A Critical Thinking Primer

OneLove

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Take a Look: The Complete Aretha Franklin (on Columbia)

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As a youth, I remember secretly enjoying the music the older folks listened to--The Beatles, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green, Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, to name a few. This music still feeds my soul & I've come to measure today's artists by the high bar that was set decades ago. Sadly, very few artists today measure up. The soul of Bob Dylan & James Brown is missing. The courage & passion of Nina Simone & Tina Turner are missing. The funky rebellon of Jimi Hendrix & Pink Floyd....again...missing. Every now and then, we get a reminder of what real music sounds like when we hear a Jill Scott, Michael Buble or Anthony Hamilton.


When I looked at the above trailer of Aretha's years with Columbia records, I saw right away why she's called the Queen of Soul. Look at her eyes. That voice....so full of raw passion & honesty, grace and vocal sophistication. There's a reason this gifted woman has won every music award there is to include 20 Grammys. Her interpretation of the Otis Redding piece, "Try a Little Tenderness" is still the best I've ever heard so I had to share it.



This impressive box-set consists of 7 studio albums and multiple sessions between 1960-1966 during the heat of the Civil Rights struggles. Like other artists in this period,this precocious & prodigious 18 year old was pushing the lines of race, gender and soul in her recordings with Columbia & embodied what is meant to be young, gifted & black (& a woman on top of that!).

OneLove

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Three Little Girls

                               

                       
The video below, "Three Little Girls", tells the stories of the senseless murders of Christina Taylor Green who was killed during the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Brisenia Flores who was murdered by anti-immigrant militia intent on starting a race war, and Aiyana Jones who was shot to death while sleeping innocently in her own home by the Detroit Police Department while they were filming a reality TV show.

More and more, Americans are arming themselves out of one manufactured fear or another. Gun sales are up & the illegal trafficking of guns is beyond government control. Within the context of a culture that continues to glorify weapons of every kind & sees violence & aggression as viable (& entertaining)options to  intractable problems, what we are bearing witness to is the dissolution of a nation. More videos like the one featured below are a part of the solution (the recognition of a problem is the first step towards its solution) . How many more of our innocents have to be sacrificed before we take an unflinching look at the culture that spawns such disturbing behavior? Most folks tend to focus on the individual, but the time is way overdue for the analysis to be expanded to the larger society--the media, the educational & legal systems, economic disparities, politics & the moneyed special interests that corrupt it, patriarchy & gender relations,  etc--It's all intertwined. The deaths of these three innocents should lead to more than just our tears. 


OneLove

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Get Off Facebook

...nuff said.

OneLove

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Voices of Old Souls

                                Jennifer Hudson                     Anthony David



Too much of anything is never a good thing. A lot of the music we hear on cable or radio is so calculated, so imitative & humdrum, but this is really no big surprise as this formulaic approach is what is selling & driving the industry right now -  the major recording companies could care less about art, diversity or beauty( far less, complexity). This has led to the rise of independent record labels to fill that void. I can rant on & on about this, but I'll spare you; instead, I will mention two current R&B releases which escape the narrow confines of the over-synthesized crap oozing from many stereos/ipods. Anthony David's, "As Above, So Below" & Jennifer Hudson's, "I Remember Me", are both melodic, lyrically-rich masterpieces. I'm a sucker for deep soul in the vein of Al Green, Teddy Pendergrass, Aretha Franklin & Chaka Khan. Anthony David & Jennifer Hudson are both in this deep-river soul tradition. Although Hudson's music has a more contemporary, glitzy sheen, her Jennifer Holliday -voice keeps it rooted in the deep R&B tradition. It sometimes feels like we have to hold our breaths for a while before we hear quality R&B music from the likes of  Jill Scott, India Arie, Raphael Saadiq, Mint Condition, Lauryn Hill & Maxwell. Oftentimes the wait is worth it as Maxwell's "Black Summer's Night" & the following selections from Hudson & David can amply attest to......





 
















OneLove

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Sweet Orb of Night

The "Supermoon" last night was hypnotic. It seemed almost self-possessed silently dominating the  night sky. The mystery of our existence came to mind & it became clear to me why all of the world's religions once worshipped the moon. Interestingly, many of the words and names used to denote God came from earlier words that referred to the Moon as God/Goddess. Its mesmerizing power still reigns over us & perhaps always will....

(Classical music and a beautiful night-sky seem to go together, so here's Tchaikovsky doing his thing....)

 

 OneLove

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The Grief That Binds

Sometimes the Earth is cruel.

Observing the moving images of Japan's devastation, one is reminded of the utter precariousness of life. We have no choice but to accept that as part of the bargain called life. Calamity may strike at any time, and when it is our turn to deal with it, we do...& so it goes. The tears will fall, the dead memorialized, a community/nation rebuilt, prayers & well-wishes flow until the next calamity somewhere else grabs our hearts & attention. Yesterday Haiti....today Japan...tomorrow...? President Obama in his own grief & concern observed, 
“When you see what's happening in Japan, you are reminded that, for all our differences in culture or language or religion, that ultimately humanity is one." The magnitude of the devastaion overwhelms--What can I do? You may breathe a prayer &/or write a check, but it seems so paltry against the need, so inconsequential against the ruin of a nation & its people.

When I read the history of other nations, one thing that strikes me repeatedly is the sheer will of the common people to live/survive. Whether by forces of nature or some man-made terror, people have a tendency of reaching down to their core and igniting their will to resist the calamities that befall them. Is this not the reason we are still here as a species? Our arms may be too short to box with God, but we have a built-in insistence to live for there is absolutely nothing else we can do despite all the cruelties of the Earth. May God's grace rain down on the people of Japan at this time.

Below is a rare Jazz CD by Harold Blanchard (w/Quincy Jones, Chick Corea & Hubert Laws) entitled, "New Earth Sonata", that blends Blues, Classical, Electronic, Funk / Soul & Jazz & it was brought to mind after observing the tragic images of Japan.

(To send donations for Japan's relief efforts, ABCNews International has an excellent list to choose from. (Their links for Haiti's relief efforts are still up as well).

New Earth Sonata : Suite in A Minor by EddieL.

Peace

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Enough Of The Foolishness Already

“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
-Milan Kundra

One of the most unforgettable scenes in The Matrix (for me) was the part where the protagonist (Neo) is presented with a choice between taking a red pill or a blue pill. The former being a symbol of the painful truth of reality & the latter being a symbol of remaining in the blissful ignorance of illusion. 

Most middle-class people that I know choose to take the blue pill as it affords them a guiltless,comfortable & pleasurable existence--let those who are poor and/or unfortunate handle their own business. This class-consciousness leaks into other realms beyond the personal, namely, the political, cultural, legal & educational. Seems as if a lot of folks have OD'ed on the blue pills & rendered their critical faculties to a barely functional state. Nothing matters beyond the circumference of family. friends, having a good job & maximizing their leisure activities. Although I can understand their proclivities, I have to admit that this way of being is pure bullshit. I guess this is why I feel a touch of delight when I hear of some rich & powerful figure taking a fall like Bernie Madoff or Tom Delay, or when someone I am familiar with on a personal level, accustomed to living lavishly/uncaringly, losing it all.

Taking the red pill may have its down-side (like seeing the grittiness & sorrows of reality), but it is certainly far superior than swallowing the swill that is being forced down our throat which we are led to believe is a culinary feast. Thankfully, folks are starting to recover from their blue-pill stupor &beginning to resist this artificial reality.

Check out the following video  ,Lifting the Veil, which details some of the illusions of our times:


(..to be is more essential than to have, is it not?)

OneLove

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Hole In the Head: A Life Revealed

When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable, the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer. - Bertolt Brecht

Before lab mice, rats & monkeys had the unfortunate roles of disposable life forms in scientific experimentation in the US, humans were widely used in the early to mid-twentieth century. African Americans were constantly being used as human guinea pigs without their knowledge or consent (well documented from the Tuskegee experiments to Norplant). This documentary is a true story of Vertus Hardiman, who at the age of five became the victim of a medical experiment that left him with a painful deformity that forced him to cover his head for 80 years (Vertus was one of ten children, all experimented on with radiation that day). Vertus returns to the area (a small, exclusively Black Indiana town during the 1930s), where the experiments were conducted. This man's journey & his incredible spirit is a wonder to behold.

Facebook Link: Hole In The Head

OneLove

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Pick Your Poison

I like this iconoclastic presentation which is quite funny and outrageously irreverent. It's been reported that Americans watch 35 hours of TV each week--that's a damn job! The fall-out of this is all around & there is a wealth of information that details  the dark side of this most disturbing behavior. This presentation touches on a few mind-altering ways TV watching impacts the society as a whole.

OneLove

P.S: Nothing better than a good book to pass the time & maintain your sanity....

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A Catastrophic Love: Cornel West's Blues Ontology

Cornel West is one of a kind. From "Prophetic Fragments" to "Brother West", I've absorbed & reflected upon his particular vision of the world & have written quite a bit about his work on this site. Always in a dapper three-piece suit & unkempt throw-back afro, his intellect pops & crackles & one can't help but be transfixed by his oratorical gifts & clever cross references. Check out his interesting perspective on President Barack Obama:-



OneLove

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The Revolution Has Begun, Y'all

From Wisconsin to Egypt--another dawn is possible. Switch off the TV and read up on the roots of the various revolutionary movements erupting all over the place. Keep in mind what the great Frederick Douglas once said: "Power concedes nothing without a demand".

The following video beautifully demonstrates the indespensible element of love in this era of rapid change...



This video also reminded of one of my favorite songs by Morcheeba, namely, "Fear & Love" :-




OneLove
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