The Calico Globe

I call my skull

[calicoglobe]

you were formidable

[calicoglobe]

The Want of You

Angelina Weld Grimké

A hint of gold where the moon will be;

Through the flocking clouds just a star or two;

Leaf sounds, soft and wet and hushed,

And oh! the crying want of you.

[calicoglobe]

And just like that [snap!] I’m lifted from a cold and slow Thurs morn. #newheroine

Ode to the Boy Who Jumped Me

Monica Sok

You and your friend stood

on the corner of the liquor store

as I left Champa Garden,

takeout in hand, on the phone

with Ashley who said,

That was your tough voice.

I never heard your tough voice before.

I gave you boys a quick nod,

walked E 21st past dark houses.

Before I could reach the lights

on Park, you criss-crossed

your hands around me,

like a friend and I’d hoped

that you were Seng,

the boy I’d kissed on First Friday

in October. He paid for my lunch

at that restaurant, split the leftovers.

But that was a long time ago

and we hadn’t spoken since,

so I dropped to my knees

to loosen myself from your grip,

my back to the ground, I kicked

and screamed but nobody

in the neighborhood heard me,

only Ashley on the other line,

in Birmingham, where they say

How are you? to strangers

not what I said in my tough voice

but what I last texted Seng,

no response. You didn’t get on top,

you hovered. My elbows banged

the sidewalk. I threw

the takeout at you and saw

your face. Young. More scared

of me than I was of you.

Hands on my ankles, I thought

you’d take me or rape me.

Instead you acted like a man

who slipped out of my bed

and promised to call:

You said nothing.

Not even what you wanted.

[calicoglobe]

The real question/point: LOOK well and you shall SEE how equality (or equity, as I prefer, of any minority and/or marginalized group) is linked to so many other inequalities, inconsistencies, missions, privileges, “rights”, programs, kickbacks, underpinnings, postures, presumptions, resources, opportunities, attitudes...ad infinitum. Really. It’s as wide as lived experience.

[thechampagnemimi-blog]

Why We Must Remember Brother from another Planet Now More Than Ever

The cult classic Afro-futurism film Brother from another Planet (1984) directed by John Sayles captures the trials and tribulations of a black alien escaping from his home planet to the foreign streets of New York City. During the film, the “Brother” encounters many obstacles which portray his isolation as a literal “alien” proving to be reminiscent of the immigrant experience in America, especially today, amongst Trump’s reign.

The Brother arrives at Ellis Island, which has historically been a gateway for millions of immigrants coming to the “Land of the Free”. Upon arrival, New York seems almost apocalyptic, as the Brother is welcomed by desolation rather than the usual collage of people, immediately capturing the isolation of his status as an “alien”. It is not until he walks the streets of Harlem, where he sees any signs of life, as he is surrounded by similar looking black faces engaging in their everyday lives. However, the Brother has limited contribution to such a scene due to his inability to communicate because of his muteness, which resonates with the ‘voicelessness’ of immigrants in America. But despite this voicelessness, the Brother still remains an active part of his environment as he still manages to navigate through his situations day by day.

Throughout the film, the Brother is being hunted down in what seems to be an intergalactic slave chase, as two white men claiming to be from the government are determined to capture him. I can’t help to be reminded of the government today trying to hunt down immigrants entering the country in hopes for a better life, as perhaps the Brother was seeking too. Therefore, the Brother from another Planet must be remembered for its portrayal of the intertwining of race, class, and immigrant status, all which have remained prevalent in America’s history, even in the year 2017. As the entertainment website The A.V. Club reviewed in 2003, the Brother from another Planet, ”uses [the Brother’s] alien status as a way of asking who deserves to be called an outsider in a country born of outsiders”, an answer which seems all too real for a black man from outer space. 

[blackfilm]

Entitled

“What does the immigrant fantasy feel like? Adeyemi Michael reimagines his mother’s idea of moving from Nigeria to Peckham in Entitled, a short film about leaving your country of origin. Riding a horse dressed in traditional Yoruba ceremonial wear, Abosede Afolashade, a first generation immigrant, takes to the streets of Peckham.” via 

[calicoglobe]

Lovely look.

[calicoglobe]

The Red Poppy White wind buries the year's naked forests at the back of the brain. Earth itself a frozen star. March re-opens as winter crumples in thunder, and streams rushing past like angels headlong. Quietly, a new moon with April in its keeping flows westward over lives that still intend to be ours. Then July's a red poppy gone up in the sky, and burns there, where the sun remembers it was.

Reg Saner, from Poetry, August 1992

[calicoglobe]

Ideas for 1st book titles:

Neurography.

Neuro-geography.

Landscaping.

Land-mind.

[calicoglobe]

Ghana is looking to outer space. It needs the law to match

If Ghana is to fully harness the benefits of space technology, it will need space legislation and regulations.

[hailneaux]

Click here to support Only Official Duck Boat Survivors organized by Leeta Bigbee

Eleven family members went on a family vacation when a horrible boating accident killed nine family members, including Tia’s husband Glenn, their three children Reece, Evan and Arya along with her Mother and Father in Love Belinda and Hoace Coleman, her sister in love Angela and her son Max. Any...

Please donate for funeral costs for the victims of the recent boating accident in Missouri. The only survivors of this family are Tia marked at #1, and her nephew marked at #2. 

[blackwomendirectors]

Akosua Adoma Owusu

b. 1984, Alexandria, Virginia

Films:

Black Sunshine (2015)

Synopsis: As a young Albino girl faces a demanding mother and rejection from her community, a mythical reality is presented to her, but the path it leads to might be darker than she thinks.

Bus Nut (2014)

Synopsis: From the artist:

‘Bus Nut’ re-articulates the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, a political and social protest against US racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery Alabama and its relationship to an educational video on school bus safety. An actress re-stages a vintage video while reciting press conference audio of Rosa Parks on a recreated set in New York City. In 1999, Rosa Parks’ family sued the music duo of OutKast over their song, ‘Rosa Parks’, alleging that they misappropriated Parks’ name illustrating particularly tense moments in US American history".

Kwaku Ananse (2013)

Synopsis: The Ghanian fable of Kwaku Ananse is combined with the story of a young outsider named Nyan Koronhwea attending her estranged father’s funeral. At the funeral, she retreats to the woods in search for her father.

Split Ends/I Feel Wonderful (2012)

Synopsis: Manipulating and re-positioning found footage, this experimental short observes the latest fad in hairstyles of the 1970s among African Americans in New York City.

*In the Whitney Museum of American Art collection.

Drexciya (2010)

Synopsis: A portrait of an abandoned public swimming facility located in Accra, Ghana. 

Me Broni Ba (My White Baby) (2009)

Synopsis:  Me Broni Ba explores the legacy of European colonialism in Africa through images of women practicing hair braiding on discarded white baby dolls from the West. 

*In the Whitney Museum of American Art collection.

Intermittent Delight (2007)

Synopsis: Experimental short combining found footage of a 1960s how-to video of refrigerator decoration with images of Black men and women weaving and sewing Batik textiles in Ghana.

*In the Whitney Museum of American Art collection.

IMDB | Personal website

[calicoglobe]

From Sappho, Poems of

” ...For whenever I look at you even briefly

          I can no longer say a single thing,

          but my tongue is frozen in silence;

        instantly a delicate flame runs beneath my skin;

          with my eyes I see nothing;

          my ears make a whirring noise.

          A cold sweat covers me,

          trembling seizes my body,

        and I am greener than grass.

          Lacking but little of death do I seem.“

[calicoglobe]

It’s now

Joan Baez and Tracy Chapman impounded my dreamside vehicle in a wintry dreamsicle and all was slicey white, ice and friendly breeze, "Tho death, tho 'fraidy, Miss __," slispered out. I'm still out, like a jury, bee___ch. "If this is a dream, wake me up now." - TChaps. Sarah said: "I was a barn of storm and garment..."

[calicoglobe]

(Quentin Henneaux)

collabo fabu

#boygandhi #belgianrap

[calicoglobe]

(Quentin Henneaux)

#boygandhi #belgianrap

[calicoglobe]

(Explorap)

[calicoglobe]

Enlightenment “It’s all empty, empty,” he said to himself. “The sex and drugs. The violence, especially.” So he went down into the world to exercise his virtue, thinking maybe that would help. He taught a little kid to build a kite. He found a cure, and then he found a cure for his cure. He gave a woman at the mercy of the weather his umbrella, even though icy rain fell and he had pneumonia. He settled a revolution in Spain. Nothing worked. The world happens, the world changes, the world, it is written here, in the next line, is only its own membrane— and, oh yes, your compassionate nature, your compassion for our kind.

VEEJAY SHESHADRI