| Yes, our rhymes can contain violence and hatred. Yes, our songs can detail the drug business and our choruses can bounce with lustful intent. However, those things did not spring from inferior imaginations or deficient morals; these things came from our lives. They came from America. The folks from the suburbs and the private schools so concerned with putting warning labels on my records missed the point. They never stopped to worry about the realities in this country that spread poverty and racism and gun violence and hatred of women and drug use and unemployment... Our lives are not rotten or worthless just because that’s what people say about the real estate that we were raised on.
JAY-Z
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Underneath the eloquence, the glamor, the scholarly associations,
however stirring or seductive, the heart of... language is
languishing, or perhaps not beating at all--if the bird is
already dead.
-- Toni Morrison, 1993
As much as everyone is crazy in love w/ Obama, I've got gripes. I've decided not to vote for him in the primary (sticking w/ Edwards.) His dazzling oratory skills aren't wowing me enough to ignore the fact that he wants to preserve certain Bush-like tax breaks for those earning $200K +, among other stupid ideas. One big problem w/ Barack was nailed on point by Will Kern (along w/ Barack's totally faux MLK-era speech inflections):
His speech pattern is very much the black church, but without the volume or boisterousness. More like the cadence and the word stress. He can really hold an audience. You also get the impression he knows what he’s talking about, even when you know he doesn’t. For instance, he said something about how “these days, if you pick a product in a store, it’s likely to me made in China or Indonesia or Singapore.” But Singapore is a first world country, and the only thing they export to the US is semi-conductors. But that's nitpicking.
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| "your soul is an obstacle in your way. sacrifice
it. if you are required to sacrifice your faith... do so by all means, and if anyone brands you as
an infidel, tell him that love occupies a position more exalted
than religion, and has nothing to do with faith or heresy. whoever
sets his feet firmly in the abiding-place of love transcends the
bounds of infidelity and faith as well." (farid ud-din attar, from conference of the birds)
 
photos by vinita agarwal
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a still from the recently debuted film version of Marjane Satrapi's 'persepolis.' shaabash! |
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