The United States
Lyrics are flash stories; they are poems, they contain elements of memoir; in some cases, they address personal themes, at times universal. Lyrics reflect the individual journey or cultural observations of the songwriter. They are a serious art form.
But are they literature?
“What pattern connects the crab to the lobster,” muses anthropologist, philosopher, and systems theorist Gregory Bateson in An Ecology of Mind (2011), filmmaker Nora Bateson’s award-winning tribute to her father. “And the orchid to the primrose,” he continues, “and all the four of them to me? And me to you?”
A book made the founding of the Lindisfarne Association possible, so the story of Lindisfarne is entwined with the story of this curious little book that did not follow the usual path to publication, nor the usual road to post-publication success.
Once upon a time, Pamela Tanner Boll, a poet, painter, former Wall-Street trader, and mother to three sons, wondered how other mothers went about re-entering the world of the fine arts.
In the 90s when we had a recession, I wondered what it would be like for Le Mobile in 2000. I actually visualized Le Mobile all rusted with flat tires, gutted of its equipment and parked in the middle of a field with tree branches jutting through its rear door. But when the year 2000 came, Le Mobile was busier the ever…
I’m envisioning a “power triangle” between America, Iran, and Turkey suggesting that peace in the Middle East could be possible as these countries have the means to achieve this.
There is something a Navaho skin walker while wrapped in a blanket, sitting on a hill, once told me by mini Burning Man bonfire light, "Never tell a story in summer and don’t exaggerate."
And what a mess Caleb and Camille Fang have made of Annie and her younger brother Buster! Labeled “Child A” and “Child B,” from infancy they were pressed into service—not always willingly, or even wittingly—as key players in their parents’ notorious performance art pieces.
NANCY BOSKOFF: People are sometimes shocked by the quality and quantity in the arts in our state, particularly considering the size of the population. There has been a grand history of the arts here, starting of course, with the Native Americans. When the pioneers came to settle, they included the arts early on and the Utah Arts Council was founded in 1899 by the Legislature, the first state arts agency in the country.
There is a secret language in New Orleans. This language is only known by a select few, but never spoken or discussed. Is there a dictionary for this tongue? No. But once a year, as if by osmosis, the language is shouted for all to hear. What are they saying?
It is a journalistic truism to note that we live in the Age of Information. In this neo-feudalist age it is not your relation to the land but to the media that defines your social class.
Some of the conservative male Indian disciples of Sri Aurobindo, much like St. Peter, had a hard time accepting a woman as Sri Aurobindo’s partner in Integral Yoga—especially a Western woman who had been married twice.
Four Russian tanks were parked on the shoulder of the road. Gunshots punctuated the air. People were shouting. Another tank rolled down the hill toward the village crushing a cow in its path. The poor animal let out an anguished groan and then it was silent.
“No,” she whispered.
Religion is not a static thing; like everything else, it is time-bound.
You see, after I described some of my political views, mentioning the strange question of the status of the Federal Reserve as a private corporation...I was told that my views pretty much matched those of members of the Tea Party. Now I knew I was against the neocons, but I had no idea that according to a helpful anarchist, that made me a fledgling member of the Tea Party.
The Baja Peninsula separating the Pacific Ocean from the Sea of Cortés is a forbidding place if you don’t respect her ways. Those of us who fall in love with her landscape - mountain meets desert meets sea - do so with passion. Divers, fisher-folk, campers, surfers, kayakers, snorkelers, hikers, birders, return year after year. At the edge of the sea others clear brush to reveal Cardon, Ocotillo, Caholla, Wild Plum. We build houses, create livelihoods, and raise families.
Good health and affluence obviously increase people’s choices and options, but neither guarantees wisdom nor guarantees that people will experience satisfaction or make productive use of their time.
Fear sent a cramp ripping through her belly. She knelt at the hearth, clenched her teeth and set a corn cake in the hot ashes alongside the others. The last time Ben got this mad, he broke a man’s jaw.
“1001 Inventions has helped me think about the ways in which scientific ideas travel,"explains Dr. Margaret Honey, CEO of the New York Hall of Science. "While science is always set in a specific historical and socio-political context, the simple truth is that ideas in and of themselves, know no boundaries.”
in the soiled richness of their dark speech
obstructing progress and breaking plows,
they know the blessed curse of not forgetting.
The core idea that explains Philadelphia’s style is that Penn believed ideas should marinate within each neighborhood (religious, geographical, etc.) while Franklin, through his Junto concept and his practicality, said that’s not enough – one has to test and share those ideas to see which works best.
“Every time I call in a fire part of me has trepidations,” says Ball. “People I know will go into the forest to fight that fire; and it’s a very serious and risky job. Something bad can happen at any given moment. It feels like a tremendous responsibility.”
"According to them, you want to create a New Jersey kind of Islam with naked women and and Michael Jackson music. It was so bizarre to have this mixture of Jon Bon Jovi and Atlantic City and the CIA..."
The Facebook Website, Desk Jockey is convinced, is an enabler. Every time you sign into the home page, a little reminder pops up that you have 37 friends in common with a perfect stranger. Rather than be unfriendly (which is not proper FB etiquette), Desk Jockey began clicking “accept.”
If you define hero as someone who takes great risks and makes great sacrifices, who will endure with dignity whatever it takes to achieve a dream, then read these stories, these odysseys, and witness the daily acts of heroism of migrant farmworkers and their families.
For Judy, Mark’s decision to grow vegetables seemed like just another adventure. That adventure led to life on a farm; a farm which, at ages sixty-seven and sixty-nine, they continue to work. It led to four children.It led to twelve-hour work days year-round, and a lifelong commitment...and so I ask, “Did you know the adventure would be so all encompassing?” Judy brings her palm down to the top of the table and looks me square in the eyes. “Not. A. Clue.”
I think the world is increasingly becoming more transparent and I don’t believe the traditional organizations in the black community will be able to properly empower our corporate executives, contractors, and small businesses the way they have in the past. With the buying power of the African-American market reaching a trillion dollars, we will need to be more demanding than ever in regards to who we spend our dollars with.
Unfortunately, Obama has failed to seize what might have been a progressive moment. We’re fighting two failed imperial wars at once, and trying to prop up a failed capitalism. I stay hopeful about my students. I wish the world were a better place for them, and I think you always have to respect the potential of youth.
A taste of Branch Water bridges the historic gap between North and South through a carefully prepared cocktail.
We watched Costner’s sleek Gulf Stream jet, featuring the Warner Brothers logo on its tail, taxi into the private terminal of Rapid City Airport. Kevin disembarked alone with an overnight bag and a very old Pendleton Blanket folded under one arm.
Stone Barns, restored and in a sense re-created as they were 100 years prior in another time.
Where do the stories of Sarbelia and Martha fit into the Great Immigration Debate? One of the great cruelties of all diasporas is the separation of families, parents having to make unbearably painful choices between survival and being with one’s children and parents. Any just immigration reform must include the possibility for families to re-unify, to live together again as they pursue their dreams.
She has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a tenured professor and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. I was first introduced to her through her photographic works, which pull the viewer into the essence of the object, much like a great poem or a wonderful piece of literature will do. Who could capture sand bursting through a shell I wondered?
It’s not every documentary that compels me to stay up writing most of the night and that weighs heavily on my mind for days. But then again Who Does She Think She Is? is not your average documentary. Directed by Pamela Tanner Boll, mother of three, writer and documentarian, the film looks at the under-representation of mothers in the arts and other creative fields.
To be more specific, The Blind Faith Hotel is about a 14-year-old named Zoe who feels like her world is shattered when her fisherman father ships out to Alaska and her mother then moves Zoe and her siblings from their home in Washington State to a run-down farmhouse in the Midwest.
You’re quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home
You’d never think there was a bloody war on!...
yes, you would…why, you can hear the guns.
Hark! Thud, thud, thud,—quite soft…they never cease—
Those whispering guns—O Christ, I want to go out
And screech at them to stop—I’m going crazy;
I’m going stark, staring mad because of the guns...
Daringly outspoken, Osayande draws our attention to such societal ills with poetry, using it as a compelling medium to encourage critical thought and honest reflections on everything that has to do with diamonds in Southern Africa to Hurricane Katrina to Jay-Z’s rap lyrics. But his message is to all...
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