Jolly Saturday to Everyone (these photos are from an Oakland neighborhood that grows scary life-size giant plants):
This is a live post, meaning I haven't pre-written it and scheduled it to appear later. My brain is fried today so I'm just posting photos and various things from the past week or so. (Actually since I started this post a few hours ago and it took a year to download/compress and get Blogger to accept 10 minutes of a sound recording I'm totally awake now). I've been exploring different neighborhoods, being more social and making stealth (concert) recordings. Some of you online friends have been chronicling this lovely journey since I started this blog last July. Others have recently joined the conversations. Thanks to all of you for taking the time out of your busy day to spend a few minutes with me and my thoughts via Blogger and on Twitter. What a wonderful community of kick-butt individuals you are! Maybe some of you observers will feel less like a turtle and come out of your shell? I hope it's been an interesting and thought-provoking mind meld. I hope that I've challenged, motivated and inspired you as I've tried to do for myself. I've loved the feedback I've received and welcome more.
I had a personal goal of a new post every day that I've actually kept since November! Now I want to apply that level of concentration and discipline to other areas of my life. I'm still not ready to cut back my posting schedule but I prefer quality to quantity so this may be changing soon. I'm the "Little Blogger That Could" you know and still have some things to learn. Thank you for taking this journey with me. When I write about inequalities it's so that we recognize how similar we all are in our own way and how we can contribute to replenishing society - or taking from it. I focus on social justice, empowerment, changing our mindsets and being honest because if we don't how will we continue to grow as human beings?
I also enjoy popular culture, music, art, etc. Anything that uplifts our spirits - even some things considered risque. It has become rather obvious how we need to take back control of how images are being disseminated, particularly those of Black women. Clearly being one means I have a vested interested in how we are shown (though that isn't the case with every BW sadly). We laugh, cry, smile, bleed and live just like everyone else but somehow we are being presented as inauthentically as possible. We are NOT the gum on the shoe of the world. Even if you don't personally have anything to do with that, you can certainly help thwart those that are. Of course I also want others to live in peace as well, but we all have our individual paths to take and purposes to fulfill. I believe this is one of mine.
We should also be able to live our lives freely without fear of recrimination. No one should go hungry. Greed must not be allowed to rule the day. Even as we take more responsibility and learn to make better choices we still need each other on some level. Everyone has to pull their own weight, but that doesn't mean it's ok to kick the person on the ladder below you when climbing it. Fairness doesn't always balance out but I don't see why goodness can't prevail when it really counts. As frustrated as I get with things I can't control it's because I'd like to see the bar raised with more opportunities for people. Or at least a minimal skill set that we know how to navigate for us and future generations. We may not all have the same privileges but that should not be a virtual death sentence for a quality life. Accountability goes in many directions.
So with that I bid you a fair day/evening and here's hoping it's a good one.
Amel Larrieux bootleg. I had to cover the lens and just get a sound recording but isn't it great! She even made her voice sound like a horn to accompany the other instrumentalists. I could only get this one still as she exited the stage and she turned so quickly all you can see is her back. Next time! There was a little reverb added to compliment her vocals but not one touch of Auto-tune was required. The other photos are of Ben Harper and a photo of the inside of the Fillmore before show-time. *Just added a little bootleg Ben (see above) and it's jumpy because they were already telling people no cameras the second we walked in - and yet there was a "professional" photog there hogging all the space :-(
No comments:
Post a Comment