And I heard 'em say...

It is what a woman thinks of herself that really determines her fate.

Henry David Thoreau (paraphrased)

and below a lil comfort for "shrieking harridans", caramel supernovas momentarily stuck in they own sweetness, "foolish frightful wom[e]n", et al:

And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about
God and about death.)
I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God
not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than
myself.
Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and
each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own
face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is
signed by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er
I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" (48)

In the meantime...

the poet
by Lucy

i beg my bones to be good but
they keep clicking music and
i spin in the center of myself
a foolish frightful woman
moving my skin against the wind
and tap dancing for my life.

Dress Your Family in HTML and Javascript?

"And I really love IMing as a new literary form. It’s like speed chess. It’s fast but if you’re good, the prose will be witty and scintillating and pungent. And you can wipe people out with the speed of your typing. I’m a very predatory and competitive IMer."

Mark Leyner

"The Internet: Transforming Society and Shaping the Future Through Chat"

Dave Barry

"The Internet provides a delivery system for pathological states of mind."

Phillip Adams

Hypnotiq 'fore Henny...

the temple of my unfamiliar

I would quit but I love to dance. I have a corner apt. with lots of windows so sashaying 'round these parts is out of the question. It's the closest thing to a glass house I have ever seen and I fear people would throw stones. The likelihood of this is slim to none but fear isn't logical although I claim to be.

I like to dance in the middle of the dancefloor. My everyone else likes to profile or lounge on the perimeter. Not the kid.

I have retired from grindin'. Well, to be honest I occasionally break out a courtesy grind just 'cause fools are so desperate for genital contact and I feel sorry for mothers who taught them better. I also have too much respect for the kinetic back arching alchemy of so many colored women to come incorrect (Lupe Fiasco's line on "Touch The Sky" is ringing in my ears; Shakira's VMA* performance, dancing across my retinas.)

I am not the fake-id-flashing, Kaya-frequenting kid I once was. Do not grab my arm. I don't respond to gruff tugs. I have no beef with you. I just would rather dance with myself. I have my own rhythm, my own relationship with the beat which, too often, you don't respect.

I used to hate Cameo. It was that wack shit that came on KFOX or came on the TV when I wanted to hear Debbie Gibson or New Edition. But these days excepting a lil' Nore "Superthug" flashback or this, or inexplicably, Mr. Cheeks sparkler "Lights Camera Action" Maze, MJ, Chaka and even Cameo order my two steps. In a minute I'm a be at the grown folks table playing Bid Whist, talking 'bout hair coloring, spouting 'boy I tell ya's' and 'lawd have mercy's, the taste of candied yams on my tongue.

...Naw nigga that's a chaser.

Cutting of rugs being the subject I should say that Diddy aka VMA host par mediocrity was on some Neil Diamond/David Copperfield shit, for real. Krumpers/Clowners and MC Hammer held it down (Hammer should make a tape like Billy Blanks or Darrin. I would buy it). Jamie was jumping around reminiscing his overenthusiastic AMA "Slow Jamz" performance with 'Ye and Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s Academy Award coonery. I think he is on drugs. M dot got so much things to say but per her her real time commentary on my voicemail, some insight on the Luda/Bobby V performance. And to Bishop Magic Don Juan: "It's hard out there for a pimp" not "It's hard for a pimp out there." Tighten down on the lag time. Before I forget, Sway, lotion your elbows, please.

When Lil Scrappy crossed paths with labelmates Green Day, the rapper went right in for the gold. "We need to hook it up," he told Billie Joe Armstrong. "You guys should give me a beat."

"Leave your number with my publicist," the frontman replied.

"We met Mr. Scrappy, we saw the boys in Good Charlotte — we've seen a lot of gold teeth," Billie Joe said later. "And some pimp cups and the Ying and the Yang," bassist Mike Dirnt added.

And a lil somethng from my fav band Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz:

"I held off an interview to get a photo with Ice-T, and I was asking him, "'What about Body Count?'" Wentz laughed. "Body Count is awesome. Without them, Fall Out Boy probably wouldn't be a band."(excerpted from MTV news VMA wrap-up)

And the difference between Scrappy and Stepin Fetchit is that the latter was a self-conscious buffoon.

No concealing. No ceiling. I don't need a roof, roof. Act up. Get out. I don't need you. Poof, poof. Be gone. Damn, tough luck. Dag, duh, dag. Niggas still doing puff, puff, pass.

Listen, homeboy, move on. That's your best bet. Why is that? Cuz...

I'm gone.

Sampling as a Pedagogical Tool*

Eddie Kendricks' "Intimate Friends" is my new favorite song. It's as old as our boy Kanye and just as relevant. Kindred performed it the other day in Jackie Robinson Park. When I heard that rhythm (!) I was transported back when 2Pac was still alive and SWV rocked my tape deck. Sweet Sable rode this loop on another of my all time favorite songs "Old Time's Sake" (I have a lot of all time favs) from the Above The Rim soundtrack. Yo, I had no idea it was a loop. I had no idea there was an original document to be discovered. I am so glad I found it, or rather, it found me.

Add this one to the list.

*Word to my astronomical thesis advisor, Dr. Kyra Gaunt, who has not seen my face in far too long and whose summer 2004 colloquium inspired this title and word to 'wheezy bad knee' aka Summer who's recentlybeen rhapsodizing about fav. samples.
**************************************************************
Addendum:
I came back to let you know DeBarge are currently serenading me with a gem from their 1983 album In A Special Way, "Stay With Me." This is not aural nostalgia at least not in the conventional sense. I have never heard this song before but I have. There is a break, well a distinctive piano loop really, that forms the basis for one of the greatest club songs ever: "One More Chance (Rmx)." This makes me want to pull out a blue and white SOHK track suit and bop into a Brooklyn brownstone bathed in sepia night light. Yeah.

A dream and a half, really.

Zahir, in arabic, means visible, present, incapable of going unnoticed. It is someone or something which, once we have come in contact with them or it, gradually accupies our every thought, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered either a state of holiness or of madness.

Faubourg Saint-Pères, Encyclopaedia of the Fantastic as qtd. in Paulo Coelho's The Zahir

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gunnar Kaufmann: You got any dreams, yo?
Nicholas Scoby: Yeah, I have a dream. A dream and a half, really. You ever hear of a Brocken specter?
Kaufmann: Who?
Scoby: A Brocken specter. If you stand on real high ground, say Mount Everest, with your back to the sun and look down, you’ll see your shadow on top of a fogbank or a cloud. That shadow is a Brocken specter...But wait, there’s more. As an added bonus for those who act early, you get your very own glory.
Kaufmann: Your own what?
Scoby: Your own glory. As you look down at your shadow, there’s a corona around your head. Even if you’re standing, next top a gang of niggers looking at they own Brocken specters, you can only see the glory around the shadow of your head.

Paul Beatty, The White Boy Shuffle

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I look good now looking bad."

Richard Pryor, Wattstax Monologue

We give rise to ego by being insecure...

Kanye's a gemini. I should have known.

Emotional Alchemy maps the mind and shows how, according to recent advances in cognitive therapy, most of what troubles us falls into ten basic emotional patterns, including fear of abandonment, social exclusion (the feeling we don't belong), and vulnerability (the feeling that some catastrophe will occur).

What's Your Emotional Style?

I'm a meld of Deprivation and Abandonment.

*L says this is the first step towards some/one/where/thing better.

Woman Lose Weight

I have a headache this big and it's screaming for Ephedra.

My head ignited day before yesterday at the Summer Solstice with Court'. It took a while for it to explode and when it did it rocked my body something Wes Craven horrible. My constitution admittedly has always been weak; I’m sensitive not fainthearded. My Hamlety head malfunctions from time to time, discreetly. Nausea is a bitch; throbbing pain, a familiar foe. My mother called in the middle of it all as I bobbleheadedly marched past New York Naturals over the Subway/LIRR yard to the lair. She was worried. We hadn’t spoken in two weeks. I called her and missed her a week ago. Did not rinse and repeat to avoid diploma discussion. But I had to call her back. My pain saved me even as it had me nailed to the cross. Worry in her voice she told me to rest, “We’ll talk later.”

Everything happens for a reason and those reasons are my cursed obsession. I couldn’t attribute my helplessness to my diet (ate live, drank a few liters of water, and two mini-pots of lemon ginger tea) or restlessness (slept 7 hours two nights in a row) so as I sit here seconds after staring at new zit that has erupted on my formerly pristine complexion I am confounded as to why these things are happening to my body, my divine little haven. If one’s body doesn’t respond/react consistently logically then how can I expect the world or better yet after humming logic’s La Marseillaise for 20+ years how the hell will I deal?! In this life my biggest challenge is disappointment which when it gets down to it is about things or people being something other what I perceive or they claim to be and now it seems the world is not what I thought it to be and I’m not mad at it, just shrunken at the prospect of starting anew.

And I talk a lot about losing weight cause magazines and decades of skinny worshipping schoolmates did their job but at times like these I think it’s not such a bad thing. I may need to shed a few pounds.

How 'bout dem transparent dangling carrots?

You have to bring some funk to get some. You just can’t walk in a place and expect to get some funk. If you ain’t bringing no funk, then you can’t get no funk.
Bootsy Collins

The only exciting relationships are bad ones.
Chris Rock

Pssst...

The moment I let go of it was the moment I got more than I could handle.
Belted by L's Inamorata

crunk up on

Kindred. Tonight. Jackie Robinson Park.

The best things in life are free.

Asphyxia

Women's nude awakening
BY JIMMY VIELKIND and ROBERT F. MOORE w/ Bill Egbert
Monday, August 15th, 2005

Topless women on skates, bikes and foot drew a surging crowd of grateful gawkers in Columbus Circle yesterday when they doffed their shirts to affirm the right to bare a lot more than arms.

The 10 or so women gathered and showed nearly all to protest the arrest of Jill (Phoenix) Feeley, who said she was taken into custody this month after going half naked on the lower East Side.

But Feeley and friends soon found out that taking such a revealing stance in New York can be risky.

"It got hot, then it got rainy," said Feeley, 25.

Then at least a dozen drooling men rushed through barricades and surrounded the women shortly before 4:30 p.m. Police quickly intervened, gaining the gratitude of Feeley.

"The cops were good today," she said.

But she was still steamed about her previous encounter with police.

Jeffrey Rothman, Feeley's attorney, said he plans to file a civil rights lawsuit against the city for the Aug. 4 arrest.

He said two police officers told her to put on her top and she refused. She spent 12 hours in custody, but wasn't charged, Rothman said.

"We have to affirm women's right to be top-free, just as the other half of the population," he said.

"We're just demonstrating a right," said Feeley, a self-described "gypsy" who says she lives in an RV powered by vegetable oil.

There were no arrests yesterday. A police spokeswoman noted it's legal for women to go topless in public.

And that was fine with Bonaris Serrano, 21, an aspiring rapper from Washington Heights who checked out the protest after attending the Dominican Day Parade.

"I'm down with the feminist movement," he said. "I can dig that."

via Prefix Blog

Thanks Bonaris.

The irony of Feeley saying "The cops were good today" is not lost on me.

Let me add that I can't walk down 6th ave in Pk Slizzope with a Rebecca Beeson (tees much flyer than C&C or Three Dot) v-neck on without getting harassed so although I believe in exposing the body beautiful and I don't believe in 'never': never will it ever be safe for a women to walk around Central Park, Prospect Park, Ft. Greene Park, that bootlegg ass Cuyler Gore down the street from my apt, etc...etc..., topless.

On the subject of exposed bodies and the parks dept., me and my friends have noticed the following: white women in bikinis sun in relative peace in Central Park throughout the summer. Black women* sunning in parks in predominantly african-american/carribean/latino neighborhoods in similar states of undress would undoubtedly get harassed. Why? (semi-rhetorical)

And I'm listening to Ohio Players "Skin Tight" right now whom my Dad took me and my sister to see one year at Bumbershoot unintentionally exposing us to all of Seattle's tired pimps. I'm thinking of that disturbing Dave Chappelle bit about a "hoe's uniform" and my affinity for tight or transparent wares and my habit of carying a jean jacket or pashmina to cover up transparent and/or tight wares. I'm thinking of Jill Scott's "The Thickness" although my asslessness will forever disqualify me from official membership (talk about being between a rock and a hard place). I'm thinking about the experience of being a pre-teen with ass and/or tits which reminds me of the original platinum pied piper. I'm thinking how walking down the street, sunning, even walking topless through the park (which L tells me some free women do in MI) shouldn't be so damn complicated.

Madonna's on my permanent shit list but this song is her indelible if not magnum opus.

*This may also be the case for Latinas.

Diamonds Aren't 4ever

And I know this, man. I know diamonds dull in my mama's presence. I know that even when I ball (this is a certain as it was) if I am able to force the woman who sent me here, and here, and here armed with this to experience the fruits of her labor she'd give it to charity. So it's appropriate that her brief letter to the editor published in this week's Seattle Weekly is about humanitarianism.

Love is not love. It's much more.

More Cowbell!

Ain't this good news!

Freaks Come Out Tonight

"I'm always gonna have a soft spot for Whodini. That's just me."
Chris Rock

I Love Lucy!

"what the mirror said"

listen
you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
somebody need directions
to move around you.
listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous
girl;
mister with his hands on you
he got his hands on
some
damn
body!

Triggered by L's phantom post.

Warning Shot

excerpted from "admonitions"

boys
i don't promise you nothing
but this
what you pawn
i will redeem
what you steal
i will conceal
my private silence to
your public guilt
is all i got

For the love of GOD, read Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980.

Autumn Caught 'Em

"the lesson of falling leaves"

the lesson believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves

see, autumn leaves must fall down

Captain Save A Hoe*

early eighties dub gospel grants me the ghost

*no blasphemy intended

Where were you while we were getting high?

Sunderland Supernova

It's not interesting to have false conversations
You've stolen all your stories and I dont have the patience

Simple Kind of Life

"The show did not dwell solely on, say, a black underclass or the nouveau riche black trading the 'hood for an Upper East Side high-rise. Unbound by those conventions, "The Cosby Show" was a breakthrough and template..." Katti Gray "A father who really did know best: Everyman Bill Cosby used comedy to show our commonality on his landmark series." Newsday.

A former friend's mother, an aspirationally grand very accomplished southern black transplant to the wide wide west, self-consciously patterned herself after Clair Huxtable, the doyenne of the Brooklyn Heights Brownstone that I entered each Thursday night for much of my childhood. She held her hands like an opera singer, favored pirouettes over lumbering turns, spoke in patient patterned poems and expected nothing more from her daughter. She smiled elegantly and sensually (if insincerely) her eyes slightly downcast and brows hinting at a furrow in demonstration of that restrained contentment politesse demands. She glided and held her body tight sans tension. Cloned from Clair, Phylicia Ayers-Allen invention, this black everywoman's superhumanity was inferred and always expected. Clair: Attorney, Linguist, Doting Mother, Health Nut, Feminist (I know y'all remember how she would kept Kenny aka "Bud!" and Denise's heady suitor, Kristoff St. John in a guest apperance, in check when they chauvinistically ran off at the mouth) never tired except for that one time she escaped to that ramshackle cabin in the Catskills (I think) that ain't have any heat.

My friend's mother, awed by Clair's televised portrait, did her best. I like to say beauty is relative but its not and the dear with her sloppy smudged eyeliner and continental jewelry didn't hold a Tocca candle to her prototype. Her loosened kinks weren't as arid as Clair's perpetually bouncy waves. Her brownness: unyielding. Her frame easily exceeded Clair's even eight and she was abrasive in her self consciousness, most certaintly flighty in her dogged mimicry. I can't imagine too many others saw her in this light, flourescent, stark & unforgiving. We attract what we are and what we are attracted to makes itself visible to us and sometimes only us. In a different world--let me be honest-- in a more perfect world or in a more perfect body or lineage, whatever that is, I'd try my hand at Clair Huxtablehood but I just don't think I have it in me or in the cards.

No Long Talking

"Come Fly With Me" has made me reconsider my renunciation of Dancehall (excepting Lady Saw, "Murder She Wrote", "Bam Bam", "Nika", "Freak" & "Tight-Up Skirt" of course).

Dystopic Misanthropy

"Hating, I can understand," she said. "I hate stuff too. I can get with that. But some of it is personal and weird. I don't like being approached by people who look at me too intensely, who needed something from me that I didn't have. I don't represent anything. I am just like you and everyone else. I am trying to live my life as best I can." Liz Phair in NYT

Here Comes The Fuzz

...didn't call you back because you had cloudy piss
So now you back in the trap just that, trapped
Go on and marinate on that for a minute

...mama don't you cry just remember me ballin', ballin'

So the wedding was beautiful. Although I'm quick to cry, weddings don't generally trigger the tear ducts. Luckily Sat. I didn't wear any mascara. M & J jumped the broom right smack dab where they met as engineering students at A&T. Matt was so happy! For real. He smiled hard all weekend. I haven't seen Matt smile like that in a long time and never for so long. He deserves it. He's good people. No he's exceptional people. Genuine. "A walking PSA." Shaun and Jacobe, 2 of the three best men, said it well during the toasts. The Seatown crew/village chirren done grown up. Wierd, huh? On the slide show at the reception there was a pic of Me, Matt and Shaun my freshman year sitting in front of the post office. I had a headwrap on. I forgot I ever wore headwraps. But back to the subject at hand: Niggas ducked when Matt threw the garter. It landed on the ground. When Janeria threw her bouquet (I don't participate in such things. I sat drinking champagne chatting it up with Chinua) chicks were throwing bows and exhibiting some respectable if previously dormant verticle leaps. Predictable.

Lest not we forget I got my electric slide on at the reception. Couldn't break it down like I wanted to no thanks to the teetolling Marc Jacobs but I did my best. Brooke and I poorly executed our poorly choreographed moves but we did the hard Beyonce dance/walk damn good. My mama did her thug thizzle. The Pops performed. Zinda visibly mimed their moves from the wings. Funniest ish ever!

Umm, also, old black folks (except of course DC Murrryland old black folk) can't dance to Rich Harrison. "1 thing" cleared the dancefloor. You can't two step/funky chicken whatever else old black people do to all that frenetic stutter/stop percussion. Matt and Janeria danced to "In a Sentimental Mood." Classy choice. It's gotten me all girly (for a moment) thinking about what song I want me and the chosen manchild to dance to at our reception. I have thought about this before in addition to my chirren's names and I don't even love the kids. Maybe I'm pre-programmed but I'm gonna abstain from self analysis for the moment. Anyway here are the contenders as of right now:

"Let's Chill" ~ Guy
Maybe a little urban (read: ghetto), was my shit in elementary
"Love U For Life" ~ Jodeci
ditto re: urbanity (this song doesn't sound right without hearing "Fallin'" first), "U&I" is my 2nd choice.
"You're My Alter Ego" ~ Mark Murphy
classiest choice
"Happier Than The Morning Sun" ~ Stevie Wonder
might be too somber, "As" is too cliche, "All Day Sucker" might be too raunchy, "I Love Every Little Thing About You" is beautiful but may be a little too obvious.
"Until" ~ Cassandra Wilson
may also be too somber.
"I Know You, I Live You" ~ Chaka Kahn
I f#$king love this song but it's love narrative isn't quite reciprocal.
"Forever in Your Eyes" ~ Mint Condition
"Rhythmn of Life" ~ Kindred
Really resonates. Could segue into uptempo King Britt Remix and open up the dancefloor.
"Love Ballad" ~ L.T.D.
"On Our Own"~ Bobby Brown
just wanted Bobby to be on here
"It's Love" ~ Jill Scott
diluted and danceable gogo.
"Stay This Way" ~ Brand New Heavies
"Angel of Mine" ~ Monica
I know its cornball but so am I.
"4-Ever" ~ Lil Mo
just kiddin,' not really, but I'd be too embrarassed to dance to this on account of its unbridled urbanity
"I Belong to You" ~ Lenny Kravitz

At some point during the actual ceremony (no walkie down aisle/no manly exchange of human property): the following songs will be performed by the definitive recording artists: "Africa" & "Someday I'll Find You."

Oh yeah and the major radio down here in NC plays the hell out of Camp Lo's "Gotcha." I don't listen to the radio back home but I'm pretty sure Lo ain't getting spins. Refreshingly surprising to see a great song like that break through these imprenetrable and wack payolaed playlists.

commanding your affection

I hate needing people. I have trouble saying what I need to say/doing what I need to do/being who I need to be for fear that they'll stop meeting my needs. Then I think I'll be assed out.* I feel powerless and I f##king hate that shit. I'd rather gain nothing than lose control. I am testifying not claiming.

*Not a good look. It's already concave.

Take a Chance You Stupid Ho!