I've been sorta slacking lately, and haven't been keeping up with any new black literature to come out. I need a good fix-currently I'm rereading all of my classic novels from college that I never really read( my theory is that you read a good book ad infinitum, and it always seems new) , like Paule Marshall's "Brown Girl, Brownstones"....

Hit me with some new ish please, the more obscure the better. My left hemisphere of grey mass thanks you..



http://www.funkknots.com.
ORIGINAL HIP HOP INSPIRED ART!

"...The rooster had gotten horse in his old age, and sometimes his crow was nothing more than a whisper... but atleast that muthafucka tried!"
-Walter Mosely, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned

"Don't Believe The Hype" by Farai Chideya.
fighting cultural misconceptions about african-americans

Im STILL working on those bones are not my child by Toni Cade Bambara. The jury hasn't come with a verdict for that one.
but, you can always check out any of Patrick Chamoiseau's work...I really like him. There's Junot Diaz's book Drown, very good. I liked Tuff by Paul Beatty. Gayl Jones's Song for Anninho is looooovely (of course, I'm biased, I really like her work.) 9 Plays by Black Women is really nice. I enjoyed Understand This by Jervey Tervalon. etc. etc.etc.

http://www.funkknots.com look at the wonderful art! No it ain't mine! Just go there!Support your fellow player, ffunkknots

"Let them have their toy, we've got books."
Bill Cosby's response to Tavis Smiley of "BET Tonight "regarding the lack of minorities on television."

"Multiculturalism is a white people joke. Black people have always been here as different. People need to stop saying that there is one way to be--and then the issue will disappear." Ntozake Shange-interview in _Mother_ _Jones_

thanks for mentioning the Junot Diaz book, i like his work and didn't know about it...

have you read "The Sun, Moon, & the Stars"--one of his shorts that is not included in Drown(it's in an anthology of the best short stories of 99')?

* not THAT shiloh
http://www.myspace.com/13970459

One Woman Too Short by George Nelson
"Everybody's got issues, every-stinkin'-body"

"Boy, you look like steamy hot chocolate poured out on a milky sunrise- Unknown female "Mack"

"I don't know why I love you so much, I don't know...(sound of distress)..." some Stevie Wonder-ish

My Blog. Swing Phi Swing
http://swingbigphi.blogspot.com

My Mommy Blog. The Bourgie Baby
http://bourgiebaby.blogspot.com

"I bitch! Yooouuu Mooooaaaan....So I try another tactic..." --Jill Scott

I've read Nelson George's other novels (I live by "Seduced"), but I wasn't sure if I wanted to pick this one up. Is it worth it?
-B

sigs:
------------------------------
"It's deep soul, deep church, spiritual roots and deep jazz... I just go as far as I can inside and I bring it out. The thing the church showed me was conviction. DMX rhymes with conviction. Soul is honesty." Bilal, on his music.

"Bilal WILL be an Okayartist!!" -me

"to aim
is to take oneself too seriously
by focusing without instead of within

re arrange and re member

aim...i am

the right letters are there
it's the wrong composition"
-Saul Williams

I put the question mark because I bought it but I haven't read it yet. It's gotten rave reviews.

It's by a British woman of Jamaican descent, and deals with race and class relations in London.

From the back cover:

"Zadie Smith's fizzing first novel is about how we all got here - from the Carribean, from the Indian subcontinent, from thirteenth place in a long-ago Olympic bicycle race - and about what 'here' turned out to be. It's an astonishingly assured debut, funny ans serious, and the voice has a real writerly idiosyncrasy. I was delighted by 'White Teeth' and often impressed. It has...bite." -- Salman Rushdie

I'm looking forward to getting to it. As soon as I get through the TFA liner notes.

RED

RED
http://arrena.blogspot.com

i'm almost finished with assata
i just bought a collection of
sonia sanchez' poetry...dang i forget
what it's called..blue something,
i got a collection of langston hughes stuff,
i got erotique noire (an anthology)
a book of short stories by my uncle
john stewart(who is also a professor at
ucdavis...i've only read one story so far
so i'm not recommending it yet until i get
further)...i also got the bluest eye by
toni morrison, and ben okri's the famished road...i also have things all fall apart by chinua achebe but i can't find it...i hope that helped

Toni Morrison's the Blues Eyes
when Chickenhead come home to Roost-Joan Morgan
Assata
Rap Attack #3
The Priosner's Wife-Asha Bandele

the book club selection "Move Over, Girl" by Brian Peterson

http://www.okayplayer.com/dcforum/DCForumID1/895.html


Peace.

~ ~ ~
All meetings end in separation
All acquisition ends in dispersion
All life ends in death
- The Buddha

|\_/|
='_'=

Every hundred years, all new people

What's Going On- Nathan McCall
100 Years of Solitude- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

both wonderful in their own ways..
clo

The Library of America, with whom I have been quite impressed over time, has just issued a book called "Slave Narratives," which is a collection of just that. Based on my experience with the Library of America, I'm going to pick this one up and soon. Included in the volume: Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw; Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; The Confessions of Nat Turner; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; Narrative of William W. Brown; Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb; Narrative of Sojouner Truth; Ellen and William Craft's Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Narrative of the Life of J. D.Green.

Peace.

~ ~ ~
All meetings end in separation
All acquisition ends in dispersion
All life ends in death
- The Buddha

|\_/|
='_'=

Every hundred years, all new people

Currently enjoying "Two Cities" (c) John Wideman.

Just finished ReReading "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison.

Talk about perspective on a book when you had to read in in high school and Perpective right now, after you have lived....whoa!

Carry On.

********************************************************************************

BLACK_ENGINEER

Why you got-ta, act like, nigga, all the time? (C) Common


I hate being cheap, but I hate being broke more. - Fire

Speaking of Invisible Man, anyone else read Juneteenth?
Clo

But I try to mix up authors to avoid the
monotony of one style of writing.


Carry On.

********************************************************************************

BLACK_ENGINEER

Why you got-ta, act like, nigga, all the time? (C) Common


I hate being cheap, but I hate being broke more. - Fire

--------sig-----------
Monthly Book Discussion in OkayActivist
Sept. 19 "Move Over Girl" Brian Peterson
Oct. 16 "Yo Mama's Dysfunktional" Robin Kelley
Nov. 13 "Coldest Winter Ever" Sister Souljah
GET YO READ ON .........
nappiness is next to Godliness!!!!!!
ms. nappiness

---------------
Veronica-Precious
'Moon'

Check out my publishing company
UnSilenced Woman Press
www.unsilencedwomanpress.com


AquaMoon
Aqua Beats and Moon Verses: Volume I
http://www.spokenexistence.com/aqua_moon.html

I got lost in some of the first couple of chapters. Maybe I don't appreciate Ellison's style enough. But I'm sure he's probably just really over my head.

I got through the speech, but the part during the shooting got me messed up. I couldn't seem to keep the folks right after that.

I'm just all confused.

peace
k. orr

http://breddanansi.tumblr.com/

But Ellison's work fits just right...feels like I said it sometimes...

Carry On.

****************************************

BLACK_ENGINEER

Is a nigga your complexion, or is it all in your mind? (C) Common


I hate being cheap, but I hate being broke more. - Fire

One girl told me I should have my underground pass revoked. - Conceited_Bastard.

"Zami: Another Spelling of my Name" by Audre Lorde. It's fucking brilliant, if you haven't read, please do...

Peace,

TankdotcomGreen

http://www.recordkingdom.com aka www.vinylnerdsarehappy.com

http://www.tankgreen.com - Coming to a browser near you soon...

---
"It's easy to blur the truth with a simple linguistic trick: start your story from "Secondly."" -- Mourid Barghouti

for the titles. I will definitely look for 'em at my local dark, dank bookstore( I'm not a Barnes/Noble kinda guy-real bookstores need to have weird but cool-ass clerks wearing fusha shorts, listening to the remix of 'Fight the Power' by Enya).

Has anybody read "The Freelance Pallbearers" by Ishmael Reed?





http://www.funkknots.com.
ORIGINAL HIP HOP INSPIRED ART!

"...The rooster had gotten horse in his old age, and sometimes his crow was nothing more than a whisper... but atleast that muthafucka tried!"
-Walter Mosely, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned

Yeah, I just read that 2 months ago, and my mind is still processing it.

Reed is the king of satire. It's kinda hard to read, though, because he has his own language. But it's well worth the effort. (it's short too)

Bukka is the man!

RED
(holding down the Bay, Ishmael-style)

RED
http://arrena.blogspot.com

I am too still 'processing' it-I love Reed and his swash-buckling style, and this was amongst his first pieces. I read it first 8 years ago, and didn't understand it completely. I'm now rereading it and attempting to pierce its sweet insides...

"Shrovetide in New Orleans" is cool too.



http://www.funkknots.com.
ORIGINAL HIP HOP INSPIRED ART!

"...The rooster had gotten horse in his old age, and sometimes his crow was nothing more than a whisper... but atleast that muthafucka tried!"
-Walter Mosely, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned

has many collections of short stories, but the best are her novels, in search of satisfacton and wake in the wind. they both get read once a year...wonderful books!!!!!!!!!

currently reading Jamaica Kincaid's "Autobiography of my Mother"-- the woman's writing style is sick with it...

next on my list:
Helen Elaine Lee-The Serpent's Gift

* not THAT shiloh
http://www.myspace.com/13970459

>next on my list:
>Helen Elaine Lee-The Serpent's Gift

let me know how it fits u







"because marvin died the day before his birth is why i hurry"...jessica Care moore

"If you can read this, thank a teacher" BUMPERSTICKER

"that CYNICISM u refer to acquired the day i discover'd i was different frum little boys" (c) celeste holm "all about eve"

Miles the autobiography of miles davis... if you want to hear about the jazz life from the cat who was ill before anybody else knew ill... then youll want to read that

i was reading David Walker's Appeal... thats something incredible coming from a black man in 1830... he was on something else...

been reading Aristotle...


.....


Blue


"beyond the walls of intelligence life is defined" - Nas

i can recite the grass on the hill and memorize the moon
i know the cloud forms of love by heart
and have brought tears to the eye of the storm
and my memory banks walk through forests and amazon river banks
and i scream them into sunsets that echo in earthquakes
shadows have been my spotlight as i monolouge the night
and dialouge with days
soliloquys of wind and breeze
applauded by sunrays
- Saul Williams

He thinks Women are mutilated half men. Nuff said.

Peace,

TankdotcomGreen

http://www.recordkingdom.com aka www.vinylnerdsarehappy.com

http://www.tankgreen.com - Coming to a browser near you soon...

---
"It's easy to blur the truth with a simple linguistic trick: start your story from "Secondly."" -- Mourid Barghouti

He also said:

Do not listen to those who exhort you to keep to modest human thoughts. No. Live, instead, according to the highest thing in you. For small though it may be in power and worth, it is high above the rest.

Proving, again, that the veracity of the statement is not dependent on the credibility of the speaker.

Peace.

~ ~ ~
All meetings end in separation
All acquisition ends in dispersion
All life ends in death
- The Buddha

|\_/|
='_'=

Every hundred years, all new people

Peace,

TankdotcomGreen

http://www.recordkingdom.com aka www.vinylnerdsarehappy.com

http://www.tankgreen.com - Coming to a browser near you soon...

---
"It's easy to blur the truth with a simple linguistic trick: start your story from "Secondly."" -- Mourid Barghouti

thanks to hot damali }...it's so phenomenal it's poetic...& the parallels i see between not her actions but her fears...her youth...i need to encounter this woman beyond her words








"because marvin died the day before his birth is why i hurry"...jessica Care moore

"If you can read this, thank a teacher" BUMPERSTICKER

"that CYNICISM u refer to acquired the day i discover'd i was different frum little boys" (c) celeste holm "all about eve"

By Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

If If I got confused with Juneteenth, I was pretty much throwed in the game when it came to this book.

For those that don't know, the book follows the life of one family. The great thing about the book is very often the sons are given the same names of their fathers. So unless you are keeping a score card, you will forget which Buendia you are talking about.

But that having been said, it's a good book. I don't know if they're are any overt political messages in it, but it's dope nonetheless.

k. orr

http://breddanansi.tumblr.com/

Its good but the name thing is confusing.

my ex, but then again her name was Azucena. She had cultural advantage...

peace
k. orr

http://breddanansi.tumblr.com/

if you've read either one (the disposessed by ursula k leguin or things fall apart by chinua achebe), try reading the other and compare them.

the disposessed is about a socialst/anarchist society that splits from the capitalist society and settles on the desert moon. (it's science fiction, the moon is like a small desert planet with some water but very barren, it orbits the larger, more opulescent (nice word huh) capitalist world) anyway the story is set a few hundred years after the two societies split and deals with the clash of cultures when a scientist from the moon goes back to the old world.

things fall apart deals with the clash of european and african cultures. (yeah i read it, i just wrote too much already to do anymore plot summary...just look at all my qoutes below! I just typed all that. damn. i gotta get some friends that call me back on a thursday night.)

oh and i think people should be looking for all kinds of books cos even if you read some ignorant shit at least you know what you're going to have to deal with when you talk to people on the street. somebody else who reads that ignorant shit will believe it so you better have a strong argument prepared for any occasion (if you want to be political day to day...i'm not saying YOU should...please just calm the fuck down. each one teach one, right?...peace)


by the way, i'm not exactly new here, i just don't post too often. on the other hand i am new since i don't know anyone on here personally. nice to meet you. -781/egolisp

"the truth hurts cos the truth is all there is" -HBMS

"It is only to the individual that a soul is given. And the high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule, or to impose himself in any other way." -Albert Einstein

"Savages can only raise their minds to the conception of a being a few degrees superior to themselves, and captain cook was more powerful, wiser, and, we may add, more virtuous than most of their so call 'Deities.'" (566)

"There can be no doubt that, as an almost universal rule savages are cruel; but we must remember that they are less sensitive to pain than those who spend much of their time in-doors, and that in many cases they inflict upon themselves also the most horrible tortures." (568)

"...savages have the characters of children with the passions and strength of men." (571)

"But after making every possible allowance for savages, it must I think be admitted that they are inferior, morally as well as in other respects, to the more civilized races." (571)

"It would be easy to fill a volume with the evidence of excessive stupidity recorded by different travellers." (572)

-Sir John Lubbock (This is from a book titled PREHISTORIC TIMES published 1890. If you want to see some obscure works go to a public university and check the old old stacks)


this is my website, though there's not much on it yet:
http://hometown.aol.com/egolisp/myhomepage/profile.html

Anyone read this author? He's a Caribbean-born writer (I think he makes his home in England now). Very deep brother.

NATURE OF BLOOD weaves three seemingly unrelated stories across several time periods: a young Jewish girl whose family tries to protect her from the Holocaust, a man recently relocated to the newly formed state of Israel, and the backstory to Othello as he arrives in 16th century Venice. The result is a powerful and original examination of the roots of racism. The merging of themes in the three stories is challenging and at times hard to read, but if you give it a chance, I think you will find yourself rewarded.

STATE OF INDEPENDENCE is about a young man who returns to his Caribbean homeland after being gone too many years. After leaving on scholarship to study in England, and staying away longer than expected, he returns believing he has something to offer his troubled homeland. But old friends, and even his family, treat him as an outsider. His first novel (I think), it's a good meditation on what it means to go home again.

His other books include Cambridge, Higher Ground and Crossing the River (which is in my "to read" pile). He is a serious writer who takes big chances. Even when he doesn't quite hit the mark, the result is always thought-provoking and fascinating.

RED
(giving you true lies since 1991)

RED
http://arrena.blogspot.com