Ahmed, Sarah Horrocks, Teyana Taylor, The Seeds, Tierra Whack, Tomm Coker, Trungles, Twisted Romance, Wack World

The last few weeks have been exceptionally challenging – from the Kavanaugh hearings and the New York Times’ coverage of the Trump family’s efforts to preserve their family fortune to work related things (it’s fulfilling, but it can be emotionally draining).

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Here are some things that have been therapeutic:

Writing: There are few things that I enjoy more than thinking and writing about culture. The only reason that I don’t write about culture more frequently is that the things I love and value more than writing are also pretty time consuming. Over the last few months, I’ve managed to find the time (between family, work and volunteering) to write a few thousand words about a popular superhero movie. I have more to say (I always have more to say), but I think it’s time to branch off in a different direction. I have some ideas related to afro-futurism and black pop culture heroes, but I’m not sure that I’m going to have the time to do the topic justice. I’d love to do some more writing about pop culture, but with a full time job, a slate of volunteer commitments and a family, I’m always going to be behind the ‘discourse’ (is late 2018 too late for a Phantom Thread essay?). I have the beginnings of a comic book post in my head about how modern creators are finding interesting ways to reimagine the origin stories of Golden – Bronze Age superheroes. I have a series of posts about Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton that need to be fleshed out and edited. I also have a bunch of Funnybook Babylon and Between the Stations posts to finish editing/uploading to this site, but that’s not as fun as writing something new.

So what’s next? If I have the time (crosses fingers), a post about Sorry to Bother You and something about why the most meaningful hip-hop (and popular music) in 2018 has been created and performed by women. If I really have the time (e.g., a bout of the flu), I will finally complete the Hamilton posts.

Music: I’ve spent the last few weeks listening to Aretha Franklin concert mixes and Teyana Taylor’s recently released K.T.S.E. They are very different artists, but both lack artifice and can convey the feeling of finding joy in pain and chaos. Aretha was a genius in every way that a music artist can be one – a brilliant technician and arranger whose ability to evoke raw emotion was unmatched. Teyana doesn’t have Aretha’s gifts, but there was something unflinchingly honest about her performances on this album, from songs like Issues/Hold On to WTP. On Issues/Hold On, Taylor explores the intertwined anger, passion and uncertainty present in a tempestuous romance. She doesn’t just share the suspicion and other ugly emotions that can come when one feels vulnerable in a romantic relationship, she suggests that her uncertainty is rooted in her past experiences. She is self-aware, but the pain is still raw.

WTP is a very different kind of song (as you might guess after you listen to the hypnotic ‘work this pussy’ refrain), but there’s something deeply honest about her demand that a lover give her pleasure. The song is inspired by the Harlem underground ballroom scene created by black gay men, trans men and women, drag performers of all identities and orientations and other members of the LGBTQ community in the 1960’s. I always associated that scene with a heightened sense of fantasy, but Taylor’s assured delivery reminds me that the underlying desires and emotions can be very real.

During the last two decades weeks of the Kavanaugh nomination, I found myself turning to hip-hop. During other ‘our political landscape is enraging and terrifying’ moments over the last few years, I fell into the habit of adding more hip-hop tracks and playlists to my rotation. I usually added a mix of songs that were made when I was a young man or which sounded as if they were inspired by that music (my go to is one that shares the title of this post with tracks from Black Star, Yasiin Bey, Common, Lauryn Hill, Chance, Otis Redding, Amy Winehouse and Me’Shell Ndegeocello). This time I found myself listening to Tierra Whack’s Wack World, Noname’s Room 25 and Lil’ Wayne’s Carter 5.

I don’t know why I downloaded Tierra Whack’s debut album. It may have been a recommendation from a friend online or an admiring tweet that floated by on my timeline. It’s a delightfully strange album filled with unexpected rhythms and exceptional rapping. Tierra’s songs contain some hard truths, but there’s a sense of joy and optimism at the core of her music that feels necessary in this political climate. We deserve to feel joy and “if you love somebody I promise that you should tell ’em”. I know exactly why I rushed to get Noname’s Room 25 when it became available – I’ve loved her work since I was introduced to her on Lost, from Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap mixtape. Her verse was brief but powerful – the closing line “the only time he loves me is naked in my dreams” was heartbreaking. Her debut is assured and brilliant. I loved her two collaborations with Chance the Rapper (Lost and Israel (Sparring)), but she sounds even more confident on this album. The verses are packed with meaning, but Noname is comfortable with adjusting the density of her rhymes to ensure the maximum impact on the listener – contrast the melancholic Don’t Forget About Me with the high energy playful vibe on Self. I haven’t seriously thought about Lil’ Wayne for years, since I was disappointed by the Carter 3 about a decade ago. I downloaded his album on a lark – I wanted to listen to some new music and saw that Wayne had finally released the Carter 5. I was surprised to hear an artist who had rediscovered his voice. Wayne is scattered (as he always is), but his flow is still incredible on songs like Dedicate and Mona Lisa. His rhymes are dense, profane and inappropriate, but they are also compelling. Sometimes. He’s still Lil Wayne, so we still get verses that are just terrible or feel exceptionally lazy, but even the less inspired verses are backed by impeccable production from Mannie Fresh (man, was it refreshing to hear some new Mannie!) and the team of R!o and Kamo.  I found myself turning to a playlist with my favorite tracks from all three albums to help cope with all the dark and dour news of the day on a increasingly regular basis over the last few weeks.

I’ve also been doing some reading, but more on that later. Here are some highlights:

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  1. Giant Days – John Allison, Max Sarin
  2. Immortal Hulk – Joe Bennett, Al Ewing
  3. The Black Monday Murders – Tomm Coker, Jonathan Hickman
  4. The Rise of the Black Panther – Evan Narcisse, Javier Pina
  5. The Seeds – Ann Nocenti, David Aja
  6. Twisted Romance (Red Medusa on the Road to Hell) – Sarah Horrocks
  7. Black Bolt – Saladin Ahmed, Christian Ward
  8. Twisted Romance (Treasured) – Trungles, Alex de Campi
  9. Batman – Jim Aparo, Jim Starlin
  10. Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles – Mark Russell, Mike Feehan, Mark Morales
  11. Twisted Romance (Invincible Heart) – Alex de Campi, Carla Speed McNeil

See you next time.

Black Panther: Second Take (Four Things)

24 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by jml78 in Film, Miscellaneous

≈ 1 Comment

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Anthony Ramos, Black Panther, Danai Gurira, Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr., Letitia Wright, Lin Manuel Miranda, Lupita Nyongo, Michael B. Jordan, Ryan Coogler, Sterling Brown

A list of four things about Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther that stuck with me in the months following my first viewing (I am not good at listicles).

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Book Quotes of 2017

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by jml78 in Art, Miscellaneous

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Amor Towles, David Gilbert, Dinaw Mengestu, Douglas Adams, Haruki Murakami, James Baldwin, Michael Lewis, Susanna Clarke, Timothy Snyder

At 2 East 70th Street the day-shift doorman recognized her—“That you, Mrs. Dyer?”—and with a certain amount of pride Isabel remembered his name—“Hello, Felix”—and chatted about family, his four children now all grown, the older two with children themselves, though time unarticulated was the truer subject, Felix following the doorman code and refraining from asking personal questions, but seeing Mrs. Dyer of the sixth floor gave him a passing awareness of the gap between when he was young and when she was old and how it had narrowed to a crack.
–& Sons, David Gilbert

if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence of programming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn’t that true?”

–Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams

It was as if he had been assigned to take apart a fiendishly complicated alarm clock to see why it wasn’t working, only to discover that an important part of the clock was inside his own mind.

–The Undoing Project, Michael Lewis

You would not, I imagine, suggest that it is the task of botanists to devise more flowers? Or that astronomers should labour to rearrange the stars? Magicians, Mr Segundus, study magic which was done long ago. Why should any one expect more?”

–Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke

The hero of a David Lodge novel says that you don’t know, when you make love for the last time, that you are making love for the last time. Voting is like that. Some of the Germans who voted for the Nazi Party in 1932 no doubt understood that this might be the last meaningfully free election for some time, but most did not. Some of the Czechs and Slovaks who voted for the Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1946 probably realized that they were voting for the end of democracy, but most assumed they would have another chance. No doubt the Russians who voted in 1990 did not think that this would be the last free and fair election in their country’s history, which (thus far) it has been.

–On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder

I laughed and grabbed his head as I had done God knows how many times before, when I was playing with him or when he had annoyed me. But this time when I touched him something happened in him and in me which made this touch different from any touch either of us had ever known. And he did not resist, as he usually did, but lay where I had pulled him, against my chest. And I realized that my heart was beating in an awful way and that Joey was trembling against me and the light in the room was very bright and hot.

Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin

We shouted over the dinner tables and slipped away into empty rooms with each other’s spouses, carousing with all the enthusiasm and indiscretion of Greek gods. And in the morning, we woke at 6:30 on the dot, clearheaded and optimistic, ready to resume our places behind the stainless steel desks at the helm of the world.

–Rules of Civility, Amor Towles

“That’s not true. Of course you do. Denise would whisper to Sharon, and Sharon would tell her husband and her sister. You would come to the office and find them whispering, and after a few days, you’d begin to think that it was about you. After a week, you would start to think that people all over town were looking at you strangely. You would notice them trying to look directly past you when you ran into them in the grocery store and on the street. When Christmas came, you would have only half as many cards in your mailbox, and least once a year, junior-high boys would throw a half-dozen eggs at your window. “If you think they wouldn’t say anything, though, you’re right. They wouldn’t say a word. It would be rude and un-Christian to do so.

–All Our Names, Dinaw Mengestu

She attracted attention not so much because of the qualities of her features but rather because of the naturalness and grace with which her expression moved.

–IQ84, Huraki Murakami

When you borrow a lot of money to create a false prosperity, you import the future into the present. It isn’t the actual future so much as some grotesque silicone version of it. Leverage buys you a glimpse of a prosperity you haven’t really earned.

–Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, Michael Lewis

2018 (suggestions to a future self)

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by jml78 in Miscellaneous, Uncategorized

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Some suggestions to 2018 Jamaal:

  • Get more disciplined.
  • Run more.
  • Volunteer more.
  • Do a better job of recognizing (and demanding) your value.
  • Write more.
  • Play more.
  • Consume (and support) more independently produced culture.
  • Simplify things.
  • Keep positive.

Thirty Nine.

14 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by jml78 in Miscellaneous, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

personal, running

2017-11-13 18.19.55
39. Love. One of my favorite Tupac lines was always “last year was a tough one, but life goes on” – it always feels true. I turned 38 during a tough time in my life. My career was going well, my personal and professional relationships were solid, my kid was healthy and happy and my marriage was a good one. I should have been content. I was still in shock from a national election that seemed to foreshadow a dark future. It was a reminder that the past was not past.

I ran ten miles on my birthday that year because I hoped that I could outrun what was starting to feel like more than a standard post-election funk. There was a quote from an old Radiolab podcast that stuck in my mind – “if love and mercy are good things, why are they missing so much of the time?” I found myself listening to Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker on runs. When he referenced the binding of Isaac in the chorus “Hineni, Hineni, I’m ready Lord”, I was moved. I was ready to serve, but felt lost.

The running worked for a little while, but I didn’t really start to feel better until family came by for Thanksgiving. Cooking and talking to my extended family helped me feel balanced. I shared the story from the podcast with my family – how Robert Krulwich struggled with the meaning of the sacrifices that Abraham and Noah were asked to make in God’s name, about how much can be read into the silences of the Old Testament narratives. I told them that we all needed to find that love and mercy in one another. We were all we had. In the months that followed, the reactionary resurgence in this country was met by a wave of progressive activism led by an awe inspiring range of people from different backgrounds and cultures, with different experiences and gender identities, from a wide range of groups that could be defined as ‘left’. There have been a number of setbacks, but there have been some hopeful moments. I’m not under any illusion. The next few years will be extraordinarily difficult and we will all have to endure some challenging times. But we’ve got a chance.

I ran 11 miles this year for my birthday run. I originally planned to run to the veterans memorials on Long Wharf to briefly pay my respects, but I just felt compelled to keep going. I only stopped when my phone flashed a signal to inform me that it had 10% battery life and was going to shut down. It felt different this time. I felt content. I didn’t have anything to outrun.

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Cell Therapy (Or Am I Born To Lose, or is This Just A Lesson?)

The Nine

12 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by jml78 in Miscellaneous, Uncategorized

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Tags

Austin, Chrstopher Sheels, George Washington, Giles, Hercules, Joe, Moll, Oney Judge, Paris, Philadelphia, Richmond

It’s hard to avoid thinking about legacy in Philadelphia.

I spent most of last week in the city, my second visit as an adult. I was there for work, to attend a professional conference for people in higher education who work on issues related to gender equity. I stayed in appropriately generic hotels in downtown Philadelphia that featured good room service, warm staff and chilly conference rooms. I learned and networked during the day and wandered the streets in the evening.

During my first visit, I visited the Liberty Bell and walked by the Christ Church burial ground and Elfreth’s Alley. The city is filled with reminders of Philadelphia’s role in early American history, nods to the men and women who fought and sacrificed to win their freedom during the Revolutionary War. I felt like I was surrounded by America’s origin myth. On my second day at the 2016 conference, I learned about about institutional betrayal and Prof. Jennifer Freyd’s betrayal trauma theory.

img_3840

It was fascinating stuff, but everyone was too busy talking about the Presidential campaign. A recording of one of the candidates talking frankly about some of the awful privileges that come with power had surfaced, and everyone was either frightened about what might happen if the candidate became President or confident that this revelation would doom his candidacy. I wandered by the President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of A New Nation exhibit later that evening. It was a profoundly moving experience that I was eager to replicate on my second trip to the city.

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