An Open Letter to Generation X...my peoples

Okay....what appears below explains My Conflict Minerals Indie PSA's/Vlog/Live Petition.  This is some of the "why" beyond the call of duty on the matter of the Conflict Minerals, themselves and my DEEP concern for the Congo and her people, God's people, our people....check the video if you haven't and yes I noticed the Yoplait container and the "too much stuff" after the uploads (youtube, facebook and blogger)...

This is an email to a friend and it got so long that I thought would share.  I welcome feedback or comments, but to the Generation X'ers I really want to hear you...

(From Danna to "new friend")
Something that you said was so striking today...it has played back in my head since earlier and I have tried to ignore it only because I feel like it's true... it is a "funky" truth one about which I wonder too often....you said (to paraphrase) "trying to figure out why Generation X is so fucked up"

I will share my ruminations and thoughts on it and I will direct you to a blog I wrote almost 2 years ago that provides a more sensitive insight into the matter from a very personal POV







I am a fifth generation away from Slavery...My Great Great Grandather Mark Kiel (Mark Todd before marrying and being given the name "Kiel" as a wedding present by slavemasters) was the last slave on my father's side....His son Henry Kiel was my great grandfather with whom I (and my twin sister) communed with until we were 10 and he 107, his son Damon Kiel Sr was my Grandfather, a liquor bootlegger in a dry county of Alabama and a landowner who ran his own logging and timber business and My father Damon Kiel Jr who earned a BS in Electronics from Tuskegee Institute before the hybrids between a Trade and a Discipline disappeared from the Catalog...I told people my Dad was an Electircal Engineer... I was in graduating High School before I reflected upon and understood the difference and distinction of one from the other...






I believe we are funked up because we are the products of the failure and successes of design not definition






...I mean that we experienced 1st hand the computer go from a novelty and an experiment ...from DOS to the TRS 80 or the Commodore 64 and programming language (I took a Fortran Class at Skegee) before "programming language" (remember PASCAL) became Windows and Windows became a tool of construction, not the house itself and the internet became the new hammer while smartphones have become some of the nails...






We saw Hip Hop be born....we saw the age of music video be born...we had a magic bullet in our homes at our fingertips that we could teach ourselves the things that some were imagining, then teaching themselves and then learning in a home environment...with  no classroom or teaching  standards to filter the "Wild Sound" and now where the race and those running in it had become a cogent group with a certain set in 1st, a specific group in 2nd and another group in 3rd it was now a marathon without end for which all the runners were all over the place and some even running at their own pace...but all still running






We watched and experienced much in the raw footage stage before it was digitized and its effects rendered and then all edited into a final cut...we regularly used prototypes before they were tweaked for the marketplace....the manufacturers didn't know they were prototypes until they knew what the final products were and began to sell those to us, as well






As a result a lot of us became seers and prophets and could therefore see through the marketing and beyond...we became commentators but not doers or craftsmen because for a brief time there was currency for our thoughts (and way more than a penny) ...






we watched the busy signal dissolve into call waiting, three way calling, call blocking we even saw little white answering machines disappear into voicemail services...I believe we saw too much evolve too fast and all the while we were getting through college and grad school and professional school over an everchanging landscape of pure change itself...we had nothing to dig into or plant solid feet upon....the teachers, the lawyers and the doctors faired well because the way did business never changed much ...more toys and improved delivery systems but their content was relatively rock solid...



Somewhere in it "Deming Management" was being hailed as an important business and operations management model ...there was the idea that science and math could solve all of our problems and things like passion and commitment fell way to the way side like the two solid rocket boosters on the Shuttle (we saw Shuttles, hell...we saw a new frontier into space being televised as it had when Man walked on the moon...the shuttle take-offs and landing were our "walk on the moon" or at least as close as we were going to come)....we saw everything go from bigger to smaller to bigger again and faster but not always stronger but a lot better ..overall

The world become modern in front of our eyes and under our noses.


we saw cocaine become crack...



We saw all of this between about 1964 - 1985 and then a steady pattern of growth began to emerge but I don't think the word got all the way out until about 1994 or so and by then we were starting to get married and make babies and trying to ensure they did not come out funked up only for them to turn out better and worse than we did...most of us have turned out to be jacks/janes of all trade masters of little to none who are blooming LATE because there is finally a road for our rubber to actually meet...



We saw our only solid rock ....our identity... disintegrate...and now we are all putting our own pieces back together.... (with that new hammer and those new nails)

Why We Love The President !!!!

 

This image defies words. It is a reminder of why I committed to President Barack H. Obama's campaign  before he ran for President, before there was indeed a CAMPAIGN and why I was indeed of Soldier of Love NOT politics to have become involved in the first place.  We are almost halfway through what I hope is a first term and my love and commitment for our fearless and courageous leader has not waned ! Baby, I got my President's Back!...

When I look at a photograph like this it is truly the HOPE of our next generation I see...honestly, I believe God is pleased about this one...will you look at that baby's eyes !!!

You Gotta Be - Des'ree (lyrics)

I heard this song today. KTWV "the Wave plays" it every so often and there is just something EXTRAORDINARY about the song. It's lyrics are not only flawless, but the music is indeed music.  There is guitar, drums and llush and ayered vocals.  The video ia amazing, a pure delight...the video is a triumph of expression.  The song brings an energy of refresh and renewal and then the delivery system is a stunning and beautiful creation of chocolate womanhood with amazing dimples and a magnetic smile.  As Jimmy Fallon might write in his Thank You" notes, "thank you music video director of Desiree's "You Gotta Be" for not being afraid of the extreme close up". 

"All I know is Love will save the day !" She sings this lyric to remind us to let LOVE be our guide.  If you believe the same as I then all I know is God (Mother/Father) is our Guide and God will surely save the day.

Friday night (along with 3 other cities (Chicago, Philadelphia and Miami)) I screened a documentary film by Janks Morton entitled "We Need to Talk, A Message to Our Daughters" and of so many issues and baggage tackled about what shapes the lives of women for much better, as well as, for the very worst the claim that we can stake for becoming healed and whole is to do the hard work of finding completion in Christ (For other believers I am asserting the spirit of the creator that rests in us is where we look to be made whole).

The movie's target audience was Women, but the message of finding completion in Christ (or your creator by the name with which you worship) is for our men because they too are searching.  The difference is in how our creator shaped our physical and psychological beings that drive us toward each other for completion. Because completion is in Christ Jesus and not one another, the trails we blaze toward one another are always destined for collision and calamity...

It is time to pick up the pieces by looking up to the fill gaps and spaces on the inside...it will take fortitude, courage and wisdom...because we gotta be bold, we gotta be wiser we gotta be hard, we gotta be tough, we gotta be stronger we gotta be cool, we gotta be calm, we gotta stay together...All I know, all I know love will save the day ....so now you sing...



Desiree
Gotta Be

Listen as your day unfolds
Challenge what the future holds
Try and keep your head up to the sky
Lovers they may cause your tears
Go ahead release your fears
Stand up and be counted don't be 'shamed to cry

You gotta be, you gotta be bad
You gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together
All I know, all I know love will save the day

Herald what your mother said
Read the books your father read
Try to solve the puzzles in your own sweet time
Some may have more cash than you
Others take a different view
My, oh, my
he-eh-y

You gotta be bad
You gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together
All I know, all I know love will save the day

Time asks no questions it goes on without you
Leaving you behind if you can't stand the pace
The world keeps on spinning can't stop it if you tried to
The best part is danger staring you in the face


Remember, listen as your day unfolds
Challenge what the future holds
Try to keep your head up to the sky
Lovers they may cause your tears
Go ahead release your fears
My, oh, my
He-ey-y

You gotta be bad
You gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together
All I know, all I know love will save the day

You gotta be bad
You gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together
All I know, all I know love will save the day

Got to be bold, Got to be bad
Got to be wise, no never sad
Got to be hard, not too too hard
All I know is love will save the day

You gotta be bad
You gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together
Oooh, yeah yeah yeah

(Continue until fade)

Stealing Back 1993.... Sandwiched between Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison

 

 Stealing time...1993 to be exact...I am as usual beefing with time because as I cut, paste and type I am working to meet a midnight deadline...for an "Incomplete" class...as I assembled the necessary artifacts of literary pieces for a script I've written for my class I stumbled across the dates of two of the most waking and rousing texts of modern time and modern literature...there is no argument that my favorite President of all time, President Barack H. Obama, has authored 2 of the most definitive speeches of our time with his speech to the DNC in 2004 or my fave the "Yes We Can" speech after a loss in the Connecticut Primaries...others will argue that his speech on Race that summer in the wake of the Jeremiah Wright controversey was his best...the debate may never end...but let's talk about LOVE...Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison

I am hear to say that many American History moments happen before our eyes...as long as our eyes remain open and in 1993 a year full of changes and constants these two mothers of words took a stab at using words to capture messages for the world to hear and abide in and live by.  In taking a stab January 20, 1993 (Inaugural Poem-Maya Angelou) and then another stab December 7, 1993 (Lecture to the Swiss Academy for her Nobel Prize - Toni Morrison) these 2 women pierced the heart and soul of the woman I've become today...

On the Pulse of the Morning

Inaugural Poem

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon. 

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens

Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no more hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.
Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.
Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot ...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

I graduated Tuskegee University in May of 1993 ...I was and am forever sandwiched between what these two women had to say that year....I rhetorically understood and appreciated what my two idols had to say that year but some 17 years late...I get it...I mean I really get it...

Nobel Lecture

Nobel Lecture December 7, 1993

Listen to a Sound Recording 33 min. In order to hear the sound you need RealPlayer.

"Once upon a time there was an old woman. Blind but wise." Or was it an old man? A guru, perhaps. Or a griot soothing restless children. I have heard this story, or one exactly like it, in the lore of several cultures.

"Once upon a time there was an old woman. Blind. Wise."

In the version I know the woman is the daughter of slaves, black, American, and lives alone in a small house outside of town. Her reputation for wisdom is without peer and without question. Among her people she is both the law and its transgression. The honor she is paid and the awe in which she is held reach beyond her neighborhood to places far away; to the city where the intelligence of rural prophets is the source of much amusement.

One day the woman is visited by some young people who seem to be bent on disproving her clairvoyance and showing her up for the fraud they believe she is. Their plan is simple: they enter her house and ask the one question the answer to which rides solely on her difference from them, a difference they regard as a profound disability: her blindness. They stand before her, and one of them says, "Old woman, I hold in my hand a bird. Tell me whether it is living or dead."

She does not answer, and the question is repeated. "Is the bird I am holding living or dead?"

Still she doesn't answer. She is blind and cannot see her visitors, let alone what is in their hands. She does not know their color, gender or homeland. She only knows their motive.

The old woman's silence is so long, the young people have trouble holding their laughter.

Finally she speaks and her voice is soft but stern. "I don't know", she says. "I don't know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands."

Her answer can be taken to mean: if it is dead, you have either found it that way or you have killed it. If it is alive, you can still kill it. Whether it is to stay alive, it is your decision. Whatever the case, it is your responsibility.

For parading their power and her helplessness, the young visitors are reprimanded, told they are responsible not only for the act of mockery but also for the small bundle of life sacrificed to achieve its aims. The blind woman shifts attention away from assertions of power to the instrument through which that power is exercised.

Speculation on what (other than its own frail body) that bird-in-the-hand might signify has always been attractive to me, but especially so now thinking, as I have been, about the work I do that has brought me to this company. So I choose to read the bird as language and the woman as a practiced writer. She is worried about how the language she dreams in, given to her at birth, is handled, put into service, even withheld from her for certain nefarious purposes. Being a writer she thinks of language partly as a system, partly as a living thing over which one has control, but mostly as agency - as an act with consequences. So the question the children put to her: "Is it living or dead?" is not unreal because she thinks of language as susceptible to death, erasure; certainly imperiled and salvageable only by an effort of the will. She believes that if the bird in the hands of her visitors is dead the custodians are responsible for the corpse. For her a dead language is not only one no longer spoken or written, it is unyielding language content to admire its own paralysis. Like statist language, censored and censoring. Ruthless in its policing duties, it has no desire or purpose other than maintaining the free range of its own narcotic narcissism, its own exclusivity and dominance. However moribund, it is not without effect for it actively thwarts the intellect, stalls conscience, suppresses human potential. Unreceptive to interrogation, it cannot form or tolerate new ideas, shape other thoughts, tell another story, fill baffling silences. Official language smitheryed to sanction ignorance and preserve privilege is a suit of armor polished to shocking glitter, a husk from which the knight departed long ago. Yet there it is: dumb, predatory, sentimental. Exciting reverence in schoolchildren, providing shelter for despots, summoning false memories of stability, harmony among the public.

She is convinced that when language dies, out of carelessness, disuse, indifference and absence of esteem, or killed by fiat, not only she herself, but all users and makers are accountable for its demise. In her country children have bitten their tongues off and use bullets instead to iterate the voice of speechlessness, of disabled and disabling language, of language adults have abandoned altogether as a device for grappling with meaning, providing guidance, or expressing love. But she knows tongue-suicide is not only the choice of children. It is common among the infantile heads of state and power merchants whose evacuated language leaves them with no access to what is left of their human instincts for they speak only to those who obey, or in order to force obedience.

The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek - it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language - all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.

The old woman is keenly aware that no intellectual mercenary, nor insatiable dictator, no paid-for politician or demagogue; no counterfeit journalist would be persuaded by her thoughts. There is and will be rousing language to keep citizens armed and arming; slaughtered and slaughtering in the malls, courthouses, post offices, playgrounds, bedrooms and boulevards; stirring, memorializing language to mask the pity and waste of needless death. There will be more diplomatic language to countenance rape, torture, assassination. There is and will be more seductive, mutant language designed to throttle women, to pack their throats like paté-producing geese with their own unsayable, transgressive words; there will be more of the language of surveillance disguised as research; of politics and history calculated to render the suffering of millions mute; language glamorized to thrill the dissatisfied and bereft into assaulting their neighbors; arrogant pseudo-empirical language crafted to lock creative people into cages of inferiority and hopelessness.

Underneath the eloquence, the glamor, the scholarly associations, however stirring or seductive, the heart of such language is languishing, or perhaps not beating at all - if the bird is already dead.

She has thought about what could have been the intellectual history of any discipline if it had not insisted upon, or been forced into, the waste of time and life that rationalizations for and representations of dominance required - lethal discourses of exclusion blocking access to cognition for both the excluder and the excluded.

The conventional wisdom of the Tower of Babel story is that the collapse was a misfortune. That it was the distraction, or the weight of many languages that precipitated the tower's failed architecture. That one monolithic language would have expedited the building and heaven would have been reached. Whose heaven, she wonders? And what kind? Perhaps the achievement of Paradise was premature, a little hasty if no one could take the time to understand other languages, other views, other narratives period. Had they, the heaven they imagined might have been found at their feet. Complicated, demanding, yes, but a view of heaven as life; not heaven as post-life.

She would not want to leave her young visitors with the impression that language should be forced to stay alive merely to be. The vitality of language lies in its ability to limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers. Although its poise is sometimes in displacing experience it is not a substitute for it. It arcs toward the place where meaning may lie. When a President of the United States thought about the graveyard his country had become, and said, "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here. But it will never forget what they did here," his simple words are exhilarating in their life-sustaining properties because they refused to encapsulate the reality of 600, 000 dead men in a cataclysmic race war. Refusing to monumentalize, disdaining the "final word", the precise "summing up", acknowledging their "poor power to add or detract", his words signal deference to the uncapturability of the life it mourns. It is the deference that moves her, that recognition that language can never live up to life once and for all. Nor should it. Language can never "pin down" slavery, genocide, war. Nor should it yearn for the arrogance to be able to do so. Its force, its felicity is in its reach toward the ineffable.

Be it grand or slender, burrowing, blasting, or refusing to sanctify; whether it laughs out loud or is a cry without an alphabet, the choice word, the chosen silence, unmolested language surges toward knowledge, not its destruction. But who does not know of literature banned because it is interrogative; discredited because it is critical; erased because alternate? And how many are outraged by the thought of a self-ravaged tongue?

Word-work is sublime, she thinks, because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference - the way in which we are like no other life.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

"Once upon a time, ..." visitors ask an old woman a question. Who are they, these children? What did they make of that encounter? What did they hear in those final words: "The bird is in your hands"? A sentence that gestures towards possibility or one that drops a latch? Perhaps what the children heard was "It's not my problem. I am old, female, black, blind. What wisdom I have now is in knowing I cannot help you. The future of language is yours."

They stand there. Suppose nothing was in their hands? Suppose the visit was only a ruse, a trick to get to be spoken to, taken seriously as they have not been before? A chance to interrupt, to violate the adult world, its miasma of discourse about them, for them, but never to them? Urgent questions are at stake, including the one they have asked: "Is the bird we hold living or dead?" Perhaps the question meant: "Could someone tell us what is life? What is death?" No trick at all; no silliness. A straightforward question worthy of the attention of a wise one. An old one. And if the old and wise who have lived life and faced death cannot describe either, who can?

But she does not; she keeps her secret; her good opinion of herself; her gnomic pronouncements; her art without commitment. She keeps her distance, enforces it and retreats into the singularity of isolation, in sophisticated, privileged space.

Nothing, no word follows her declaration of transfer. That silence is deep, deeper than the meaning available in the words she has spoken. It shivers, this silence, and the children, annoyed, fill it with language invented on the spot.

"Is there no speech," they ask her, "no words you can give us that helps us break through your dossier of failures? Through the education you have just given us that is no education at all because we are paying close attention to what you have done as well as to what you have said? To the barrier you have erected between generosity and wisdom?

"We have no bird in our hands, living or dead. We have only you and our important question. Is the nothing in our hands something you could not bear to contemplate, to even guess? Don't you remember being young when language was magic without meaning? When what you could say, could not mean? When the invisible was what imagination strove to see? When questions and demands for answers burned so brightly you trembled with fury at not knowing?

"Do we have to begin consciousness with a battle heroines and heroes like you have already fought and lost leaving us with nothing in our hands except what you have imagined is there? Your answer is artful, but its artfulness embarrasses us and ought to embarrass you. Your answer is indecent in its self-congratulation. A made-for-television script that makes no sense if there is nothing in our hands.

"Why didn't you reach out, touch us with your soft fingers, delay the sound bite, the lesson, until you knew who we were? Did you so despise our trick, our modus operandi you could not see that we were baffled about how to get your attention? We are young. Unripe. We have heard all our short lives that we have to be responsible. What could that possibly mean in the catastrophe this world has become; where, as a poet said, "nothing needs to be exposed since it is already barefaced." Our inheritance is an affront. You want us to have your old, blank eyes and see only cruelty and mediocrity. Do you think we are stupid enough to perjure ourselves again and again with the fiction of nationhood? How dare you talk to us of duty when we stand waist deep in the toxin of your past?

"You trivialize us and trivialize the bird that is not in our hands. Is there no context for our lives? No song, no literature, no poem full of vitamins, no history connected to experience that you can pass along to help us start strong? You are an adult. The old one, the wise one. Stop thinking about saving your face. Think of our lives and tell us your particularized world. Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your reach exceeds your grasp; if love so ignites your words they go down in flames and nothing is left but their scald. Or if, with the reticence of a surgeon's hands, your words suture only the places where blood might flow. We know you can never do it properly - once and for all. Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul. You, old woman, blessed with blindness, can speak the language that tells us what only language can: how to see without pictures. Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.

"Tell us what it is to be a woman so that we may know what it is to be a man. What moves at the margin. What it is to have no home in this place. To be set adrift from the one you knew. What it is to live at the edge of towns that cannot bear your company.

"Tell us about ships turned away from shorelines at Easter, placenta in a field. Tell us about a wagonload of slaves, how they sang so softly their breath was indistinguishable from the falling snow. How they knew from the hunch of the nearest shoulder that the next stop would be their last. How, with hands prayered in their sex, they thought of heat, then sun. Lifting their faces as though is was there for the taking. Turning as though there for the taking. They stop at an inn. The driver and his mate go in with the lamp leaving them humming in the dark. The horse's void steams into the snow beneath its hooves and its hiss and melt are the envy of the freezing slaves.

"The inn door opens: a girl and a boy step away from its light. They climb into the wagon bed. The boy will have a gun in three years, but now he carries a lamp and a jug of warm cider. They pass it from mouth to mouth. The girl offers bread, pieces of meat and something more: a glance into the eyes of the one she serves. One helping for each man, two for each woman. And a look. They look back. The next stop will be their last. But not this one. This one is warmed."

It's quiet again when the children finish speaking, until the woman breaks into the silence.

"Finally", she says, "I trust you now. I trust you with the bird that is not in your hands because you have truly caught it. Look. How lovely it is, this thing we have done - together."

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1991-1995, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997

Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1993

TO CITE THIS PAGE:
MLA style: "Toni Morrison - Nobel Lecture". Nobelprize.org. 19 Oct 2010 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1993/morrison-lecture.html

This Is It (Kenny Loggins not MJ)

I LOVE THIS SONG ...



Family,

First let me begin by saying Jesus does not look like Kenny Loggins and when you see those street vendors with those framed glass pictures of Kenny Loggins tell the vendor this is not what Jesus looks like and see what he says... :-)

Second, I always thought this song was amazing. In the late 70's and into the 80's the musical landscape that traditional radio offered was simply the best.  Michael McDonald (The Doobie Brothers), Kenny Loggins, Hall & Oates, Bobby Caldwell and others offered us something very special in the way of what became know as Blue Eyed Soul.

Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins were during this post disco era great collaborators. I would love to know what their first meeting was like or what did they hear in one another's music that brought them together.  They co-wrote "What A Fool Believes" which earned Michael McDonald and the Doobie Brothers a "Song of the Year" Grammy in 1980 and they co-wrote "This Is It" which earned Kenny Loggins a "Best Pop Vocal Performance Male" Grammy 1981. BTW ...you don't have to listen to hard to hear Michael McDonald on the background...I don't know that the song would have been a monster hit without what his signature vocals added...

"This is It" was a favorite for me because I loved the rhythmic nature of the music, it's composition (it was more than a "track").  I loved the emphasis on the chorus. I loved the break in the Piano just before the chorus rung out ...This is it !!! as though Kenny Loggins was really trying to tell us something. The song feels like a wake up call, right ?

Fast forward 30 years and the song more than holds up across today's musical landscape.  It is played in heavy rotation on LA's KTWV the Wave (a format of soul, contemporary jazz, soft rock, adult contemporary...basically anybody over 35 has somewhere to go on their AM/FM dial). As I heard it twice in a span of 3 or 4 days I was given a chance to meditate and reflect on the lyrics. I was immediately taken back to a time when "the living was easy...(or at least easier)", but I also became VERY INSPIRED !!!

Though I am a lover of ALL things 70's most 80's and an all around vintage girl in a modern world, it was more than nostalgia that moved me when I heard the song.  The lyrics...the sermon...came alive.  I am sure the original intention was a love song.  The lyrics seem to suggest that if you ever leave that other dude alone, I am here for you. He sings,  "Let him believe /Or leave him behind /But keep me near in your heart /And know, whatever you do /I'm here by your side." 

But you guys know ART, it stubbornly resists one meaning...one interpretation. There is more than "double entendre", there are a multitude of meanings based on every individual experience. It is up to the listener...every listener to decide. I also believe that Carl Jung was on to something though when referring to our "Collective Unconscious".  I say that because Kenny Loggins' song "This is It" was a huge hit.  It resonated meaningfully enough with consumers who bought the single or the whole album. Either or both went Platinum (at least 1 million sold).

So I share the lyrics and a couple of videos here because this song for me...my meaning...my interpretation is a call to action...to as folks say all the time..."keep doing what you doing !" I realize everyday as Kenny preached in his record, "This is It...The waiting is over ...No room to run ..No way to hide ...No time for wondering why ...It's here ...The moment is now"  ....I truly believe ....THE MOMENT IS NOW !

Thanks Be To God
Danna

"This Is It" 
written by Kenny Loggings & Michael McDonald

There have been times in my life
I've been wondering why
Still somehow I believed
We'd always survive
Now I'm not so sure
You're waiting to hear
One good reason to try
But what more can I say
What's left to provide
You think that maybe it's over
Only if you want it to be
Are you gonna wait for your sign, your
miracle
Stand up and fight
This is it
Make no mistake where you are
This is it
Your back's to the corner
This is it
Don't be a fool anymore
This is it
The waiting is over
No room to run
No way to hide
No time for wondering why
It's here
The moment is now
About to decide
Let him believe
Or leave him behind
But keep me near in your heart
And know, whatever you do
I'm here by your side
You said that maybe it's over
Not if you don't want it to be
For once in your life, here's your miracle
Stand up and fight
This is it
Make no mistake where you are
This is it
You're going no further
This is it
Until it's over and done
No one can tell you what you know
Who makes the choice of how it goes
It's not up to me this time
You know
There comes a day in every life
This is it
Make no mistake where you are
This is it
You're going no further
This is it
Until it's over and done
This is it
One way or another
This is it
No one can tell what the future holds
This is it
Your back's to the corner
This is it
You make the choice of how it goes
This is it
The waiting is over
This is it
No one can tell what the future holds
This is it
You're going no further

Fences and Progress pt 2

BTW... the blog and both pictures were taken and sent from my phone (a crackberry)...see that ...progress and technology...just mesmerizing !

God's Best
Danna
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Fences and Progress

Jesus Be A Fence !

I am daily amazed and captivated by progress and technology. I am also admittedly a "little" addicted to Facebook. Djdannak's the name...social networking is oft times my game...

This evening as I was attempting to teach a sister in blogging something new, I learned new tricks myself. I was amazed to find out that I could email pictures and other media to my blogspot blog for immediate publishing. To the credit of a lot of networking sites I am on they all give you an address for sending stuff to the site, but I hadn't processed what that meant until tonight.

Oh you mean ....

I have in essence found a new way to share. I am not sure if another way to connect and communicate with my community is actually necessary, but it satisfies what at times feels like the insatiable itch to reach out, touch and talk to my peoples...

I am honestly very excited and giddy even about this avenue to share because it is emailing. I love emailing. I always have. I don't know about anyone else, but emailing makes up for all the snail mail I wrote (and intended to write) that I never got to the mailbox to send. It also makes up for letters that I looked for that didn't come...I can dish procrastination, but I can't always take it...

I still nonethelesslove letter writing. There is a groove and comfort in writing letters. Letter writing opens a space of liberation and safety that springs directly from the heart.

Letter writing whether public or private; personal or political connects the heart to the page (paper or web). It also sharpens my writing axe. From a place of passion I feel free to say whatever it takes to get my point across to a lover, friend or colleague.

At this place of freedom lies the axis of progress and technology
where inspiration roams free and creativity is born...daily

God's Best
Danna

PS:I am also sharing evidence of my turnaround trip to NYC to see Viola and Denzel in "Fences" and this is also to explain the lone picture of the amazing "Fences" marquis...check out me and my friend, Mickey too

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

---

From: Danna Kiel <dannakiel@gmail.com>

Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2010 00:45:23 -0700

To: <dannakiel@att.blackberry.net>

Subject:

--
God's Best
Danna

Vote Kamala Harris Attorney General for the State of California - June 8th, 2010 (Endorsed by the SEIU, Mayor Antonio Villaragosa, The Los Angeles Times and Nancy Pelosi)
Vote Holly J. Mitchell 47th Aseembly District for the State of California - June 8th, 2010 (Endorsed by Karen Bass, Diane Watson and the California State Democratic Party)

Vote Barbara Boxer for for U.S. Senate - June 8th 2010

www.blogtalkradio.com/djdannak

Obama is President !!!!!!!!

my blog...
www.djdannak-changeisnow.blogspot.com

My OWN Show

Family, I have been doing a lot of "doing", "running" and "thinking". I am mastering film-making in my 40's. I have admittedly been in the "game" a minute and am clamping down to package all the skills into a something that is efficient, effective and most of all productive. In fact the goal is to produce High Quality content.

I am currently working on an MFA in Screenwriting. I am continuing to network and build an artistic community of not only fellowship and communion, but of quality and efficient (there's that word again) production. We are building a TEAM !

I am waiting on an edit now and while there are just elements out of my control that have slowed the process, I am pushing to get back on track and finished with this one and move on the next.

I am in constant count of my blessings. My son is healthy, the lights and other needed utilities are on and the key turns in the door. We are not hungry...ever. Many daily negotiate these things and I don't forget that.

I am however standing on God's word for more...I desire through prayer and supplication to build and sustain a career as a filmmaker. Everyday I do something teeny tiny or colossal toward my goal. Fear, worry and anxiety creep in...but in those moments I realize the fear, worry and anxiety are not only NOT my friends, but they are spirits of darkness and Paul had something to say to the folks at Ephesus about it...

Eph 6:10-17 (NIV) ...Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

It is with this full armour that I fiercely protect my family and the dreams that God has given to me that he is bringing to pass. My journey is my journey and I am on the path of success...I also strive to be obedient: the greatest demonstration of our Faith...

I write here what I am trying to keep short and simply say to my team...my friends that are family and the family God bore me into - Be encouraged, as well as, Be of good courage - Deuteronomy 31:6 he tells his chosen people

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

I therefore continue "doing", "running" and "thinking", as well as, "writing", "producing" and "directing" ...for these are the things I am called to do. My Dad called me this week and shared that he saw James Cameron (Titanic and Avatar) on a 60 Minutes interview. He said some things that were special so I posted on FB this status....

My Dad has begun in recent years to encourage my journey...he called me this morning to tell me he saw James Cameron interview on 60 minutes who says no matter how small your film..."You are a filmmaker" and to say..."that's what Danna is...'you are a filmmaker' " it meant the world to me (he also said he voted for my 'Ofrah' ...video :-)

As you guys know I auditioned for Oprah and need your support so vote for my audition...like Hezekiah says "I need you to survive"



God's Best
Danna

Been A Minute...Let's Talk About L-O-V-E

I U


Love they say "is a many splendored (or 'splendid' or 'splintered' ..it feels splintered at times, right ?) thing". Whichever the term ...I am not sure if Love is always felicitous and it for me it has been sharp and painful. Love to me is also a passionate beast or a beast of passion. It can whoop your ass (not literally, domestic violence is NOT love) and it can make love to you gently. It is energetic, lethargic, eclectic and tricky. Love "got game" and has swagger. Love is safe and at other times capricious.

As well, it is like the "Life" Langston Hughes describes from a Mother to a son "(love) ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor-Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin, And reachin' landin's, And turnin corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark. Where there ain't been no light."Did y'all feel that...over there ? It's has been dark, that's for sure." (Can I preach like I feel it :-)

Today I had to grapple with the notion of being lonely and without LOVE...I of course mean Eros...not AGAPE...Mother/Father God showers me everyday by breathing the breath of life into Ali and myself, I am Loved by my creator and I give Love. I am also blessed beyond measure.




But...yes there is the "but"- I am admittedly lonely and creating a world is not my option. For the record I tried and it was some mess. Today as I turned my back on my class ENG 668 Genre "Horror" and shifted my focus back to "whatever I am supposed to be shifting my focus back to" (since my next Graduate class doesn't begin until July 6), evidence pointed squarely to the fact that I am without a mate, boyfriend, "special friend", "friend" or even a "booty call". There is no one. There is only the dream of someone. There are only the ghosts of "First Love's" past. There are only the crushes that look, sound and act like the ghosts of "First Loves" past. There are only the recollections of what Faith Evans branded "Caramel Kisses".



I gave myself permission to ride the "moment", but I thought I might share this with anyone who might know something about it. Jimmy Ruffin asked, "What becomes of the brokenhearted ?" I am not sure so I wait...but of these ghosts...Erykah's song best captured my thoughts as I tearlessly reflected upon the predicament in which I find myself...I don't offer an mp3 because she is (like all of her records) saying something here and I wouldn't want anyone who needs this to miss it. (The chorus is bolded because somebody needs this word and if anybody has a jar of Holy Water...can we share ?)




Erykah Badu..."I Want You" (Worldwide Underground EP)
REPEAT 4x's (begining)1st part

I I I I I I I
WANT YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU
OOH I
I I I I I I
WANT YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU

so what we gone do
what we gone do
what we gonna do

2nd part

in the worse kinda way way way way way way way
i want youuuu (baby)
so what we gone dooooo (baby)
so what we gone do (baby)

CHORUS
love is on the way
all I got to say
is It wont let go
you can pray to early May
fast for 30 days
still It wont let go
got a good book and got all in it
tried a little yoga for a minute
but it wont let go (oooh)
tried to turn the sauna up to hotter
drank a whole jar of holy water
but it wont let go

begining

and in the worse kinda way way way way way way way
i want you
so what we gone do
what we gone do

beginning

Hook:

and in the worse kinda way
i want you
so what we gone doooo
now what we gone do
i know you're a little nervous
(what we gone do)
i know you really want this
(what we gone do)
i cant believe i feel it
(what we gone do)
i feel it all over , feel it all over
(said what we gone do)
babe,yeah baby
(so what we gone do)
you don't believe in love
you missing a good thing
(so what we gone do)
because im genuine
im genuine
(so what we gone do)
yeah baby

Bridge:repeat 2x's

i dont want no trouble
just alittle loving (yeah)
i want to get to know ya (yeah)
i dont want your money (yeah)
you oughta get to know me (yeah)
my love a make you wonder (yeah)
and lightning a thunder (yeah)
i get from my mama (yeah)

and i
i want you
and i
i want you
and i
i want you....

Begining (1st part again)

Hotels.com - Sponsored Post

Hotels.com - www.dpbolvw.net

I like Hotels.com because I love anything that saves me money and still delivers comfort and cuteness !

sponsored like

Danna Kiel's profile on MyLikes

Cheat Blogging, Freedom's Sisters, Walking no more talking...

I am constantly inspired, but not getting it down on paper or web by accident or on purpose. I try not to be a slave to time, but I'll be damned if she doesn't feel like a master. Shout out to Royale Watkins whose presence in the world and voice inside my head inspires me to do much better. (Friend your wife and kids are blessed)

I shot a short film back in November and have two completed feature length scripts, as well as, cracking the code on 5 other ideas that I am breaking down into treatments according to Blake Snyder's "Save The Cat". My short film is stalled in the "edit bay" and instead of continuing to do soft pitches on my work its time to budget, schedule, find investors and shoot both and prep more.

I am self employed. Money gets funny and change strange so in the natural realm days can appear and feel difficult. I however look to the heavens from which comes my help, my help comes from the Lord who has made HEAVEN and Earth. I am persisting in faith (thank you David Barnes for your gem "Fulfilling Your Destiny" (correct me on the title in the comments) and walking in belief without doubt. I am trying to "get good at" or as they say master the second...it gets hard.

I am learning to hear God's voice, listen to his command and then obey...this is also hard...but way doable if we know who abides in us and who we abide in...who shall be able to separate from the LOVE of God...nothing and no one.

I press, I write and I grind. I continue to work to master parenting for God has given me one of his most precious ones and I am no cakewalk, but Ali loves me anyway.

I express the above because I feel like everything gets crossed up in a way that not enough of MY writing gets accomplished...particularly this blog. (Yes I am trying to watch my choices I am not a victim, I am accountable and responsible.)

I attended Ford Motor Company's Freedom's Sisters Awards Luncheon which honored 20 amazing leaders of the Los Angeles Community....Speaker Karen Bass, California State Assembly, Actress Holly Robinson Peete, HollyRod Foundation, Deputy City Mayor Miriam Scott Long, Entertainer Rev. Della Reese, News Anchor Pat Harvey; KCAL 9, Actress Loretta Devine, former LA County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, Actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, HIV/AIDS Activist, Community Activist “Sweet Alice” Harris, Executive Denise Pines, Tavis Smiley Group, Publisher Natalie Cole; Our Weekly News, Sculptor & Painter Artis Lane, Community Activist Lillian Mobley, Captain d'Lisa Davies; LA Fire Department, Cynthia Davis; Charles Drew University of Medicine & Science, Community Activist LaWanda Hawkins; Justice For Murdered Children, Auto Advocate Glenda Gill; Rainbow PUSH, Community Leader Charisse Bremond-Weaver; Brotherhood Crusade, Child Care Advocate Holly J. Mitchell and Youth Advocate Angela B. Winston; Challengers Boys & Girls Club. Loretta Devine got an award too...she's just awesome.

I was slayed by the inspiration and spiritual awakening I felt at its conclusion. It was AMAZING to just be in the room. (That's me and Malcolm X's Daughter, Attallah Shabazz after the luncheon)

Myrlie Evers was the keynote speaker, but for me she was more than that...she is the breathing and living legacy of what inspires me to be...she is a Black Woman who has survived what she called "the darkest time" and shines with the brilliance of pure Gold...I own Brian Lanker's Groundbreaking table book "I Dream A World" where Ms. Evers-Williams among other sheroes is featured. She walked out of the book and came to life for me Thursday.

20 years ago I thought I would be moving and shaking some things and like all the lists of up and coming or respected leaders or activist in their arena I looked forward to reading about from year to year various publications. I thought I'd be one. (I feel like a winner when Ali is clean, fed and matching). Even if it were just a blurb somewhere in Ebony, Essence, Jet or Vibe. I was sure that by now I would have figured something out and been doing something publicly recognized as brilliant or awesome like Vann Jones up there on the stage tonight but to date no such singular accomplishment hence no outward confirmation. I am a filmmaker and God honors my current focus and determination and the outward confirmation is on its way. Thanks be to God I have the gift certificate and he will cash it soon.

I will say this though I brilliantly engaged Myrile Evers for Red Carpet coverage that was unprecedented and unparalleled to any in that room. When my turn came I asked her compelling questions for which gave riveted answers and out the corners of my eyes the remaining journalists huddled in awe and in a perfect circle to hear her answers to my questions, they poised their recording devices to capture her words. I had touched the hem of her garment (and my own) and was infused with "girl power"...better than that "woman power".

I am regularly moved one way or another by news and other commentary so there have been quite a few things on my mind for a while. Tonight however while tweeting the Image Award Broadcast (saw Myrlie Evers again) I exchanged comments with friends...me, my cast and crew of FB friends were in particular moved by Tyler Perry's Chairman's Award speech... so I clipped the conversation below (cheat blogging) to share because our conclusion I believe is not only to heed the call to action that Tyler Perry expressed but the work that we get to once engaged in Active duty ....not reserve status....The heart of this blog beats in my final comment (check me out :-)!!!!

So it went like this...

Danna Lafaye Kiel ''We don't have to wait for someone to greenlight our projects. We can create our own intersections.''~ Tyler Perry
about an hour ago via Twitter · Comment · Like
Eeinna Brighton-Akers likes this.

Danna Lafaye Kiel
i stole yours !!!!
about an hour ago ·

Eeinna Brighton-Akers WE ALL SHOULD MAKE THIS OUR STATUS!!! Not only that...hell we should call a round table discussion at a POSH Blackowned venue and call it ''creating our own intersections''...Think tank round table...whatever you want to call it it's about that time!
about an hour ago ·

Vonnetta Sharee King What award show was this?
about an hour ago ·

Danna Lafaye Kiel NAACP Image Awards
56 minutes ago ·

Karen L Glover Great speech by Tyler Perry and Vann Jones.
52 minutes ago ·

Danna Lafaye Kiel @karen I so LOVE Vann Jones ..
2 minutes ago ·

Danna Lafaye Kiel @Eeinna I vehemently disagree about the roundtable :-)...if one has been to enough panels at film festivals and conferences where concerns, challenges or issues are or have been considered and discussed then you like I :-) would know that the discussion has been exhausted (and you know that ladybug)..."the problem does not require much thought" a friend shared recently ...

what I am sure of is that if we call ourselves writers or directors or both our work is to create the HIGHEST QUALITY CONTENT not now but RIGHT NOW ...what I beileve must be different is that we must lock arms and talk everyday about how much we wrote or about story issues that we encountered while creating content...

we should be PUSHING one another to pick up the pace on our process and then help one another breakdown the script for scheduling and budgeting... from there we build the house of LOVE for which we've created a blueprint or we lock arms across the process of getting the property sold if that is the desired aim, we must be the other's quality control no matter how HARD that will be ( I'm an artist and I am sensitive about my sh*t...I really am very sensitive about my sh*t) ...we must also pray together and for one another

we must like Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu 3 Mexican Writer/Directors/producers who were all getting Oscar recognition of some kind in the same year who supported and worked with each other at some point in their careers...during the '07 Oscar Season they were inseparable, we must stick to each other like glue...

Let's get it !
4 minutes ago ·