May 29, 2008
“

ca’line’s prayer

i have got old
in a desert country
i am dry
and black as drought
don’t make water
only acid
even dogs wont drink

remember me from wydah
remember the child
running across dahomey
black as ripe papaya
juicy as sweet berries
and set me in the rivers of your glory

Ye Ma Jah
Lucille Clifton, “ca’line’s prayer”
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I am completely in love with this video. It was produced by Zulema Griffin (Project Runway Season 2) to showcase her Fall 08/09 line. First off, the imagery recalls literary things for me like “The Blacker the Berry” and “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Secondly, coming from the perspective of one who gets their spiritual wisdom through synchronicity, this video expresses the depths of loss, being lost, wandering in search of God, and ultimately the ways in which we mask and cover up that journey even as we are going through it. I heart this. Enjoy.

P.S. I knew that I loved Zulema for her “You can cry, but you better cry and cut!” moment on ProjRun, but this seals it in there like swimwear.

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May 24, 2008
One more week of school. I’ll be leaving to go to South Africa on an adventure in about a month. This school year has been a hot mess and a blaze of glory of sorts. Through it all my friends  have kept me together.  I am sure there is no coincidence that most of my friends are teachers as well. Thanks for holding my hand.
One more week of school. I’ll be leaving to go to South Africa on an adventure in about a month. This school year has been a hot mess and a blaze of glory of sorts. Through it all my friends  have kept me together.  I am sure there is no coincidence that most of my friends are teachers as well. Thanks for holding my hand.
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May 11, 2008
This is off topic I know. I know. But this is a thought that consumes my life: Here lie the prefect sunglasses for my life. I once owned a pair, perfectly round, offbeat and orange in the recesses of my purse they met irreversible brokenness. My love for these sunglasses cancels out the fact that they are manufactured by J.Lo. I have tried on lots of others but they are either too predictable (Read: Obviously purchased at Urban Outfitters) or too plain (Read: Mom Sunglasses). Sigh.

This is off topic I know. I know. But this is a thought that consumes my life:

Here lie the prefect sunglasses for my life.

I once owned a pair,

perfectly round,

offbeat and orange

in the recesses of my purse

they met irreversible brokenness.

My love for these sunglasses cancels out the fact that they are manufactured by J.Lo. I have tried on lots of others but they are either too predictable (Read: Obviously purchased at Urban Outfitters) or too plain (Read: Mom Sunglasses). Sigh.

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April 27, 2008

Invoices, First Names, & Commissions

I don’t like callin and botherin people. “Hello this is Darnell calling from EastLine Asset Management…” It’s the job I never wanted. “Hello this is Darnell calling from EastLine Asset Management…” Sometimes calling a invoice is like trying to get with silly girls in high school. The kind of girl who would say she was goin with you and then switch once she fucked a basketball player. Those are the ones who fake like they’re gonna pay and don’t until 20 or more phone calls later. “Yes, Ms. Ingram we’re showing a balance of $868.83. How do you intend to pay for that? Check? Money Order?”

I know how she’s going to pay. If she got kids she might ignore it. She might pay for their school clothes, a birthday party, a pair of shoes for herself. Of course she tells me the check is in the mail. Of course I tell my supervisor that Ms. Ingram is gonna pay and I’ll get my commission from closing the account. But I know better. “Hello? Oh this isn’t Natasha? Can you tell her Darnell called?” You get to first names when its time to get serious. Call 33. Promise 50. Natasha is always nice when I call. We talk about her job, her other bills choking her bank account. She tells me that she feels embarrassed that I have to call. I feel quietly embarrassed because I haven’t paid my fees for my cooking classes, embarrassed that my glasses are cracked on the right lens and I haven’t had insurance since undergrad. I’m embarrassed that I even went to undergrad…

“Hi, oh, is your mommy there? She’s not? Can you tell her Mr. Darnell called?” Its all a game. I wake up everyday and wear a suit full of lies, drive 40 miles to the call center where our supervisor gets dumb fucks hype by telling em they’re “debt professionals”. Ms. Ingram, Natasha, might never answer the phone again. I probably won’t get this commission. My supervisor will wear pants that are too small and his feet are gonna hang over the sides of his shoes like overstuffed fanny-packs. I know he’s gonna make us do a cheer before we go to our desks and pick up the phones that are damn near warm from the night before. I will do my shift. “Hello, this is Darnell…” Natasha answers. She asks me if I have any other payment options. I smile before I reply. That is one thing I don’t know.

This is my attempt at flash fiction or micro fiction My central quandary was: How does a bill collector feel? Is it possible for them to like a job that is truly based on an elevated form of hunting and harassment? How does the survival of one almost always mean the non-survival of another?

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April 23, 2008
“

I think that writing is a way of continuing to hope. When things
sometimes feel as if they’re not going to get any better, writing
offers a way of trying to connect with something beyond that obvious
feeling … because you know, there is hope in connecting, and so
perhaps for me it is a way of remembering I am not alone. And the
writing may be sending tentacles out to see if there is a response
to that.

~ Lucille Clifton, Black Woman Poet Extraordinaire
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April 14, 2008
“

“Art should have some level of depth and mystery and ambiguity, so that when you come to it, you bring yourself and meet it where you’re at. It lets you know what phase you’re in regarding your own understanding. You can grow with it. In that way, the text is alive.”

~ Haale, Musician

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April 6, 2008
 The words in this photo are straight from my journal. (4.2.08, 12:00 AM to be exact) It has everything to do with confronting the stifling that is imposed upon me and the restrictions I place on myself.  As I look back through these postings I notice a thread piercing them and connecting them. I noticed that most of these “pieces” have a very melancholy tone. A tone of loss is probably an apt way to describe it. I guess I do feel a loss of direction and drive. But what is disturbing to me as a student of creative writing is that “melancholy” is the term most commonly thrown at the work of young writers and artists. I’m reminded of an episode of the “The L Word” when the writer character Jenny has her new memoir reviewed for a magazine by a writer she thought she had a connection with. When the article is published she describes Jenny as “self-indulgent” and characterizes her as another depressed mentally unstable young writer. I do somewhat think this little project is self-indulgent but I suppose that on some level all art is. It takes indulgence with the self to get an idea, take time to cultivate it,  and then gather the courage to put it out. It takes a vested self interest to, as Santogold says in L.E.S. Artistes, leave home and disappear. I have always thought that the solitude and sacrifice often required for one to write or create anything does require a certain kind of privilege (class namely, youth is another) in order to create the necessary space. Those not working within that privilege of youth, financial security and its subsequent free time are my heroes. Accidental artists, artists who originate from the fringes (for real, not the ones who pretend) are indulging and engaging with the self they are and the self they are forced to become. It may be that all of us are wrestling with that, privileged or otherwise. 

 The words in this photo are straight from my journal. (4.2.08, 12:00 AM to be exact) It has everything to do with confronting the stifling that is imposed upon me and the restrictions I place on myself. 

As I look back through these postings I notice a thread piercing them and connecting them. I noticed that most of these “pieces” have a very melancholy tone. A tone of loss is probably an apt way to describe it. I guess I do feel a loss of direction and drive. But what is disturbing to me as a student of creative writing is that “melancholy” is the term most commonly thrown at the work of young writers and artists. I’m reminded of an episode of the “The L Word” when the writer character Jenny has her new memoir reviewed for a magazine by a writer she thought she had a connection with. When the article is published she describes Jenny as “self-indulgent” and characterizes her as another depressed mentally unstable young writer.

I do somewhat think this little project is self-indulgent but I suppose that on some level all art is. It takes indulgence with the self to get an idea, take time to cultivate it,  and then gather the courage to put it out. It takes a vested self interest to, as Santogold says in L.E.S. Artistes, leave home and disappear. I have always thought that the solitude and sacrifice often required for one to write or create anything does require a certain kind of privilege (class namely, youth is another) in order to create the necessary space. Those not working within that privilege of youth, financial security and its subsequent free time are my heroes. Accidental artists, artists who originate from the fringes (for real, not the ones who pretend) are indulging and engaging with the self they are and the self they are forced to become. It may be that all of us are wrestling with that, privileged or otherwise. 

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April 5, 2008
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April 1, 2008

This is SantoGold’s new video. When I watched and listened to the lyrics I connected to it immediately. The song expertly describes how I feel about creating for the sake of the art itself and then having to think of critics and the quintessential question of whether or not it will be enough to “mean something”. 

 L.E.S. Artistes by SantoGold

What I’m searching for
to tell it straight, I’m tryin to build a wall
Walking by myself
down avenues that reek of time to kill
If you see me keep going
be a pass by waver
Build me up, bring me down
just leave me out you name dropper
Stop tryin to catch my eye
I see you good you forced faker
Just make it easy
You’re my enemy you fast talker

Chorus:
I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up
If I could stand up mean for all the things that I believe

What am I here for
I left my home to disappear is all
I’m here for myself
Not to know you
I don’t need no one else
Fit in so good the hope is that you cannot see me later
You don’t know me
I am an introvert an excavator
I’m duckin’ out for now
a face in dodgy elevators
Creep up and suddenly
I found myself
an innovator

Change, change, change,
I want to get up out of my skin
tell you what
if I can shake it
I’m ‘a make this
something worth dreaming of 

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