George Carlin passed at Saint John's Hospital at age 71. He had heart problems. I will remember him as the risqué comedian with a raspy voice and criticism towards nearly everyone. And everything. Click and enjoy his wit.
Maybe you weren't raised with a father or a grandpa. Today is the official Father's Day in the USA. I would like to thank Nicolas F. Rouquette, my husband and devoted father to our child, Gabriel Francis Harris-Rouquette. He has been very present in Gabriel's school life ever since I became handicapped nearly nine years ago. We are not disgruntled parents. We happen to have been raised abroad, I in Rio de Janeiro, he in France, where schools are far superior to SMMUSD's, when one studies hard to get into the crème de la crème schools, in Rio or in France.
If SMMUSD were a "District of Excellence," the incidents regarding Tim Walker's cavalier attitude affecting special education students' needs and the dismissive administrative attitude regarding a child molester, known to be so since 2006, would not have happened at all. Especially at a so-called Blue Ribbon School, Lincoln M.S.
Hugo Pedroza lied and so did Terry Sakow, C.E.O. of SAMOHI and marching band director, resppectivey. We have phone call records and e-mail, tons of them, to prove we got in touch with Pedroza and Sakow. Sakow even addressed this story of the re-hazing of my son at a meeting. For Pete's sake, nobody will raise a hand here?
Just send us a card with your best wishes. That is the best you could do. Happy Father's Day to all. Click to see the Boston Pops play "Stars and Stripes Forever."
We had just finished watching "The Devil Wears Prada" and moving on to dessert, a grapefruit for me, when I went to my mail and was shocked. Yves St. Laurent, the most famous and hippest clothes designer in the 60s is dead at 71.
I'll leave you with a Canadian link since there's nothing yet in the USA press.
You can look at all the varied clothes he designed for us beasts of fashion to wear.
http://multimedia.cyberpresse.ca/ysl/index.html
Inside the package there's a eulogy by Catherine Deneuve.
See you later!
Some say it's unnatural for a mother to lose a child. A child is lost in so many ways, into the world, drugs, radical politics, clubbing, religious sects, whoring. What is hard for me to cope with is the have to embedded in dying. There is no choice, no coming backs. It's an obligation external to our will.
Right now I am in distress for other reasons. The stuff we need to do. Emily Dickinson tells you about it better than I can. Please no flowers or phone calls.
Mommy hated cut flowers. I'll post when the mass will be, here in Santa Monica. Maybe I'll go to Twitter later on. Now I have to rest a little.
1078
The Bustle in a House O Ir-e-Vir em uma Casa
The Morning after Death A Manhã após a Morte
Is solemnest of industries É atividade a mais solene
Enacted upon Earth -- Executada na Terra --
The Sweeping up the Heart Varrer o Coração
And putting Love away Armazenar o Amor
We shall not want to use again Que voltaremos a usar
Until Eternity. Só na Eternidade".
Emily Dickinson
Mommy, in her best allumeuse smile, at 81 years of age.
In the fall of 1981, I met the first and only Chicano I would meet in Brazil, Jorge. In the summer, on a rainy evening, I got a phone call from the interstate bus station. It was a German woman asking for shelter. She was 19 and her name was Uschi Drolc. Jorge had given her my number. I felt sorry for her and that is how she entered my life.
Uschi was weird for Brazlian women patterns. Her short hair, lack of make-up, clothes, one silk dress which belonged to her grandmother and a pair of battered jeans and polo shirt. She may have arrived in the rain, but she became literally the sunshine at a very difficult time.
Uschi cooked and purchased food from the small shop on the corner,
sliced pineapple, which is an expression for a big problema. At night, when I arrived from work, summer school, there she was waiting for me, and we would go out into the Carioca night.
She was quiet. She observed what was going on and kept to herself. A friend of mine didn't understand her when he gave her a fruit and she kept it in her dress pocket. Uschi lived with me for a few months. Then she left, but we wrote each other often. She decided to study linguistics impressed by my passion for the subject. I feel flattered. She went into theoretical linguistics, especializing in African languages. You can feel wowed as I do, like Christopher Walken likes to say it on SNL, "Wow!"
She came see me in 1991. I was expecting my son. It was summer, her favorite time of the year. She would sit in my little apartment garden and her toddler daughter would freak me out with all her activity.
We met twice. In 1999, the year I fell sick forever, it seems, I went to see her in Germany. She had had cancer and a boy, a beautiful boy, who strangely resembled my son. Now it was her husband who spoiled her, cooking and shopping daily. I got to know all of the surrounding areas: the tomb of Wagner and his dog's; Ludwig's palaces, which were a dream of mine to see live. When I saw Neuschwanstein, a scream of joy came out, "Oh! Disneyland's castle!"
Uschi sternly corrected me, "Ludwig's castle Disney copied." Oopsie! Ludwig was criticized for what now is the pride and largest source of income for Bavaria: his sumptuous castles.
We had a beautiful dinner in an opera house built facing the castle. The opera stage was great, and the story was the Sensucht of Ludwig. This short visit to Germany was one of the best in tourism in my life, although Uschi's illness scared me a bit.
In 2003 we met in NYC, where I saw her one last time. I found her different. I didn't know back then she had had a remission. She was pampered and a bit more aloof than usual. She dragged me to the DIA-Beacon, an installation museum I wouldn't have known about. Uschi had a clip from a German newspaper. It was beautiful. That visit and the show we saw starring Nina Hagen are etched forever in my mind.
I got to know through her family she was fighting bravely a metastasis of the original cancer. I knew no candles I lit would save her, but I lit them, anyway.
My friend passed away shortly after her January 3 birthday, at 47. We all miss her quiet wit and contributions to African linguistics.
By Tina OIticica Harris.
"And this is all I have to say about that." (Forrest Gump)
Anisio Medeiros was my professor at Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, FAU-UFRJ. He taught at the Escola de Belas Artes, too. A set designer, costume designer, art director and architect from Piauí, a state ridiculed before Acre took its place as motif of scorn, Anisio was a genius ahead of his time. And because I loved all films in which he worked, and heard viva voce his stories on how the set was designed (or improvised) or how the costumes were created from scratch, I dedicate this gathering of souvenirs to him.
Bye Bye Brasil has been released here, with subtitles, not bad of a subtitling job, on DVD. Read the NY Times review by Vincent Canby at a click on Bye Bye Brasil above. The film is by Cacá Diegues, who belonged to Cinema Novo and made a cool transition to a Tropicalist æsthetic code in Bye Bye Brasil. Caravana Rolidei is a poor circus on wheels trio, then a quintet. The Rolidei is a phonetic version of Holiday. They seek towns where TV (Globo) hasn't arrived yet, the hypnotic power of a TV set worshiped up in the main square of little towns.
The æsthetic motif of the costumes is great. A hairdo that twinkles with Xmas lights, the clothes of the poor, of the Native-Brazilians, all of it is political in a subtle way, sending us to the days when the Redeemer(coup d'état 64-85) built pharaonic roads, gold was found in the Amazon, but I am moving to the set design. Oh, well. The choices of places in Brazil is perfect: the riverbank town, the palm trees by the ocean, the burned and had Amazon (in 1980!) and Brasília, the destination of poor migrants straight into favelas.
I don't want to spoil the film for you. All I want you to know is this is genius if you are interested in Brazil or Brasil. Cacá Diegues bittersweet good-bye to a Brasil that becomes a Brazil and a Caravana Rolidei that becomes a Caravana Rolidey, with a y, letter inexistent in Portuguese, sum up the Tropicalist message: we devour the foreign products but spit out something different, the message of cultural cannibalism that knows no boundaries. Click here for a great article on this film.
None of what you see in this film and in so many other ones would have been possible without Anisio Medeiros. I was a poor draftsperson with a pencil. He made me the model for our B&W classes. Scorning the Oiticica which follows anyone in the Oiticica family, he would announce to all,
"We can't start the class without Tina Harris."
I remembered him due to my cybertroubles with passwords and nicknames. He would tap the floor with one foot, impatiently, while I finally arrived, late as usual, holding a cigarette, ready for my modeling time. The best souvenirs I have of Anisio Medeiros are of his sharing with us how he designed scenes improvising, as in Macunaíma, where foam was modeled to look like meats in a gigantic black bean casserole. Others are catty gossip which dies with him and us, his fave students. Finally, I did learn a lot of tricks in color techniques, from the precise names of colors to how to obtain them. Watercolor is about transparency, pastels are about several layers over each one of them. It is impossible to replicate our color sessions. I cannot fathom students sitting under a freeway in a dangerous area of downtown in order to capture how luminous a poor area can look. Or on the streets of downtown Rio anywhere nowadays.
I take my hat off to Anisio Medeiros, thank my schoolmate who refreshed some memories of him this morning and encourage you to watch this and all other films he participated in. A fine art director, genius in improvising, with peculiarities that make him a star in an era of constellation of architects teaching at FAU-UFRJ, Anisio Medeiros, wherever he is, for my friend remembered him today, too, will be tapping his shoe for a long wait, I hope,
waiting for Tina Harris, some day, some time. Just a taste of Bye Bye Brazil for you.
My friend kept reminding me: October 9, John Lennon's birthday. He'd be 67 today.
Click on John Lennon here. Thanks.
Vai passar is a traditional samba in the format of those in Carnaval parades. This samba-enredo tells of Brazilian history (it tells a plot over and over, the enredo, albeit in slight musical variations.) My favorite instrument is the tambourin and its sharp t-t-t-t--t--t.
Chico Buarque de Hollanda was persecuted by the generals till the very end of their rule, in 1985.
Vai passar can be construed as
I chose this video exactly because it's lipped-synched. Chacrinha, in his tropicalista delirium, was able to insert a whole mini-set of a samba club, including baianas, percussion... Let's see why the French love Brazil. And why women love Chico.
Lyrics to sing along, sway along to Chico Buarque's Vai Passar.© Educational purposes only.
After Brazil lost twice to la France, they can be nice.Click to see the images. Awesome. It'll be lit or off after midnight. Then it'll be the 7 de setembro: -Lit till 12a.m. FR
"Independence or death!"
Gotta be frank. I want to watch the trial on trial court. I love the way you're not guilty until... bla-bla.
Brazil. It seems Brazilians hate their country. Try to make a dirty proposition to buy Brazil and You are history.
My keyboard is acting up. Tomorrow is Independence Day in Brazil. It's already slow for business, long holiday in view. Here is a painting by Mayra Rodrigues de Almeida. And the song that makes me cry in any of its versions, Brazil.
"Alons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé."
The French philosophers inspired the Founding Fathers to give the boot to the U.K. and declare our Independence. On July 14,1789 , the French people acted like they were possessed. They destroyed the Bastille prison, of which not a stone remained. They did away with the monarchy and aristocracy. The revolt of the people had a strong reason -- hunger. The monarchs spent public money in futilities while the people starved. In addition, the bourgeoisie had means of production, owned the press, but weren't entitled to have land. So, they carried the banner of "Liberté,Egalité, Fraternité" even if they couldn't keep their promises of democratic liberties once they had the power.
Nevertheless, the French Revolution is an important mark for all of us; the end of tyranny dictated not by achievement of rulers but by blue blood :P)
You can watch the Tour Eiffel light today and tomorrow, to the sound of the Marseillaise. On July 14, 1789 the French became citizens no longer subjects. I will be at Os Mutantes, I hope and with my feet up again tomorrow. The fact I left the hospital doesn't mean I am okay-o.
Mireille Mathieu sings the Marseillaise, full version, Portuguese subtitles.
•The twelve regular readers of this blog know already Anarchic_Universe is a tribute to my grandfather's anarchist-linguist brother, José Oiticica. I am far from being an anarchist, maybe an iconoclast. I am your blogger. My responsibility is with the truth, my family, home and my blogging: sharing knowledge with you, as The Thinking Blog likes to proclaim.
•My grandfather was a federal prosecutor of a high court in the days of caudillo Getulio Vargas, 1930-45. The people liked Getulio so much he was elected in the 50s and led to suicide by persistent accusations in the press, not without leaving a letter to the people whose last sentence is well-known, "I leave life to enter history."
•While Uncle Cajuza, the anarchist professor, was being arrested and released, he and Auntie Sinhazinha had six children: José Filho, an entomologist and draftsman, Selma, Vanda, Sônia, Dulce,Vera. José Filho had three boys: Hélio, César and Cláudio. It is a huge mistake to think anarchists or free thinkers lack discipline. José Filho refused to let his sons enlist in the Armed Forces. His example and his father's were enough to transmit the idea of discipline and hard work along with independent thinking.
• Hélio Oiticica, pronounced EH-lyoo oy-tchee-CEE-cah, was a disciplined artist whose first steps were studied geometric forms. In the 60s he let himself loose . In his words, "Art had to get off the walls." He was ahead of his time. He created the parangolés, pronounce pah- ttan - goh -LEHz, which were masks of diverse meanings, made of cloth, which created life only when people wore them. Then there were the bólides, BOH-lee-daze, colorful figments of his and the people's imagination, click here to see a few bólides and Hélio Oiticica.
• I saw my cousin twice. Once with a group of film makers, the Underground/Marginal they called themselves, they went against the once revolutionary and then Sacred Cow Cinema Novo. I was eighteen and feared approaching him.
•The second time was in 1979 when Caetano Veloso and Raimundo Fagner played a fundraiser for amnesty: ample, general and unrestricted. Whichever amnesty campaign was a brave one in 1979. The Redeemer, 1964-85, was still in full force. I went backstage and introduced myself to Caetano Veloso with the lamest line. "Hélio Oiticica is my cousin." Hélio happened to be there and we chatted for a while. He knew who my mother was, his blonde aunt
, told me about his passion for Mangueira, the samba association in pink and green. He claimed we were Ladinos(new Christians), according to an older cousin in Alagoas, where our family comes from. He considered himself of color. HIs friends were in the favela.
• As Hélio's art became more outrageous to the eyes of the dictatorship, his family convinced him to leave. The military had already instituted strong laws to choke the artists and the people. They got really pissed at a poster of an outlaw shot with a subtitle: "be at the margin be a hero." Hélio had to go. Now, in 1979, he was back.
• I got his address, promised to visit. In a few months Hélio had a stroke and died after a four-day horrible agony, hearing the phone, seeing notes of friends slipped under the door. The family opposed a surgery before making him stronger. He died at 43. When I met him he'd come back from the Bronx,from his forced exile, and told me about how the borough was being burned.
• In May of 1968, the avant-guard Tropicália movement took as its name a "penetrável" now known as installation Hélio Oiticica displayed in São Paulo. It showed palm trees and birds, all kinds of symbols for people to roam in and out . It was the art he desired, off the walls, at last.
•It is an uncomfortable feeling I have he is so popular and studied in Ph.D. dissertations all over the place now. When Hélio died in 1980, he was a great conceptual artist living a frugal life. Oh, well, since anthropophagy (cultural) was part of the tenets of the Tropicália movement, I guess this is all right. I believe he is somewhere laughing all this off, rolling a joint with the "marginal " he befriended, wrapped in a parangolé, dancing to a samba of Mangueira.
•Here I have a collection of videos of Hélio Oiticica's work, presently in display at the Tate Gallery, London, until September 23.
This is a tribute to Hélio Oiticica, who preferred the favela to the condos. An artist who could foresee many trends in art and left us too soon. Thanks for traveling with me on this journey. See you Friday?
© Anarchic_Universe, 2007
In September 1982, I returned to the USA for a third time. It was a madly planned trip, counting on the currency exchange that favored me, and a week off aided by Brazilian habits of prolonging holidays. If a holiday is on a Tuesday, forget Monday. For example, in 2003 we had one holiday for Saint George on Tuesday and Holy Thursday following; practically no work for a whole week. Brazil is a country of non-practicing Roman Catholics. The Inquisitor Pope did not appreciate that.
Evangelicals are totally rad. And growing,thru radio, churches that give away food baskets... Those tricks they were using in Iraq before things turned out so gnarly.
During my stay in NYC, I was staying at a friend's and found a button on the floor. It spelled IMMORAL MINORITY.
I gave myself a five-finger discount, my friend did let me have it. It's misplaced somewhere in the house. I would like to have another one. And that was when I learned about tvevangelicals. I would like to thank Bob Meets World.com for the link.
Wasn't Alec Baldwin in a movie about Jerry Lee Lewis, "Balls of Fire" playing Jerry Falwell? Bingo! Do you know of a Flannery O'Connor short story, "Good Country People"? No? Ah, but you must read it, as the Poet Laureate would say. He won the quite prestigious Portugal Telecom 2003 prize for his book of poetry Macau.
I just woke up. Gotta see Freaky Deaky's post and visit B12 Partners.
Whatever faith yours may be, it may help coping with seeing your mother waste away. Inexorable is death. The process of dying of Alzheimer's is cruel. My generation, the "sandwich" generation, has had to watch parents wasting away and kids undergoing challenging adolescence.
Life is a biach and then you die. Noo! Life is all one has. We must make the best of it to survive. You know, as they say in Sugar Hill, "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants do die."
Don't worry, be happy - Just click ;P )) Bobby McFerrin
My task, once I received my "Thinking Blogger Award," was to choose another five bloggers who make me think. That was hard, very hard. I know quite a few blogs, and read about 80 on a regular basis. The blogs I chose have had a positive impact in my life, beyond blogging.
• B12 Partners, by Seth Anderson, a.k.a. Swanksalot. Seth taught me most of the tech stuff I know, taught me how to say "No," and was my first link in Gringoland. A Canadian via U.of t. at Austin, based in Chicago, his B12 Partners reflects the variety of interests he has. From politics to music, Dylan Zappa and Tropicália, for example, to photography, his photos are fantabulastic, B12 Partners is an engaging blog. I was very impressed with its organization and style.
For all B12 Partners is and for all Swanksalot has done, for readers and for me, Seth Anderson gets the Thinking Blogger Award.
Swanksalot and I am part of a delicious network, which is where all these links come from. And Flickr, and last.fm, and Mybloglog.
The other winners on my list are:
• Andre Dahmer with his ... a lot of stuff. He is a cartoonist on the Net, with his Malvados.com.br. Along with the strip, mostly in three parts, there is the expression of the day, a sentence uttered by a Malvado ( Meanie) and then a llot more, including a blog. The blog is a blend of journal/communiqué to his readers, news of events involving other cartoonists, and some links of foreign artists in the visual arts realm.
But that is not all. Andre Dahmer also makes part of the non-profit group, not an NGO, Rio Body Counts. They don't want money; they want reports of deaths due to crime in Rio de Janeiro State. This iniciative is a first in doing something concrete about Rio's pitiful situation. They say: "We don't believe in a peace with vigilance; we want social inclusion.
He has a comment box called "False Democracy," which reveals the amount of patience he has, as readers feel they can diss anybody. His blogroll is called "Dangerous Links."
Andre Dahmer has given me many lessons on life. He is patient, resigned, but carries a resolve to live life in a simpler way, looking at the brighter side of it. His mixture of work ethics and angst is a model to me. I couldn't leave the creator of Malvados off my list. I hope his paintings on canvas become as popular as the comic strip.
• Alexandre Inagaki, with his Pensar Enlouquece blog.
His blog was the first blog for grown-ups I read. His carefully crafted Portuguese, his detailed accounts filled with links impressed me so much I declared in a board I wanted to write like him. My dream was to be a link in his blogroll, a dream that came true on Christmas Day. HIs was tough love, but boy oh boy, I learned a lot. He is a visceral part of the new portal of blogs, Interney.net, which houses 20 blogs.
• Eudes Honorato with his Rapadura Açucarada. has been my closest friend in Blogolândia. I admire him for many reasons. Eudes is a survivor. He comes from the 'burbs of Rio, which means he was very poor. He went out to a factory at an early age. I believe it was comic books that saved his life, somewhat like drawing saved R. Crumb's.
One day nearly a year ago, I saw my readership grow, and grow, day after day. It was Eudes who had been promoting my stories, and had created my banner! He is generous this way.
We met in Ipanema, I had the chance to know his family, aunt and beautiful wife, it was great. He's from the northeast, where everyone is strong, so it is said. What I know is he stuck to his guns last year, when my blogs were vandalized, and he continues to help me, with wisdom and love. Now he has a board on comic books, and I am happy for him. He doesn't make any money with his Rapadura.
• Gabriela Zago, a serious babe from Rio Grande do Sul, a student of journalism and law, publishes her Ius Communicatio on a daily basis. Gabizago is part of my groups, Flickr, delicious, Mybloglog, last.fm. She is very energetic, her posts are short and varied, many are related to law. Her determination is an example for me to follow. She entered some contest to write a novel in English in so many days, 50,000 words. She finished her contest and she works so much, I feel inspired. In addition, she is cautious, which is good, for I am not. I just joined Stumble upon, I guess we will see each other there!
The blog went to a beauty salon with a French beautician. Enjoy the new photos from Flickr, Click on Rio Body Count and you can read about these ever growing numbers. Politicians are trying to lock up minors. Prisons are a School of Crime. Druglords will simply look for younger kids.
Sarkozy, the right-wing Napoleon running for President on May 6, wants to get rid of what he referred to as "scum" -- people of color, with selective immigration. But they are French, I think. Brazil can't even contemplate such solution; they're all Brazilian, most of Brazil's population.
I won this Thinking Blogger Award from Dr. Daniela Mann, from Portugal, owner of Amar-ela. My nominated bloggers have been chosen. I will announce them on May 2. readers and bloggers are out of town for the First of May, even if it's only only on Tuesday. That's Brazil.
On May 2 I will get an epidural shot in the L5-6 area. I hope I will be able to walk pain-free again. That's the idea. In the meantime, the "Flu from Ipanema" won't leave me. Something akin to the questions about Cory Kennedy. Go to her Blogger blog. Click here Cory Kennedy. All is the same. The law doesn't force sweet sixteen kids to go to school or learn a profession.
Bob Hattoy passed away. I remember his speech at the 1992 DNC. In those days people didn't just drop a comment, "Oh, by the way, I am gay and have HIV." He was passionate in what he did. Bill Clinton appointed him for different jobs. Now, this is quite different from these conservative people embracing a gay man-whore, who served, but also starred in lots of porn movies. Gross. Information recalled from BlogAmerica.blogspot.com.
Here with you, Bob Hattoy; click and listen up, please. Thank you.
It is a sense of duty that drives me to keep on writing. It's one-thirty, I wish it were Jim Morrison's "Five to One" the hour is late. I must salute all women in the world today. It's International Women's Day. It is the least I can do. Women drive me crazy, I have no patience for their indecisions, or catty remarks, or obsessive curiosity.
I love their beauty. How soon it fades or becomes another type of beauty, perhaps. I love the soft curves, the long hair, the at-ease hospitality, a cup of coffee, a slice of cake, a fruit salad. A glass of wine with a friend with brie and apple sauce pastries melting in our mouths while we babble. A film that we happen to agree on, one hundred per cent.
Let's salute the nurses, the teachers, the mothers and wives. The women who must work in and outside the home. And the women who work inside the home, met with scorn by so many people, "You mean you don't work?" Yeah, right.
The aunties and grandmas raising children they didn't conceive. The poor mothers still going to school. Let's look around us in this world, while we have time, kiss a woman we love, mother, sister, grandma, lover, auntie, say we love them. Just today. Who knows we make it a habit that becomes a part of our society, a habit of appreciation that results in more respect for women and wages without glass ceilings.
Let's act now so that soon we won't hear John Lennon sing, "Woman is the N_ __er of the World" and have to agree with that statement. Let's act for a world without ni__ers or fa__ots or enslaved women.
Now, having delivered my request, I will go to bed hoping some of us will head this plea on International Women's Day.
"Never on Sunday," Jules Dassin, directed, Melina Mercouri acted and sang. I was too young to see one one the three or four films Daddy watched in his whole life. In this movie, Melina plays a sex pro who misunderstands the Greek tragedies she goes see. She retells them with,"And they all went to the beach." Happy are all.
That's the feeling the Academy wishes to convey when they put on a magnificent spectacle of film and performing arts. Everybody happy, please, saying "Cheese" to the cameras. "There is nothing to understand; it's understood," as the rock song goes --The Pretenders' "I'm the Adultress."
Can any of you fluent English speakers understand why the world watches the Oscars? Most jokes are for people who live in Greater Los Angeles. What is the 405? Carson? Why "Crash," the film? Why a minor Scorsese?
I think people all over the world like to watch like Chauncey liked to watch. Chauncey is the gardner played by Peter Sellers in "Being There." Some of my Brazilian friends claim they understand "British English." I'd like to see them among the people in Blackpool, Manchester or Liverpool. All those stars, their faces, clothes, the TV broadcast makes us feel like neighbors till the lights go out and we are back in our rooms and they in their limos.
I like to see film clips. I feel sad at the time of the tribute to the departed in 2006. Bruno Kirby, James Brown, some I thought, "I thought this person was dead!" Now s/he is. I like to see some of my favorite actors. And I love to diss those I don't like.
I like to bet on who will get an award. This is February. Ever since they moved the Awards to Black American History month, our brothers and sisters in oppression have lucked out. Just recently, we had Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Halle Berry:wub:, and now Forrest Whittacker and Jennifer Houston. Both not only African-American but chubby, like me.
It's sad how many Greengoes cannot speak a language other than English. Ennio Morricone, whose whistled and stomped "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is unforgetable and one reason I started to appreciate Clint Eastwood's work as an actor, Ennio Morricone can't speak English (or won't, like the French.) Clint Eastwood should know some Spanish by now, English is a second language in California; it seems his wife is a babe whose language would be Spanish.
So we show the world we are helplessly monolingual until some tech miracle helped Clint Eastwood translate Ennio Morricone's speech. I shoul let them know B12 Partners is multilingual as evidenced in the Universo Anárquico.
A rule of thumb for the Academy is to award the sexless statuette to those about to kick the bucket and/or have been passed over too many times. Another is the winner at the Directors' Guild of America shall win.
Recently, the Academy had been splitting the award for best film and best director. This time, a less herculean directing effort gave Scorsese both. Lucas will never win as a director. It is said he likes to direct those things he creates for his sci-fi movies. Alan Arkin finally won. Peter O'Toole, how long will he have to wait? Neither Paul Newman nor Henry Fonda went when it was a shooin they'd be awarded. Too many times facing disappointment.
I knew from the buzz around town Mirren would win. I prefer Queen as in the rock group. The cult of royals makes me sick. La Deneuve was gawgeous, another example of monolingual French rebellion. And I was told she is no longer "Marianne," the beauty with bare breasts who symbolizes the French Republic.
The shadows forming symbols for nominated films were pretty kewl. Most of the broadcast was smooth, better than other years. I was happy for some people; for others, I asked myself, "What's with this dress?" Jennifer López already has a huge derrière. Why a dress with a huge skirt? Gwynneth Palthrow has no boobs, even after having had two children. Why flaunt the scarcity? Beyoncé, I think, had a dress unsuitable for a dance witha partner. If she sneezed, we'd be happy; at least she has something to show.
What was Penélope Cruz thinking? Maybe she thought of "Marie Antoinette II?"
Now, I must go for other subjects. One is scary; the other is nice.
Good evening, my friends.
Maybe he would see this as amusing. When I wrote my story about the lousy service Time-Warner Cable has been giving us here in the westside of Los Angeles, I actually did think of Art Buchwald. As I created the dialog I remembered so many of his stories I read since my teenagehood in Rio de Janeiro. Art Buchwald wrote a column for 51 years. His column was a fixture in a very popular weekly magazine in Brazil.
My father would have been 80 this January 5. We both read Art Buchwald and laughed at his wit. As Daddy would say, "The guy has class." In those days, a creep wouldn't be called more than a creep or max an SOB. The "bad words" were kept away from us with the "bad guys." And yet, one could be funny. Art Buchwald was funny. His keen observation of human nature, his skill with dialog and portrayal of the "characters" that inhabit our world made him loved by generations.
I though of him just yesterday. Probably he would have said, "Tina, keep your day job." "But this is my dayjob." "Tina, what can I tell you? Find another dayjob."
He may be best known to younger people as the guy who fought the Industry and won. He had a treatment for Eddie Murphy's "Coming to America" and never got paid. He sued Hollywood and won.
Here with you, The Washington Post presents Art Buchwald.
It's been a few hours since I learned James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, Soulbrother Number One, the Hardest Working Man in America passed away early in the morning this Christmas Day, at 73 years of age.
It was quite a shock to me. Just yesterday, chatting with the African -Americans in the family, I was singing one of James Brown's hits, announcing he would be playing at B B King's joint in NYC. Actually, when I read about the show, I considered blowing some United miles to go see him.
My husband had a computer scientist professor who considered James Brown to be a genius. The French like him, so I guess so... It took me a while to see behind the joking, the drugs, the make-up, the hairdo.
I hate to concede I am not always right. The analysis in the New York Times is brilliant. Indeed, James Brown was a genius. James Brown influenced everybody: hip-hop, rock, Michael Jackson's dancing, attitude towards race, with "I'm Black and I'm Proud" -- Check out the NY Times here.
I have an uncle who always says all that is needed for someone to die is for that someone to be alive. James Brown had in him the lust for life, the love for music, for performing, for creating. In this era of different types of media eternalizing moments on earth, I don't think I can speak of James Brown in the past. There are his perfomances on video and his legacy spread from "funk" to "rock." I guess the material wrapping got tired. The soul, literally, the soul lives on.
The hardest working man in America will let others do his work for him. We love you, James Brown.
James Brown on Ed Sullivan's Show, 1966
With Bobby Byrd at the Olympia ( Paris, France )
Our brothers and sisters in Harlem won't forget the writer of the song "I'm Black and I'm Proud."
