So long Kirkus, we hardly knew ye'

I found out a couple of days ago that Kirkus Review is shutting it’s doors and it kinda felt like someone had hit me in the chest with a hardback copy of Infinite Jest, ie. it stung, more than a little. And I know that outside of authors and folks in the book biz, the news is probably not much more than a fart in the wind, but as someone who grew up with Kirkus and still planned to one day see my byline amongst it’s pages of slightly crabby book reviews, the aroma of this news was particularly funky.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a book review addict. In high school, years before I decided I wanted to write for living, we always had subscriptions to at least 2 newspapers and I remember waking up on Sunday mornings and tearing apart the Richmond Times Dispatch and the New York Times, reordering the sections to fit my nerdy needs. First there were the two book review sections (remember when book reviews actually had their own sections?), then travel, then lifestyle/arts, then comics, then the magazines. And somewhere after that was the rest of that stuff that other people seemed to think was important.

Being broke and growing up in a not exactly small, but not exactly book friendly city, these reviews were often as close as I got to the books themselves and it was comforting to know that somewhere out there were folks that got off on that new novel smell just as much as I did.

Most of my working life pre-writing was split between libraries and bookstores and that’s where I first discovered the holy trinity of Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly and Poets and Writers, along with a whole gang of other writing related rags. After this revelation my productivity dwindled to just above nonexistent, as just about every moment was spent with my nose between the pages of one of these wordy journals. Luckily I was surrounded by other booksluts who shared my addiction. I mean, these were books we were talking about-serious business! Plus PW came out like every week and I didn’t pick up my 1st copy until I was like 19, I had a lot to catch up on.

For as long as I can remember I’ve always carried at least one book on me-you never know when you’ll get stranded on a desert island and need a quality page turner. And during most of my early 20’s I carted around my own portable library, which unfailingly included at least one copy of Kirkus or PW. When Salon’s Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Authors came out, that big orange and white fucker was my Bible for years. Other people had Jesus and Buddha, I prayed to the alter of Laura Miller. Michiko Kakutani was my secret mistress. Ishmael Reed and Stanley Crouch were my super smart, grumpy uncles.

I credit this time with shaping my appreciation for Literature with a capital “L.” I learned the different ways words could mean and how serious writing opened windows to new worlds. I discovered how a great piece of work could hold a mirror up to lives and examine all our ideas and insecurities, our hopes and horrors.

And it was comforting to know that the narratives and satires I’d been creating in my head for years might actually have some value outside my scattered domepiece and tattered notebooks. It wasn’t until later that I realized how “The Cannon” was actually somewhat of an insidery lit-clique that excluded many of the most diverse and vibrant voices. But even with it’s faults, I still held an appreciation for fine writing and quality criticism that continues today.

Of course, the fall of the book review is linked to the larger sea changes in publishing and media and there are oodles of user generated review sites that have popped up to fill the void. But like Meghan Daum notes in her piece, “Kirkus Reviews may have been annoying, but its successors are inane,” many of these reviews are skewed more towards the confessional than the contextual. I’ve yet to find an Amazon review with the depth of a Kenneth Rexroth essay or the ideological nimbleness of Geoff Dyer review. Not saying they’re not there, but I am still looking.

The Bible

And while the “hated it/loved it, here’s some more about me” style commentaries have often helped me make a buying decision, the purpose of the review or critique as I’ve known it is to put the writing into context, to pontificate on it’s place, it’s prose and it’s passions. It wasn’t about “you should buy this book.” It was about “this is how this piece of art fits into the world around it.”

But despite the title of this post I’m not ready to send quality book reviews up into the realm of the ancestors just yet. There are loads of passionate books lovers online who’ve taken it upon themselves to launch some stellar projects celebrating the written word. And as much as people tend to talk shit about the reviewer or the critic, I still believe that they play a much needed roll in our culture. Not as gatekeepers or end-all-be-all authorities, but as guides stationed along the pathways of the written word.

No, I think the real question isn’t “is book reviewing dead?” It’s more “how does the reviewer adapt to the new media landscape?” Now is the time for those of us who’ve spent careers analyzing, theorizing and placing value on the work of others to turn the magnifying glass inward and decide how we fit into the changing world.

As much as it sucks to see Kirkus go the way of the dodo, the real onus is with the reviewers and critics to define our new place, not to fret over the demise of our old platforms. Because in the end, we will be as relevant as we allow ourselves to be. The world still needs quality critiques and reviews. We just have to figure out the best ways to give them.

And with that here are a few of my favorite online lit destinations, some of the brave book soldiers who’ve taken the fight for good reading into the digital age.

Felicia Pride-The Backlist
African American Literature Book Club
Bookslut
Identity Theory
Arts and Letters Daily

Got more sites I should check out? Add em in the comments. I’m always on the hunt for good reads.

A lot of times house is viewed as the OTHER hood music, running a distant second to hip hop (which is still better than techno’s status. Do folks even know techno started in the hood?). But while the beginning’s of both styles were pretty similar, they took wildly divergent paths. Here’s a nice documentary on the early days of the Chi’s hip house scene that makes the link between the two.

Props to Saturn Never Sleep for the link

Happy holidays folks.

Check out a whole Christmas stocking full of hip hop holiday songs over at Flavorwire.

Props to Theo for the link.

Gregory Hines

I was just browsing through some of the Robert Mapplethorpe portfolio and thought I’d share a few.   Dude had the crispest touch with a camera, everything he shot has this statuesque dignity to it.   When his X series came out in the 90’s the homoerotic and BDSM images caused quite the shit storm, but seem like nothing out of the ordinary by today’s standards.

Still, anybody who can show the same sensitivity to capturing the curves of  calla lily as they do to a photo of someone getting a fist shoved up their hooha  gets the Art pass with a capital A in my book.

All of images are from The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation and the full collection can be found at their website. (Don’t worry, there’s no hooha.)

Self Portrait

William Burroughs

Lisa Lyons

Patti Smith

Thomas

Gardenia

Anemone

Self Portrait 1988

http://www.mapplethorpe.org/

Freeway Rick Ross

Former LA drug kingpin Ricky Ross is back on the streets and the Block Report’s JR Valrey has the scoop with the 1st interview I’ve seen since his release after serving 13 years of a life sentence.

This is one of those interviews you’re going to have a hard time finding in major media outlets and is an example of exactly why, in the age of community management, citizen journalists and new media, there’s still a need for frontline on the ground reporting and investigations.

“Freeway Ricky Ross” is well known in hip hop circles and his alleged relationships have fueled government watchdogs, activists and conspiracy theorists for the last decade and a half. During his heyday Ross claimed to make upwards of $2-3 million a day moving keys of coke through the Los Angeles area. With a regular crew of at least 40 employees and alleged connections that stretched deep into the US govt., it was Ross’, baller status, along with the mythos of New York’s Nicky Barnes and Frank Lucas, that fueled the unfortunate drug dealer super personas of most mainstream rappers.

There are a couple of issues at play in Ross’ rise and fall, the 1st of course is the shear amount of dope dude was moving. $2-3 mil. of coke a day, broken down, cut and diluted into countless crack rocks=a whole shitload of strungout hypes and the effective decimation of the targeted community. And that potential targeting is the  the nut of the 2nd issue.

For years, Ross and supporters, most prominently journalist Gary Webb, claimed that Ross was at the end of a drug pipeline that started in the offices of the CIA and was intended to fund US involvement in fighting in Iran and Nicaragua. This had the added effect of turning much of LA into crackhead central and crippling much of the city’s black and brown population. While CIA officials still maintain they were never technically involved in selling drugs of southern Cali, at the end of the Iran Contra Affair, 14 people including your boy Oliver North, were convicted of crimes, only to have their sentences pardoned in the final days of George Bush 1’s presidency.

The facts around this case are up for debate although there’s a lot of information that appears to be pointing a big red guilty finger toward CIA involvement in the Los Angeles drug trade. You can read JR’s interview with Ross at the San Francisco Bayview website and get some more background on Ross’ involvement in Iran Contra with this video, where one of the most poignant quotes comes from former LA police officer Michael Ruppert, who spent years investigating and speaking out against government involvement in drug trafficking.

“For a long time in South Central the buzzword was that the CIA was selling crack. The CIA wasn’t selling crack. The CIA was importing cocaine, Ricky Ross got it, he turned it into crack and he sold it.”

This mix by Human Element’s Makoto Shimizu is one of the dopest dnb mixes in a minute. From the Redbull Music Academy site:

Based in Tokyo, Makoto Shimizu, better known as simply Makoto, is Japan’s chief Drum’n'Bass ambassador. After completing an Acoustic Engineering major at Nippon University, Makoto first signed with LTJ Bukem’s legendary Good Looking Records back in 1999.

Since then he has gone from strength to strength, releasing a long string of quality music in the form of singles and EP’s, but also on the famous ‘Earth’ and ‘Progression Sessions’ compilation albums. 2003 saw the release of his much anticipated debut album, which was widely praised as the transition of 70’s Soul into the 21st century.

Over the years Makoto has firmly established himself in the ‘hall of fame’ of Drum’n'Bass with a bunch of highly acclaimed tracks and remixes on leading labels such as Renegade, Liquid V, Bingo, Hospital and Innerground. As a DJ, Makoto, together with Deeizm MC has travelled across the world, playing everywhere from the UK and Europe to North America, Brazil, Australia and Asia. His sets are reflecting the inimitable sound that he is known for as a producer – smooth, jazzed-out and by all means soulful.

Also check out:

• RBMA Trainwreck Mix
• Human Elements Website
• Live at Tangerine, Ontario set

The new Fela! Broadway musical has been buzzing with critics and audiences since it opened in late November.  And as surprising as it was to see the show make the initial jump from the 37 Arts to the Broadway stage, Bill T. Jones‘ and companies epic Afrobeat tribute took it’s official place in pop culture history last week  when Jones and the cast appeared on the Stephen Colbert show.

It could be argued that you ain’t hit the mainstream till you’ve been lampooned by Colbert or John Stewart, and while big name notoriety isn’t always the best thing for a creative work, it looks like Fela! has jumped into the category with last year’s Passing Strange and is helping to usher in a wider spectrum of African Diasporic life and arts.  And I’m sure the buzz is music to the show’s investors-Jay Z , Will and Jada Smith.

In the clip above the cast gets down to a rendition of “Zombie” with ‘ography by Jones and music by Antibalas.  When I 1st saw this the 1st thought was “those don’t look like Bill T. Jones dance moves” then I remembered, well, they’re based on a pretty specific and well documented style, and after comparing this vid to others of Fela and his bands Africa 70 and Egypt 80 you can see where the inspiration comes from.  The doc below was filmed in 1971 at the original Shrine nightclub and offers a glimpse into the energy and action of the sacred dance and music space.

The interview with Bill T. Jones and Stephen Colbert talking about the show is over at the Colbert website.

Hyphy might have died but Turfin is going strong.  And just like b-boying dipped back into the undeground after the mid 80’s popularity, Turf dance crews are still battling on a regular basis, honing new moves and taking their shit talking around the country-And1 Style-to hoods across the country.

Tonight’s battle features competitions for Turf dancers, b-boys, and youngsters under 12. It’s the 1st at the new Green Youth Media Center but these battles have been happening on the low all across the bay for the last few years.

There’ll also be live painting, MC battles and a special award ceremony honoring community graf writer Refa1 and photographer/dancer Traci Bartlow.  Peep the styles in the vid and make your way to Telegraph Ave at 6pm for some distinctive Oakland footwork.

Winter Games 1st annual dance competition
Friday, December 18, 2009
$5 before 7, $10 after.
10 years and under free (no one turned away)
6:00pm – 10:00pm
Oakland Green Arts & Media Center
2781 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200185261834
http://myspace.com/oaklandgymc

Jean-Michel Basquiat, the subject of a new documentary by Tamra Davis. Julio Donoso/Corbis

Afrofuturists, art lovers and music devotees are all breathing a collective hell yeah! with last week’s announcements that flicks chronicling the lives of afrobeat legend Fela Kuti and radiant child painter Jean Michel Basquiat will be hitting the big screens in the future.

Linda Yablonsky over at the New York Times blog gives a first look at “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child an emotional“, walk down memory lane thumbs up, calling the flick a “shattering emotional experience.” Based on an extended interview director Tamra Davis conducted with Basquiat in 1998 the doc contains some of the last remaining footage of the troubled genius art star and is accompanied by interviews with several of the art world names and folks who were closest to him.

The premier was part of Miami’s Art Basel and included a Q&A with people close to the painter including Davis, Fab 5 Freddy and Jeffrey Deitch. In her piece Yablonsky recounts a statement by Far 5 that addresses something I always thought was interesting-the relationship between Basquiat and Julian Schnabel, his art world rival and director of the 1998, which I by the way, I thought was pretty brilliant.

“Julian making a film about Jean-Michel is like George Foreman making a film about Muhammad Ali”

By most accounts, the Davis peice is the most accurate depiction of the man to date and should hit studios around the middle of next year, after it premiers at Sundance in January.

And I’m curious to see how accurate of a depiction Steve McQueen pulls off with his just announced Fela Kuti film project. I’m a fan of McQueen’s video work and dude’s been kicking art world ass since winning the Turner back in ‘99, but his films usually take a more thoughtful, meditative look at their subjects.  He scored a big bag o’ kudos for his 1st feature earlier this year, the documentary Hunger, which follows the last days of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. It’ll be interesting to see how his minimalist style plays against Fela’s larger than life afrosurreal aura.

McQueen and co. won’t get to cranking until well into 2010, but the announcement continues a growing resurgence in The Black President’s popularity that started with 2003’s Fela Project traveling multimedia exhibit. There’s also Fela! the Broadway musical created by choreographer Bill T. Jones and afrobeat band Antibalas and earlier this year the Knitting Factory announced that they plan to re-release his musical catalog.

Today was World AIDS Day and in 2009 it’s also a reminder that a decade ago this year my dad died of complications related to HIV.  Bad needles, bad sex, bad something.  I never got the whole story and to be honest that’s one tale I’m cool with not knowing.  Truth is I still feel kind of odd thinking about it I’m pretty sure this is the 1st time I’ve written about or publicly mentioned it.  Not exactly the kind of thing that comes up in dinner party conversations.

I remember the night I got the phone call in the spring of ‘99.  It was a club night-during that time just about every night was a club night-and we were a few minutes away from the usual college debauchery when moms called with the news.  It was one of those time standing still moments, those I’ll remember this till I die moments: standing in my living room, leaning against the doorway with the phone cord  stretched in from the kitchen and mom asking me to come home immediately.  All I could think to do was find a dance floor.

The only thing that made sense at the time was the thump of a bassline, a heavy rhythm and the healing powers of sweat.  I kept the news to myself and didn’t tell anyone what had happened but I was the last one on the floor when the DJ packed in his tables at 4am the next morning.  Some people have religion and church. I tend to lean towards deep house.

I actually never knew a whole lot about my dad-definitely not enough to ever call him “Dad.” He was always Bobby.  An almost academic turned reluctant soldier, he came back from Vietnam carrying all the terrible cliches of wartime: drug habit, night terrors, Agent Orange side effects and a headful of evil memories that, as far as I know, he never really got over or spoke of.

In and out of jail and rehab for most of the 23 years I knew him, to say we never bonded was a bit of an understatement.  There was a short time-I think I was around 10-when we lived in the same space, but mostly I remember a lot of broken promises and absence.  It’s funny, there was never much emotion on my part-no real anger-just an acute acknowledgment of that absence.  There was a hole that was supposed to be filled with something I didn’t recognize until years later, when I saw the interactions between my friends and their fathers.

I think more than anything there was pity.  There was the pity of seeing an artist-a writer-who was never cut out for war, for fatherhood or for the cruelties of  the world outside of his own imagination, have to deal miserably with all three.  The times we spent together, whether in a bookstore or park or just the times he called from a holding cell or a halfway house, I always heard an unspoken apology in his voice, an “I’m sorry. This is the best I could do.” And I believed him.

And I believe that even though we never spent much time in the same space my relationship to Bobby shaped a lot of my worldview.  The Booth writer’s blood runs hot in me, as does an extreme distaste for war, a penchant for the academic and an inherent distrust of big business and societal norms.  I try to live with a determined sense of whimsy that’s largely inspired by the creative lives my parents never got to have. Flaneur as a socio-political statement. Dreaming as an act of defiance.

So to honor the memories of those who have passed due to this horrible disease, I offer my own small experience and a tribute to someone I never really got to know.  I’m not sure what kind of music Bobby liked so here’s something that always gets me up and through the BS.  Hold the people that are close to you close to you.  Dream fiercely and live like you really mean it.  Rest in peace, pops.