Hi dumeha see here

This is the most wonderful show that was ever recorded. It is a live show taped by yours truly for the most recent fundraiser in support of my film U People. www.upeople-themovie.com I am co-director with my partner Hanifah Walidah and the planning and care of thsis film has taken precedence above everything else in my life. I love every minute of it. We are always thinkinng of new ways to promote the piece. The performers are my lovely girlfriend Hanifah Walidah, Shelley Nicoles Black Bush, and Honey La Rochelle. The space was intimate and live. Macy Gray even showed up. I am in love with this process as well as in love with life and my love Hanifah. It is amazing to feel passionately about what you do. Enjoy!!

This is a beautiful piece of work I came across on ifilm that really madew me smile. I Love the way it deals with a lot of different subject matter. The rights of women, the innovation of children and all set in these beautiful african landscape and peoplescapes. I love that it also deals with the issues of the way the west sees the continent because although africa is a collection of different countries and different cultures and a vast aray of languages it is still regarded a one unit. In the collective conciousness that it.

This is day two of my lemonade fast. What I plan to do is take only water, lemons, cayenne pepper and grade b maple syrup for 10 days. I will also be drinking detox tea and an herbal laxative. Very strange but I feel like I need to. The last time I did this fasting business was a juice and raw food fast. I found that it was really difficult to sleep but I was able to concentrate better. I had a feeling of euphoria. I felt really good. I was with Maisha at the time. She was not so very supportive. In fact she was always saying how loopy I sounded. I find that when I do things like this it gives me clarity. I feel like I take more time to examine things around me. I also spend quite a bit of money on food. I have also really seen how much I socialize around food. I am curious to see whether I can hold out. I am hungry. It is weird though. I guess it feeds my need to control myself not to eat right now. I also feel like the things that I have been doing to my body are really detrimental to my health. I have been smoking cigarettes, drinking, not keeping regular hours and not working out. I will change that. After the fast I will do raw food only until I leave for paris. I am going to use my awake time to edit the documentary. I will also use the time to write and study.

Synopsis:
Peripheral vision (60min estimated running time)
An exploration of indiscriminant obsession with art and woman, four women outside of common categories


Treatment
This documentary will focus on four women. The artist that I have chosen come from different backgrounds and range in age from late 20’s to early 40’s. These are women with whom I have formed personal relationships. There are many things that I have found compelling about each of their stories. The things that unite them thematically are the fact that they are all artists, all women and all queer for lack of a better word. I would like to tap into the parts of them that are resilient in the face of disappointment and personal insecurities. I would also like to show their successes and the road toward their ultimate goals. The style of the documentary is participatory. It is the intimacy of my association with these women that allows my access to the parts of them that I would like to highlight. I feel that without that same quality of intimacy used in the execution of the documentary it will be lacking that and fall short of my intention. Robin Brox is a writer with some notoriety. She has published a few books of poetry that include an anthology of women writers called Saucebox. Her work has a writer has included studying at the University of Maine securing a Masters with mentors like Jennifer Moxley. I have footage of her performance of a poem called “The Wingspan of Submerged Possibility”. I have footage of her reading this piece before an audience as well as alone. The perspective of the writer reading her work alone is cut into smaller sequences. These are then woven in to match in with the performance making it one long reading. Her struggles with ideas of beauty are shown through a mirror exercise where she talks about her relationship with her reflection. The way writing serves as her way of seeing herself as she want to be seen because of the total control of the realities that she creates through the words she chooses.
This mirror device will re-occur through out the piece with the other women as well.
With each of them I have appreciated over time how the have each worked out their individual drama around being a woman. There are enforced limitations that can sometimes go along with walking through the world in a female body. Naima Robinson at present time dances with a group called Movement for the Urban Village. There is a dance that they use with around twelve dancers that really shows that tension in a beautiful way. I would more than likely use the audio from one of interviews to serve as the audio for that sequence as it is the kind of dance that can be used without music. I also have footage from a performance where she dance at a show that I produced to “Mississippi Goddamn” by Nina Simone The way she speaks is very lyrical. I think it would be adequate in keeping the correct tone. I will also use footage of her with her family. I want to show what it feels like to be an artist, a mother and a daughter. She had to return home to live with her family other wise she would not have bee able to continue dancing and pay for childcare.
The other ways I want to link these and other character is through their ownership of the identity of artist and how they came to be comfortable with that if they have at all. Just as growing into a woman is an evolution becoming an artist is one as well, I want to use images of a toddler learning to walking and falling making missteps to show that. First I want to show the image in a hopeful light. Then I want to show the image with a darker undertone. One of my subjects, ____________, was born earlier because she was beaten from her mothers’ womb and as a result was unable to talk until she was 19 years old. She found her voice through the viewfinder of the cameras that her mother always had around the house. Her mother always dreamt about being a fashion model. The innocence of the child and the violence of her birth will be an interesting contrast. It also will show that art can transform tragedy.
The repetition of certain questions and exercises will provide a unity of themes throughout. There is also the fact as I have mentioned of the queer identity that each of them shares. Hanifah Walidah, a performance artist whose work as an actor, singer, writer, music producer has earned her respect in those realms. Her performance style has changed remarkably since she made the decision to come out. The way she handles a stage has changed. The subject matter of songs and performance art work has changed. I shot the music video that was inspired by aspects of gay life. I have access to archival material of her work before she came out and after. Here is where I the animation will come into play. Her physical appearance is very striking. She is very androgenous. I want to have an animated version of her being built as if on an assembly line. Brightly colored and very unnatural in the construction of an industry viable musician juxtaposed with images of a seasoned performer at home with whom she is.
I am interested in the idea of delineating the subjective experience of these women within the context of their relationship with their art and selfhood. The acceptance of truths about themselves as well as the bravery of becoming what you want to be instead of wanting without resolution. Owning the title of artist isn’t an easy road so I am interested in given an accurate representation of how they came to the conclusion.

the beginning of write up of the spook who sat by the door.



I became interested in this film because of the title. It was something I heard incidentally while leaving one of my favorite jazz bars, St. Nick’s Pub, on 147th St in Harlem, NY. I heard the name mentioned in glowing tones to recommend a new Black video rental place in the area. The woman who told me about it seemed surprised that I had never heard of this movie. I was I intrigued because she wouldn’t tell me what it was about she just said “rent it, borrow it, or even steal it then watch it and watch it again. Then you can call and thank me.”. I began my search for this movie from that day.
My first inquiries brought back the name Sam Greenlee. He was born 1930 in Chicago, IL. He was an author, poet, screenwriter, journalist and talk show host. He was also employed with the US information agency as a foreign services officer. He served in Iraq, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Greece. He worked there for seven years and in 1958 was awarded the Meritorius Service Award for work accomplished during the Baghdad Revolution. His novel upon which this movie was based was an underground success. It was published in 1968. He went on to adapt the screenplay with the help of Melvin Clay.
The movie itself was produced by Sam Greenlee and it stands as a testament to the power of guerilla filmmaking. They were many setbacks in production. The crew hadn’t the permits for any of the shots done in Chicago. The mayor at the time was against the production of this film. Most of the shooting happened in Gary, Indiana.
The protagonist of the movie and novel is a man who is appointed to the CIA as a political maneuver to ensure the re-election of the encumbant Senator. The Senetor felt that he was losing the “Black vote” and needed something to remind “those people” that he was the best friend they had in Washington. The brilliant idea is suggested the election ensured and the story progresses. Dan Freeman withstands the rigourous training and the thinly veiled insults to his humanity by the agency. He prevails over the systematic degradation that seemed to be so entwined with every single interaction within the CIA. Te actor does his best to imbue the character with the queit strength tof the Uncle Tom characterization. He is careful to maintain the carefully blank gaze and humble tones. I wondered here if the writer’s prior experiences within a US government agency gave him that particular sort of inside knowledge. I wasn’t surprised to see his portrayal of the institution as place to learn not to advance. The audience is supposed to identify with Freeman. I appreciated that while he was most capable in this movie. He had all the plans and knowledge but it wasn’t without explanation. As the audience you were aware of how he ha came to this knowledge. I also appreciated that they took their time to introduce Freeman as the one to watch among the many. By not making him noticeable just a part of the back among the other candidates for the CIA tells of what kind of operative he would be.

translation in anglophonics/ a beginning of a paper I am writing




I was born on the panting breath of a woman chasing her man and this dream of this country of opportunity. Learning that the sun could shine brightly over a cold cruel landscape was one of this countries first lessons to my mother. Hard, thankless work was another lesson learned. The sweat of exhaustion on her lips a bitter taste as she brought me screaming to this world.

I am not Jamaican enough for Jamaica. I wasn't born on its soil. I do not have that dark disc of skin scarred from a burnt needles immunizing prick. I am not American enough to not feel like an imposter when I mark indelibly African American when those forms that need that ever-important demographic question answered. Language is a clear line that marks off the territories where I stand on the fringes.

I sit on the edge space where I can understand the lilting speech, make my spine liquid to a steady rhythm but I dare not always claim Jamaica I fear being dismissed as a Yankee imposter. I can speak with ringing professionalism without accent or "whitely brightly and sprightly" as I can't help but think of it. I hate that I am better heard when I employ these carefully polished tones. When I learned to use them was as child in Queens.

I knew even as a child that my mother didn't speak as the other mothers did in the largely white suburb where we lived when I was very young. I could see their eyes glaze over and her meaning while quite clear to me for them couldn't be heard past her foreignness. I knew that speaking was best heard by mimicking the folks on television. I have always had an ear for music. It took only learning the flat discordant notes of homogenized speak.

We moved to the ENY section of Brooklyn when I was 8. This was where I learned that there was a black way to speak. I also learned that I was not doing it. I also learned that anyone who spoke as my mother or father did were coconuts that fell off the banana boat. I learned a new melody. The graphic tones of Black-isms that were part southern softness augmented by the constant low level of stress that is urban life set the immediacy of hip hop.

What was once two tongues had become three. I had learned that being foreign was private. I learned that "whitely, brightly, sprightly" was for teachers. It didn't take me long to figure out that they would treat me differently from my peers because of it. I learned that lesson from the way their eyes would meet and lock over my classmate’s heads when they would yell their exuberance in the playground at recess. In class when their eyes would register surprise when I used words they didn't expect. My peers could understand these words I just feel they were unheard and not encouraged. On the street to avoid becoming a target learning that rhythm that spilled from all the mouths around me was important to survival.

Yet as much as I have learned to be a part of these worlds. I am always asked at by some observant person based on phrase that had a carribean slant, where are you from?

Where am I from? Where is my homeland? Is it the place I was born, the language that I speak, the culture that I am allowed to claim?