Troy

Guest_Samantha_*, I have modified the board to prevent "quest" posting. Actually this is something I intended to do from jump, but never got around to doing it. I've never prevented anyone from posting, nor do I “grant permission”. Anyone may post here, or not; it is up to them. The only requirement (as of today) is that people must register before posting. If you have a Facebook account it is simple. If you want to maintain your anonymity (or you don’t have a Facebook account), you may still register here directly.

Y'all know I try to maintain a hands off approach -- even when folks try to drag me into the middle of stuff. I don't have the time or inclination to mediate disputes. I defintely don't have the time or desire to prove someone else's identity -- don't even to ask I'm not going to do it.

VIDEO: Sho Baraka's "We Can Be More" (Official) Video .mov http://post.ly/VGyQ 8:53 PM Mar 24th via Posterous VIDEO: from Shadow And Act » Watch “White Teeth,” Based On The Novel By Zadie Smith http://post.ly/VGtf 8:45 PM Mar 24th via Posterous PUB: New Millennium Writings Awards Competition http://post.ly/VGpK 8:37 PM Mar 24th via Posterous PUB: Noble Row Short Fiction Award 2010 http://post.ly/VGkT 8:30 PM Mar 24th via Posterous PUB: BOMB Magazine 2010 Poetry Contest http://post.ly/VGfs 8:22 PM Mar 24th via Posterous INDIA: Walking With The Comrades : from Information Clearing House http://post.ly/VGcg 8:17 PM Mar 24th via Posterous INTERVIEW: Arundhati Roy—Why Democracy Is “The Biggest Scam in the World” : from Information Clearing House http://post.ly/VGaD 8:14 PM Mar 24th via Posterous VIDEO: "FLOW" - For The Love Of Water 1/8 http://post.ly/VGYL 8:10 PM Mar 24th via Posterous EVENT: Atlanta—"CARRY ME HOME" - Heading to Atlanta (Women of Color Arts & Film Festival) http://post.ly/VGUb 8:02 PM Mar 24th via Posterous EVENT: Washington, DC—Join Sisterspace and Books for its First Great-Grand Poetry Slam! http://post.ly/VGRL 7:58 PM Mar 24th via Posterous ===================== To get up dates as they are posted, follow me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/) >@neogriot or "friend" me on Facebook >http://www.facebook.com/kalamu.salaam You can also subscribe directly to the neo•griot blog through email or with an rss feed >http://kalamu.posterous.com/ ------------------------------------ Visit our music website: "Breath of Life - a conversation about black music" www.kalamu.com/bolYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kalamu/ <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo....oup/kalamu/join (Yahoo! ID required)

#1 - You can customize the landing page of your Facebook Fan Page Check out the AALBC.com Fan Page Click here for instructions #2 - You can completely embed you Youtube Channel in your facebook Fan page. Check out mine

"Your writers are invited to submit their poetry, fiction, or essays for our June 2010, issue. For details visit: http://www.thewritersliterarymuse.com" Michael D. Brown Editor

Check out the NY Times article about the National Black Writers' Conference which begin this Thursday in Brooklyn NYC. If you attend the VIP reception you can score this high quality AALBC.com bag:

Interesting... http://afieldnegro.com/photos.html

Deep. Chris I agree. Cynique I'm afraid we have always been a "populace of predators" we have just become more sophistcated and sneaky about it. Asar, the same thing can be extended to education, health care, the ability to create wealth, etc. The American system, despite it's abundant resources favors the wealthy minority -- and they don't really care about anyone else. However change is possible. In fact, it is inevitable. But real "change" will never some from someone like an Obama he has too much too loose if the current system were to change dramatically. It seems real change comes from the actions of young people. However any youthful threat is quickly snuffed out. Sure we'll name streets after the martyred, but the young revolutionaries are, nonetheless, quickly terminated. This is why Obama does not have to worry about being assassinated. It is more likely change may be forced upon us by another country, who smells blood here and senses a weakness. But that kind of change will not benefit anyone reading this... I wish I could live another 100 years and see where this "thing of ours" ends up.

Ok I'm jealous. But FK can you say that you've met Thumper, Yukio, or ABM even, dare I say... Kola Boof! OK i was joking aboiut ABM I've never met him.

Click to join AALBC.com's Facebook Fan Page.

I liked it most because it showed what people can do if they put their heads together...

We had skilled publishing professionals among us, so we never considered using a vanity press. Instead, each of the twelve of us tossed in $500 and formed a small business. One of us went to San Francisco City Hall to process our business name, Wild Writing Women Press. Another bought the ISBN and bar code; others hired a book designer, edited, proofread, created a website, and chose a printer. Promotion was easy because we had 12 professional adventure travel writers talking up the book in the course of marketing our other books and projects. Wild Writing Women: Stories of World Travel was an instant hit. We sold all 1,000 copies in the first week of publication and made back more than double our investment. Eighteen traditional publishers were suddenly interested in purchasing the book. The group decided -- by a skinny 7 to 5 vote -- to sell it to Globe-Pequot. Self-publishing success? Well, it's 2010 and we've yet to see any royalties. Read the rest of the Article

Bowker's New Book Title Statistics There is a projected 3% drop in the number of titles published in 2008 compared to 2007. However education titles are up 33% and "OnDemand, Short Run and Other Unclassified" is up 133% for the same period.

I just updated Wideman's AALBC.com page to include links to his new book. A free preview is available there also (it looks really good) and links to a few of his older works, (from the 60's and 70's) republished by Lulu. There is also a reading in the city (New York) this weekend at the Soho House from Wideman's latest. As an aside, I don't really understand the game plan (from a business perspective) on how these books are being sold. While Wideman is a great writer, he is a relatively obscure. It looks like his latest book will only be available via Lulu. Even setting up the links (so that I can earn revenue as a result of my online sales) was a relative chore. I can't even find an ISBN for the book. His other books ship in 10 to 15 business days. In today's world that is outrageous. While I appreciate that one can keep all of the profits if they self publish (I'm all for that), that does not mean however that you don't promote and make the book widely available and easily accessible as you can. Keeping the book exclusive to Lulu will constrain sales. I'm not convinced the better margins will compensate for the reduction in sales. Maybe sales are not important. Maybe I don't have enough information to understand what is going on... Right now there is some buzz amongst industry folks; mainly because a important writer is releasing a book in this fashion. Tina how did you learn about the book? Was it from reading Kalamu's blog? Thanks for sharing.

LIl Ze, Hollyweird is fake and phony -- what else is new? Thumper, why you get so easily tuned up over these type of comments?

I noticed this book cover on the "Buy The Cover" blog. It is a blog that rates bookcovers, not books, by title and cover design it is run by Lowell Thompson Actually poses a good question. I know we don't care enough, about each other, to govern ourselves...

Sheesh! Just when you thought things were running soomthly. Now I have to go into the syetem ban the liono spammer and delete these posts. Ohhhh I hate spammers!

Cynique of course it is self-hate. And in reality it is not a Black issue it is a human one; though I may have cast it as such in my last example. More broadly, consider the extreme case of someone who murders someone else. Some of us might say, "Wow they must have really hated that person to murder them". Murdering someone else is just an extreme manifestation of self hatred, turned outward. Usually the manifestations are not as extreme. Sometimes we show it by being unnecessarily critical of others -- mean really. Like you, I find the unorthodox names amusing. Again, while I would not choose such a name, I have absolutely no problem if someone else does so (I just hope those folks understand if I can’t pronounce or spell such names ). Much of the anger, and evil we see in the world is simply hatred of self. If you love yourself it is impossible to do evil to others. When I look into the mirror I see all of us (white folks too) not just myself. Erzulie Danto, you probably should have transfered schools. If you plan to enter a fortune 500 environment, you better get used to it -- only gets worse. That said, surely you can find one or two friends in any environment to make life bearable. If you can't, either it is a unusually evil place, you have serious social skill issues or both. The former you can fix by changing environemnts the later will take a lot more effort to correct....

Author Faith Murphy started a Blog on the subject of self-publishing looks like it will be another good resource for someone just starting out.

It is actually pretty simple Xeon. The dominant culture is European. Most of of use derive our language, our religion, our names, the way we dress from the dominant culture. Indeed, the skin lighteners, the hair straightening provides even more evidence of our desire to actually replicate the very appearance of our former masters. Ok the damage has been done. After hundreds of years, we can not easily or maybe not even realistically reclaim what was taken from us. Still with me? Self hatred is trying, to your own detriment, to be something you can not be. But it does not stop there: Some self-hating Negroes get bent out of shape if some of the other Negroes want to do something different that what the dominant culture was defined for us. If does not matter if the dissenting Negro is trying to retrieve something that was lost or come up with something entirely new. So long as they are doing something other than what the dominant culture dictates; the self-hating negro gets upset. Maybe Madison let her perm grow out and is wearing in braids at the office, or Elroy decided to name his daughter LaTryianna. Maybe the Shakur family decided to celebrate Kwanzaa instead of Christmas. Maybe Troy decided to change his name to Kwesi or that nice family across the street stopped eating bacon and joined the Nation of Islam. This kind of stuff really burns some Negroes (the self-hating kind) up. They just don't understand why the "those" unruly Negroes can't behave themselves. "Don't they know they are messing it up for the rest of us good negroes", the self hating Negro wonders. In fact, the self-hating Negro will blog and go on television to talk about how much they hate what those other ignorant Negroes are doing. There might only be one person in the entire country named "Abcde" but it does not matter; the self-hating Negro will point it out. Self-hating Negroes think they cane make up for the transgressions of the "misbehaving" Negro by calling him "stupid", "ignorant" or "uncivilized". Xeon what other rational reason is there for someone to get all in a huff over what someone else naming their child LaTryianna or Queteshia? Would you prefer a list of approved names that we can use to name our children?

[in case anyone was actually interested in Reading Zane entire post here is the correct link] Yeah, Tierra_allen it is a chore to reply to questions like these. The reasons I mentioned I'm sure adequately explain this. Interestingly, I never heard anyone express the perspective of taking a class that you did in your last post. I'm curious how you would respond to very email I posted at the top of the discussion. Would you mind posting your response here? Maybe I'll link them to Zane's response and your response here.

Yeah I liked Hurt Locker much more than I did Avatar. It seemed to be a pretty weak year for movies... My favorite movie last year was Star Trek, but unless you have a relationship with the franchise the movie probably would not mean very much to you. So I could understand why it would not be considered for any major awards. Say what you will about Kam's Oscar picks but he usually nails them! This year he did, to quote him, "horribly" (Kam's Oscar Picks). Despite all of the controversy surrounding Precious By the time I finally saw it a couple of weeks ago I was surprised by how relatively innocuous a film it was. Hardly worth all the gnashing of teeth and hand wringing. The money was OK I like Hurt Locker much more. Monique was good and played her role. To compare comedians I would not put it on the level of Jamie Fox's performance in Ray. It is really difficult to judge how good an actress Monique is without seeing her in a range of roles. her character in Precious is not really much of a stretch from her Skinny Bitches are evil persona. I liked Anthony Mackie's performance in Hurt Locker. I would been happy to see him win best supporting actor. While he was not in a competing category with Monique his performance was superior.

Asar Imhoteo - Preach! Cynique, I'm not so sure returning to Africa would avert the frustration. The European influence is just as strong, if not more so. Other than the poverty (also a consequence of imperialism) that was perhaps the most disheartening thing I witnessed. Bookfan, just curious; why did you feel it necessary to say that you were not Black? Africans, throughout the Diaspora and in Africa, can't allow others to dictate how we name our own children -- just because the dominant culture is uncomfortable. The only way the negative perceptions will change is if we continue to press for that change. If we don't not will change. I'm seriously debating changing my name. My anecdotal observations are the white folks change their names to conform to the dominant culture. Black people do to for the opposite reasons. Again, if a Barack Hussein Obama can be elected President of the US, and a Condoleezza can be secretary of state a provost at Stanford. The whole argument about a unusual names being a hindrance goes out the window. Now people who name their children "ABCDE" are so few; it is inconsequently to this argument.

Whether you like Patterson or not at least on perk of being governor is a couple of tickets to a damn yankees game sheesh! He is the governor of the state for crying out loud. It was not like he was there to a watch the game.