Brandon Copeland

The Magic of Think

admin — Sat, 29 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Imagine, as a parent, helping your child form a robust and resilient identity and allowing your child to define his or her own values based on his or her own upbringing. Perhaps the gift that follows such acts is an individual with the ability to resist both the conditioning of modern marketing and majoritarian societies and the pressure of some peer groups that may not have his or her own best interests at heart. The Magic Of Think presents a host of artistic lessons designed to encourage our children to take solace and confidence from a remembrance of the uniqueness of their individuality. Singer/songwriter Janyse was inspired by her participation with the Make a Wish Foundation as a part of her role with the hit children’s show Ed, Edd and Eddy.

While listening to the CD, I was able to experience a rare aspect of personal nostalgia in the form of remembering the dreams of my youth, which seem to slip with every passing year. To become UN Secretary-General, write a world-renowned collection of poems, or simply “farm” alternative energy, you name it, the limits of my dreams were only confined by the breadth of my imagination. And I suspect the same is true of my nieces and nephews and of the millions of youngsters across the planet who are more familiar with being united with their peers than any other generation in human history.

Janyse seems to want to remind those adults charged with shaping and nurturing our inheritors that it is not simply the possibility of youth but the revitalized dreams of us who are farther down the path of life that must be cherished and continually maintained. The peppy and upbeat songs on The Magic Of Think deal with courage, friendship, and happiness. These are values and concepts that we, particularly in the Western world a la “the pursuit of happiness” or “the courage to be,” are invoked to cherish early on in our lives.

I will conclude with my personal favorite from the CD, it’s the fourth track entitled “Hero” and its most touching words are: “If I could be somebody, I know who I would be exactly... I would be the hero... find the hero inside.” True, noble wishes and a challenge to us all to ensure that youth strive to do good while remaining faithful to what is most true to them.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, May 29th 2010

The Demons of Aquilonia

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Lina Medaglia

Inanna Publications

The Demons of Aquilonia is a journey through a verdant panorama of beauty and a rich tapestry of the generations of families that comprise a small mountain village in the Italian region of Calabria. Lina Medaglia does a great job describing the push and pull forces that drive domestic and international migration. The beauty of the land is juxtaposed with the regional accent of Calabria, the ancient indebtedness that is the result of efforts to gain valuable, arable land and the general lack of opportunity that causes an all-too familiar “brain drain” toward urban areas and abroad. Such struggles of the countryside could be understood and found to be relatable to any person hailing from the rural side of the growing urban-rural divide.

The story presented in The Demons of Aquilonia does not flow in a linear fashion, and this communicates well the point that the central character, Licia, is in simultaneous dialogue with her those that share her current life after immigrating to Canada and family and friends from her her childhood spent in Calabria. For example, within two or three chapters you may travel with Licia between 1962 and 2006 discussing along the way Licia’s accent and her perseverance in Canadian schools and the revelations of her mother’s belief in the ‘Giganteschi curse’.

Medaglia’s portrait of her time in Calabria makes you wish that you were George Clooney with a sun-drenched villa on the precarious cliffs of the Amalfi coast. Alas, the closest that I have come so far is the imported Blood Orange Soda I recently picked up from Target. But Medaglia’s portrayal of the fractious dialogue between the past and present via the stories of older relatives provokes one to pursue one’s own odyssey through a genealogical tapestry. The Demons of Aquilonia is an appeal to understand the richness and complexity of one’s own past as this may gift us with a more holistic understanding of our personal identity. Understanding personal, familial history is a key to a deeper self-understanding and thereby a more firm ground on which to build an identity that is inclusive of the memories of those that came before us.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, May 27th 2010

Angel and Apostle

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 00:01:00 +0000

By Deborah Noyes

Unbridled Books

Deborah Noyes’s Angel and Apostle, styled as a sequel to The Scarlet Letter, is a fascinating journey and an interesting effort to flesh out the life of a child attempting to live under the shadow of shame, guilt, and community exile. Set shortly after the ostracism of Hester Prynne we see the common adage that the “sins of [in this case the mother] shall be visited upon her children” is a fatalistic axiom that can be made real and that hangs heavy over the heads of Hester and Pearl her precocious and earlier-than-normal world-weary daughter.

Even as the townsfolk lay upon Pearl, the dubious title of “the child of the temptress”, and as much as the other characters of the small New England town would have it otherwise, she appears to lead a life where the consequences of her mother’s supposed social transgression are at the margins of her world. Pearl finds work within house of the sickly mother of a small blind boy, Simon, who she has befriended, and like the child of any time period, sees enthralling mystery and adventure in the countryside. This, for me, is a significant point of the book, the disallowing of the community and previous circumstances through which Pearl, first in New England and then in the “motherland,” seeks her own path and an ultimate sense of individual freedom.

Noyes does a remarkable job of weaving rich depictions of puritanical New England society as the backdrop for the affairs of a strong woman, her bold progeny and the lives of the sordid people that orbit in challenge. Angel and Apostle is a fulfilling next chapter in the darkly romantic or perhaps bittersweet tale of Ms. Prynne and Pearl. Upon finishing every good book, your heart sinks a little at the conclusion of such a wonderful tale but Noyes can rest assured that the humbling task that she assumed in writing a professed sequel to The Scarlet Letter was a riveting success. I am sure that, as I did, Nathaniel Hawthorne would find Angel and Apostle a delightful extrapolation on a master’s work built upon by another master in deliciously page-turning form.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, May 26th 2010

Names: Poems

admin — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Marilyn Hacker

WW Norton

Marilyn Hacker is a poet after the heart of not just poetry readers but poetry writers. I was immediately enthralled by the rich language of this National Book Award winner—for Presentation Piece in 1974—a language pulsating with raw indignation at injustice and celebration of what are life’s quotidian and banal joys: the small pleasures of winter light, sips of Sunday coffee, and the company of friends. Her virtuoso use of wordplay strums the memories of one’s mind as only a writer of her caliber can, and I found myself by frenetic turns maddened and boisterous with the giggles started by the internal dialogue that she shares. Racy descriptions of five minutes after “she came” give way to descriptions of tanks, uniforms, guys, and testosterone.

Hacker is well known as one of the “New Formalism” poets shunning the free form poetic license that is currently en vogue. In particular, she is considered an expert of French poetic forms such as the villanelle. An example would be her 1986 sonnet verse novel Love, Death and the Changing of Seasons, and Names is now her most recent example. It includes poetic forms of ancient Islamic origin (ghazals), gloses that not only note but also illuminate the works of fellow poets such as Anna Akhmatova and Emmanuel Moses and letters in sonnet form to contemporaries.

A favorite is one of the ghazals entitled “dar al-harb,” or “house of war,” and it includes this critique of American power:

I might wish, like any citizen to celebrate my country but millions have reason to fear and hate my country… As English is my only mother tongue it’s in English I must excoriate my country. _ _The good ideas of Marx or Benjamin Franklin don’t excuse the gulags, or vindicate my country. _ _Who trained the interrogators, brought the bulldozers? _the paper trails indicate my country. _

Hacker’s vivisection of American foreign policy is truly something to behold and questions the continuing presence in the national political landscape of the U.S. of exceptionalism. Americans cannot continue to proclaim a special destiny so long as we are nation that many fear as such a dichotomy of perspectives is corrosive.

The plain, clear sight of this author’s poetry was refreshing and removed some of that intellectual ennui which can sometimes preclude one from appreciate the daily wonders that allow each of us to experience the joie de vie.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, February 13th 2010

Anachronism and Its Others: Sexuality, Race, Temporality

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Valerie Rohy

SUNY Press

Valerie Rohy’s exploration of the efforts to define both queer and Black identities and their subsequent intersections is as interesting as it is illuminating, as presented in Anachronism and Its Others, whether it is a discussion of the temporal implications of Frederick Douglass’ thought presented in his autobiography or demystifying the nebulous concepts of "queer time." Anachronism and Its Others also investigates how the modern field of sexology has recently made a connection between homosexuality and blackness, often for the negative purpose of justifying homophobic and/or racist socioeconomic worldviews.

One of Rohy’s strongest observations in Anachronism and Its Others is the split between "queer" and "straight time" as she notes within the initial chapters of the book. The idea of straight time as a historical metanarrative told through the evolution of American culture as defined by the goals of majoritarian interests is revelatory. As Rohy states, straight time is "promoted as the best form of progress and the only 'real temporality.'" The author illustrates an important connection to scientific racism as it forms the grounding of those seeking to connect homosexuality and Blackness with threats to the White family, to its perceived superior vitality, fecundity, and ability to function as the carriage of the national society. Rohy’s weaving of modern constructions of ethnic and sexual identity, the connection of contemporary sexology with scientific racism and the attempt to negate any alternatives to a Caucasian heteronormative national paradigm are brilliant.

Such connections and observations lead one to an important question: How does one combat attempts to frame progress and time itself as concepts in opposition to the existential utility of sexual and ethnic minorities within a particular society? As threats to the forward movement of that society? Rohy’s argument against the idea of "straight time" and other justifications of a narrowly defined national culture and destiny are made through the intellectual dismantling of its philosophical buttresses: contemporary sexology and its cousin scientific racism appear to be one large step toward answering such a daunting challenge.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, February 12th 2010

A Jihad For Love

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Directed by Parvez Sharma

First Run Features

To ponder the relationship between Islam and homosexuality is to consider something that does not exist. Parvez Sharma’s groundbreaking documentary, A Jihad for Love, calls this frequently held assumption what it is: a lie. A Jihad for Love is a deep exploration of Islam and homosexuality gleaned through the eyes of several gays, lesbians, and trans-genders set across the Muslim world. Filmed in twelve countries and in nine languages, it is a collection of stories that alternate between poignancy and the heart-wrenching battle between the equally challenging loves of faith and of humanity. Sharma effectively demonstrates the nuances that exist within different Muslim nations that have complicated attitudes concerning homosexuality based on the nation’s history and the different branches of Islam defying easy and/or lazy generalizations.

In depicting the struggles of the Muslim LGBT community, A Jihad for Love, shows that there are myriad perspectives in within their faith community. It begins in a nation that has a growing reputation for acceptance of the community: South Africa (the nation became the first in Africa and only the fifth in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2006). We learn the story of Muhsin, a gay imam who in his early life married and had children but eventually recognized his sexuality and began a process toward reconciling his sexuality with the faith that he also loved. The subsequent journey is not just one of self-discovery but also one in which the community discovers its faith anew and where there is a mutual understanding of far greater depth.

Moving north, we find a less fortunate but no less redemptive story in the Egyptian student Mazen. He is imprisoned after his arrest under the nation’s “indecency laws” which make homosexuality illegal and is in jail for nearly a year before being sentenced to an additional three years. He escapes, and upon reviewing a video recording of the trial, his anger is still raw, palpable.

The story of the Turkish lesbian couple of Ferda and Kiymet was one that I found most poignant. In particular, when Ferda introduces Kiymet to her mother, as it was a beautiful experience that I immediately related to. Upon the conclusion of the meeting, Kiymet says something that I could imagine my lover saying after meeting my mother: “Perfect!” I was as elated for Kiymet as I was for my partner and myself after we went through that “parental meeting” stage of our relationship. Turkey is more tolerant of homosexuality and the film briefly explores the connection between this state of affairs and the branch of Islamic mysticism, Sufism.

The three stories mentioned above among others brought knowledge to bear on my own misconceptions concerning the Islamic faith and homosexuality. The unprecedented focus of A Jihad for Love should continue the much-needed discussion between LGBT Muslims who seek to love within this peaceful and beautiful faith and the Islamic umma at large and bring knowledge and compassion to bear within such dialogue so that those that feel forced to love in secret can one day know the immutable joys of freedom.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, February 5th 2010

Nadirs

admin — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:01:00 +0000

By Herta Müller, translated by Sieglinde Lug

Bison Books

The first impression upon commencing Herta Müller’s collection of semi-autobiographical short stories Nadirs is one that is characterized by a child’s hybridized view of a world which is intensely real and also hauntingly and disconcertingly surreal. Nadirs illustrates Müller’s perspectives in Banat, her native German-speaking region of Romania. Nadirs was first published in Berlin in 1988. Sieglinde Lug, professor of German at the University of Denver, provides the English translation.

Müller’s transitions or segues between realism and surrealism are so seamless that it is not until you are deep into her stories that you realize some of the most interesting stories in Nadirs deal direct with the family and many times in fantastical language. For example, Mueller describes the preparations of family for the usual Saturday night movie in “The Swabian Bath,” where each family takes a bath in the water of the person preceding them. Another story entitled “The Funeral Sermon” describes the central character attending her father’s funeral where you learn the views of the father from certain members of the community and the child. Was the father a war hero or a rapist? The child is charged with the task of giving a eulogy in the midst of these tales being exchanged, and it is the fear described by Müller and confusion by the prospect of giving the eulogy in front of the townspeople that lends the story its memorable surrealism.

As the two aforementioned stories indicate, within each of Müller’s tales, one progresses from an initial assumption of what to expect and is quickly deposited into unfamiliar territory containing the lucid, vivid and sometimes frightening descriptions of events that you don’t imagine usually reading of, but are still very intrigued. Nadirs, in each of its segments and in its entirety, as one of the first of Müller’s forays into the literary world remains a testament to her current Nobel Laureate status and also to the significant likelihood that her works will endure.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, January 24th 2010

Fucking Different: Tel Aviv

admin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Directed by Kristian Petersen

Filmproducktion

Fucking Different: Tel Aviv is the third installation of this international collaboration of visual storytelling, starting first in Berlin and New York City in a sense similar to Paris Je T'aime_and _New York, I Love You. Now, while I have not seen the previous two iterations, please allow me the privilege in speculating that Fucking Different: Tel Aviv may certainly be one of the bests in the romantic short film collection genre. The fifteen directors' short films together illustrate a beautiful panorama of diversity in myriad forms within a thriving and vibrant Middle Eastern and Mediterranean metropolis. They shed light on a host of issues such as the Right-Left divide in Israel, dealing with coming out, first love, ideas of masculinity and femininity and Judaism and homosexuality.

Tel Aviv has been called the “mini-Los Angeles” of the Middle East, but L.A. is a place that many say “no one comes from, rather they go to,” but the people in Fucking Different: Tel Aviv are fully present in the times that all residents of Tel Aviv are shaped by. In the first short story entitled “Political Sex”, two new lovers, Yossi and Tzuf must decide whether to be pragmatic or passionate when the discussion turns to politics. In this short piece we see that the gay community is no less driven by a right-left partisan divide. What ensues after said discussion is some visually enthralling sex. This is another reason why this documentary is appealing. These shorts do not conceal or shirk away from what, in reality is everyday life, rather they reveal the ordinary struggles of people who refuse to be ordinary.

Another poignant moment is found in the short containing the story of Emmanuel and Brigitte. We are introduced to a man applying makeup and discussing how Brigitte came to be and how she represents his identity as much as Emmanuel. The waters get even deeper as the story progresses. We learn that Emmanuel performs the oboe for the Tel Aviv Philharmonic and that had he not had that same courage to first perform as Brigitte at a local club, he may not have ever had the courage to reach for his dream and apply to the very competitive Berlin Philharmonic.

“Gay men after being called a 'sissy' or 'faggot' when they are young become fearful of their own femininity...” "Emmanuel/Brigitte" connects seamlessly with the knowing histories of every gay man who was called such names, myself included, when he uttered such a painful truth. The story of some gay adult men is the story of not just helping friends and family become comfortable with something that may be “foreign" or "different” to them, but also becoming comfortable within your own skin and learning to celebrate it, just as Emmanuel and Brigitte do.

Fucking Different: Tel Aviv mixes epicurean delights with sapphic ecstasy and has some of the most scintillating lovemaking between beautiful people while keying you into the notion that there are also some gays who don't fit the stereotype. They would be just fine with a night watching an entire season of Absolutely Fabulous rather than having sex. Make it Battlestar Galactica or Fringe and I'd probably give the same answer. Maybe it is my love of the diversity of a metropolis or simply my lust for Jewish men, but after screening this collection of short films I was ready to book the next flight to Tel Aviv.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, December 29th 2009

Chocolate, Please: My Adventures in Food, Fat and Freaks

admin — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Lisa Lampinelli

itBooks

What is not to love about a comedian who combines the raunch of Margaret Cho with the political incorrectness of a Don Rickles, and the acerbic wit of a Dorothy Parker? Lisa Lampinelli deftly employs all of these qualities to describe a hard-fought but nonetheless victorious perspective on her own decisions and accomplishments. She is at all times irreverent and few escape the barbs of this “equal opportunity offender,” but Lampinelli focuses most on the two loves of her life: comedy and 'the blacks' as she says, hence Chocolate, Please: My Adventures in Food, Fat, and Freaks.

Lampinelli might proudly proclaim herself “the queen of mean” but she is also apparently one of many microcosms of today's prototypical feminine persona. She is the woman who yearned for love but once believed she did not deserve that for which she had yearned for. She is the woman who shakes off external expectations and mores and discovers what is equal parts a mundane aspect of the human condition and a uniquely and revelatory idiosyncratic fact. That those who choose their own path in search of their own truth and own the consequences are usually happy. Something that legions of her gay fans, myself included, can attest to as we seek to balance our masculine and feminine personae on a daily basis. To follow now with some cases in point. She offers a window into her own experience concerning her transition from settling for Constitution State doughboys which she considered a compromise for her true desire to dating men who actually “turned her on”:

...I didn't date hot guys—I loved' em! And I started going after them. Andre had gotten me hooked! They were new to me. Finally I could walk down the street with a guy have other girls say, “Where'd you get that one!” That has never happened to me before. I know it might sound shallow, but for once in my life, I didn't want the smart one, I didn't want the funny one, I wanted the hot one. Andre was my first piece of fine chocolate—and I started going through men like New York City was a Godiva wholesaler. And to be honest, my mouth was always full!

Lampinelli, the proud woman, fell in love with the type of man that had a six-pack and was sensual on the mattress and made her feel the élan vital, but also cuddled, wrote poetry, and cheered on every one of her successes. She describes her thinning waist and her subsequently growing confidence from size twenty-four to a size fourteen, and giving men a taste of their own medicine and catcalls the cat-callers all while realizing that waist size and ego size need not be proportionate.

Lampinelli's other love, comedy, was a long time in the making with the traditional training of life that renders our best comics. As an example, she chronicles her role as the jester of her small family, and a devoutly Catholic upbringing as the middle child in search of attention who ate weird things and put a smile on the face of her mother even in the worst times. She traces the evolution of her trademark mastering of the Roast as a result of her working to never be caught unawares if a heckler should seek to ruin her performance.

Lampinelli's portrayal of her adventures are endearing for someone who is larger than life on stage and for someone who frequently grasps the mantle of relieving us of the ubiquitous burden of political correctness.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, December 28th 2009

Oh My God

admin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:46:00 +0000

Directed by Peter Rodger

Gussi S.A. & Mitropoulos Films

Oh My God is the kind of documentary that holds you in wonder from start to finish. Once the credits begin to roll, you finally exhale and find yourself muttering “Wow.” Peter Rodger's trek across every inhabited continent in search of the answer to one of humankind's ultimate questions—“What is God?”—is both a revelation on the unifying conceptualization of something higher and a celebration of what elevates us. It is an unflinching and holistic search for answers among all who seek to fill voids, satisfy ethereal desires, and comprehend the lives that we lead—which is most everyone—by searching for meaning.

In two parts, this film seems to attempt to tackle first the unifying attributes of a belief in God and then some of the unfortunate, but seemingly inevitable, discord of the extremist fringes of modern organized religion. In one of the film's most poignant scenes there is a bulletin board at a school with pupils from various religious backgrounds. Each child expresses a different faith, but similar beliefs, and it is clear they are all friends and view their different faiths not as something to be challenged and contested, and experience a commonality of belief that is recognized and celebrated. Fittingly, the bulletin board reads: “There is gold and multitudes of rubies, but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.” At this point in the film one wonders where in the process children lose their jovial collegiality and transform into adults who preach religious and spiritual exceptionalism.

Oh My God also explores the anthropocentric qualities of modern conventions concerning the divine: Is it arrogant to assume that the human mind is capable of comprehending God? As one of the documentary participants eloquently states: “An ocean can see the drop, but a drop can not see the ocean.” Is it natural for sentient species to attempt explanation through religion of the “effulgence of existence?" While we witness a panoply of answers, these are the types of questions brought forth by Rodger's inquisition-traveling and challenge those of us who have a faith, or lack thereof, that is steeped in tradition and family inertia rather than self-reflection and other inner endeavors.

The best aspect of Oh My God is its successful effort at compiling many different answers to the central question that constitutes the documentary's purpose. Rodger's film is an exercise in collaboration between Rodger (who films) and the ones who are filmed in order to expose shades of gray rather black or white absolutes. Rodger has made a film in which common folk and celebrities alike the chance to share their own unique portion of “the precious jewels of [personal and inner] knowledge.”

Written by: Brandon Copeland, November 21st 2009

Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division

admin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:07:00 +0000

By Jon Ginoli

Cleis Press

As I was reading Jon Ginoli's retelling of the rise of pop punk's first openly gay band, Pansy Division―from his perspective as the lead singer―I found that whenever I left the book on the table, with its bright pink cover labeled with stickers reading “promote homosexuality” and “sexual anarchist,” I could only imagine there were a few raised eyebrows in the small town Northeast Ohio coffee shop where I read. And I can imagine that these raised eyebrows and perked ears listening to the unabashedly queer lyrics―something they were most likely not accustomed to―was one goal. It is hard to be ignorant and hateful in the face of authenticity and irreverence. It is hard to resist the fearless and ribald celebration of being a member of a minority forced for so long to cower on the margins of a supposedly free and egalitarian society. This is what I suspect is the enduring legacy of this band that “came from a somewhere” in the middle of America.

But let's be clear. Pansy Division did not simply trail-blaze through punk rock as the first openly gay pop punk band. It was also a group of friends and the harrowing tales of the varied reactions and accommodations to Pandy Division through the US and Canada; it was as good a read as Ginoli's portrayal of his activity with ACT UP and the homogeneity of the gay club scene. Ginoli's Deflowered is as much a story about the love of independent music as it is of a band with lyrics that combine humor and relatability in a way that many gay and straight listeners to punk and rock could only speculate concerning other well-known acts.

By the time I had reached the last page, my iPod had several Pansy Division songs, specifically “Bunnies” and “The Cocksucker Club.” It seemed an appropriate way to support and celebrate their time on stage.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, October 27th 2009

Schmatta: From Rags to Riches to Rags

admin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:09:00 +0000

Directed by Marc Levin

HBO Documentary Films

It has become cliche to tell the story of an American going from rags to riches based on their own impassioned journey using a unique and personal form of ingenuity and hard work, but we may be on the path toward establishing a new and unfortunate conventional wisdom that says it is just as common to go from rags to riches and then back to rags once again. It is this new economic reality that Schmatta: From Rags to Riches to Rags explores in ways that are both haunting and saddening. This bracing documentary speaks through the experiences of those in the midst of their own struggles. It asks if the American consumer is willing to continue the "race to the bottom" for the sake of bottomed-out bargains or if they are going to make their choices in the marketplace a powerful tool in the struggle for labor rights around the globe.

Marc Levin's masterful chronicling of the decline of the garment industry in New York City has several stories of challenges and progress that come full circle. One example is the documentary's grave portrayal of the consequences of employee exploitation. The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire of 1921—in which hundreds of lives were lost after managers locked their employees in a crowded, unsafe high-rise—was repeated at the end of the century in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The sight of another company repeating the same senseless mistake with the same unnecessary and atrocious loss of life leaves the viewer with a conundrum of cynical proportions: with the decline of unions and authoritative regulatory structures to check global corporate power, what is the future of those that toil in a non-service industry? This is one of the most powerful aspects of the documentary because, through these stories, we witness the fact that while time may move inexorably forward in industry where people may, with time and due diligence, find fortune that lifts them out of poverty, the mainstream middle now find that time and due diligence are simply not enough to sustain wealth.

This acute sense of insecurity is not simply a long-building trend particular to the garment industry; it can also be found amongst manufacturing workers in America's Rust Belt, small farmers threatened by agribusiness, and factory workers in the South. They are the face of a middle class that is squeezed tighter and tighter by the year. Levin successfully pulls out of many stories a common thread that touches on how this singular struggling industry is emblematic of many sectors of the American economy.

** This film is currently airing on HBO**

Written by: Brandon Copeland, October 21st 2009

Queer in Black and White: Interraciality, Same-Sex Desire and Contemporary African-American Culture

admin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:36:00 +0000

By Stefanie Dunning

Indiana University Press

Stefanie Dunning takes the scalpel of reason to the twin sores of misogyny and homophobia that sometimes stain traditional notions of a black nationalist consciousness. The result is an intellectual illustration challenging “the notion that the black queer is "not black enough" and both examines and explains “the frequent representation of the interracial as a device signifying the ideas of nation, authenticity and blackness.” Dunning effectively answers a question that I, as a young black gay man, frequently ask: is it possible to be fully black, fully gay, and satisfy normative perceptions of traditional black masculinity simultaneously? Thankfully, one can find an affirmative answer and a stringent defense of a more comprehensive and inclusive characterization of those straddling multiple communities of origin within the text of Dunning's literary cultural exploration.

The act of loving a person of another ethnicity or miscegenation is a mental act and stance rather than something “that happens between bodies.” Once one accepts this as fact, it is easier to follow the use of “miscegephors,” or the points at which inter-raciality is used to “stage questions about race, ethnicity and belonging.” Dunning reviews miscegephorical use in music, television, and literature--including Ann Allen Shockley's Loving Her_, the first novel about a black lesbian; Me'Shell NdegeOcello's hip-hop volume Plantation Lullabies_, and Eldridge Cleaver's essay “Notes on a Native Son.” The pages and lyrics of these works provide the canvas for the discourse Dunning pursues. Cleaver's essay and its characterization of the “negro homosexual” as a constituent of another group outside of the black community are challenged by such representations as the relationship (fictional albeit) of Terry and Renay in Loving Her.

This challenge was put into the most stark relief when in Shockley's Loving Her, Dunning finds a juxtaposition between the parallel images of Renay, the recently single black mother with her new white lesbian lover, Terry. We see Renay doing the “little things,” the domestic chores that Terry refuses and Dunning cites the evocation of a black women “working” for a white woman rather than loving her as it meshed “perfectly with the traditional black servant's role.” Then, we witness Renay introducing Terry to soul food, slipping into dialect―using food and language―to act as an ethnic bridge within their interracial relationship. Dunning cites Barbara Smith's review of this scene as a central challenge to the notion that being black and being gay is the assumption of a “racially de-natured” state. Renay and Terry's relationship is not constructed on color-blind terms, and the circumstances of ethnic origin that each bring to the relationship are not eroded; rather, they are amplified.

Within the creative pieces Dunning highlights and the dialogue that each seemed to further, I found the opportunity to consider my own identity and my own personal struggle to associate equally with different communities of origin. Black gay and lesbian artists, such as those that authored the works reviewed by Dunning, are not threats to biological and cultural continuity, but in reality, are at the forefront of remaking “our conceptions of blackness.”

Written by: Brandon Copeland, October 17th 2009

I'ma Be Me

admin — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:09:00 +0000

By Wanda Sykes

HBO Documentary Films

In her first HBO comedy special since 2006's Sick & Tired, Wanda Sykes’ I'ma Be Me promises from the outset that she is "not holding anything back." This is a promise she works assiduously to keep throughout the show. Sykes uses her acerbic wit to deliver gleanings on topics as disparate as the pervasive tendency toward conformity to the majority ethnicity ("white people are looking at you!") to the constant and imprudent demands of appetite ("Esther Roll and the love of bread and alcohol") to the odd prevalence of erectile dysfunction medications and the gender disparity indicated within the pharmaceutical industry, which Sykes presents as "proof men rule the world [because] when the dick breaks...it gets fixed fast."

Sykes is without a doubt a funny and unfailingly perceptive comedian, as my sore gut can attest., and I laughed quite frequently during the sixty-minute show. Even more so, Sykes is a keen observer of national affairs in the midst of change—a change so frenetic that, even when the mode of such change is within our grasp, we sometimes reel in equal parts wonder and shock at what we, a supposedly humble people, have achieved. Sykes speaks of the intense pressure on President Barack Obama not simply because he is "the man that has to rescue a country that was abused by its previous owner," but also in being a purported representative of all African Americans. She speaks to the difficulty of his being a mantle to carry the combined weight of an entire ethnic group's dignity. Sykes also points to the critical portrayal of the new Associate Justice's pride in being Puerto Rican during Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, finding that "the only time your race is not questioned is when you are a white man."

Besides such cutting and prescient political observations, what also makes I'ma Be Me so poignant for me—as someone who shares two qualities with Sykes: ethnicity and sexual orientation—were the windows she opened into her own recent life experiences. I sighed with her when she mentioned the bittersweet feeling of elation at Obama's election being tempered by disappointment at California's passage of Proposition 8. Her marriage to her wife Alex and the birth of twins were also mentioned, allowing another view into the truly beautiful and normal life of a same-sex household since many of the issues Wanda and Alex deal with are the same that John and Alice down the street will face.

Sykes is as incisive as she is clever. She allows us to laugh as we also explore not merely the current events of the nation, but the current events of this comedian. I, for one, eagerly anticipate the next chapter of both.

I'ma Be Me premieres Saturday, October 10th at 10PM ET/PT on HBO.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, October 9th 2009