I write like
Arthur C. Clarke

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

apparently.

As I continue to try and consider what it means for two members of my family to have been sent into wars (first my Uncle and now his son), I am thinking about all of the messages I want the President to hear. P!nk’s song is so apt:

. . . whilst I have been a-dissertation writin’. Some of this playlist is Bret Easton Ellis’s fault. His new book Imperial Bedrooms has a lot of musical references, starting with its title. To be honest, this is in no particular order:

1. Elvis Costello – Beyond Belief (from the Imperial Bedroom album)

2. Elvis Costello – Tears Before Bedtime (from the Imperial Bedroom album)

3. Cloud Cult – Room Full of People in Your Head

4. Randy Newman – I Love L.A.*

5. Blitzen Trapper – Black River Killer

6. Glee Cast – Total Eclipse of the Heart

7. Cloud Cult – Hurricane & Fire Survival Guide

8. Frightened Rabbit – Fast Blood

9. Janelle Monae – Cold War

*Thanks to Bret Easton Ellis’s Imperial Bedrooms, which has the awesome line talking about the fictional author of the real life BEE books Less Than Zero and The Rules of Attraction:

There’s a chapter in his second novel, which takes place at Camden, where he parodies Clay — just another gesture, another cruel reminder of how he felt about me. Careless and not particularly biting, it was easier to shrug off than anything in the first book which depicted me as an inarticulate zombie confused by the irony of Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.”

I got a note recently from a new reader complaining that I wasn’t writing here often enough. I do have a reasonable excuse: I’m all about my doctoral dissertation right now so that I can head off to NASAlicious for postdoctoral fellowship phun and phrenzy. But, I figure I have a few minutes this morning for a political rant/Music You Should Be Listening To so that I can highlight the new musical love of my life, Janelle Monáe. Also, for the record, my poetry blog has been getting fairly regular updates!

EDIT: Check out this piece as published on Is Greater Than.

Before I go on, let me share her spectacularwow video for the lovely and enduring song “Tightrope”:

Are you ready to get up outta your seat and break it down?!? There are so many things to be inspired by here: her dancing, her tuxedo, her fresh saddle shoes, her delicious voice, fabulous brown eyes, fantastic live backing band and dancers, the righteous beats. Take your pick!

A couple of weeks ago, when Monáe’s album, The ArchAndroid came out, I spent one morning reading all of the reviews being counted at MetaCritic and counting the number of reviews that mentioned Michael Jackson somewhere in them. Last count was four. Usually, I think such comparisons are obnoxious. That’s like comparing someone to G-d as far as I am concerned. But in this case, I think they were fair. I was looking for them as a listener!

From the sci-fi narrative about AI/robot Cindi Mayweather (the main character in her cinematic LPs) to her incredible ability to wander through two different styles of rap in one song (oh hell yes) while singing in a raw punk voice on another, all the while using vocal chords that produce the sweetest soul sound since Beyoncé, Janelle Monáe, who is 30x the complete musician that Beyoncé will ever be, signals the arrival of a new, stunning musical talent, née force. As far as I am concerned, the last time that happened, Michael Jackson had just introduced himself as the future, singular King of Pop.

And like the King of Pop, Monáe has become something like church for me. Her lyrics are empowering. Whether I’m high or low, I got to tip on the tightrope! I have to bring wings to the weak and bring grace to the strong! And I can do it while dancing myself into a positive frenzy. Yes Yes Yes!!! I can wake up every morning and listen to that, yes I can!

In fact, I was so busy bopping my head to her music while writing my dissertation and while driving to physiotherapy, too busy getting my boyfriend to dance with me and learning how to “tip on the tightrope” that I forgot to notice that The ArchAndroid debuted on the Billboard 200 at #17, below Kei$ha, Justin Bieber and a host of other crap. What gives?!? How could Kei$ha sell more? Janelle is sexier AND keeps her clothing on!!!

In the end, I was inspired to write this morning because yesterday Racialicious linked to a few blog posts about why this phenomenal phenomenal phenomenal artist isn’t getting more buzz/airplay. Jezebel posited that it was because we prefer to waste our time on bad girls. But one of their commenters understood what was going on when ze said, “She’s too weird for urban radio, and just black enough for alternative radio to ignore her.”

And that’s just a damn shame. Janelle Monáe is making beautiful, politically conscious, uplifting, booty-shaking music, and everyone who doesn’t have a chance to hear it is being punished. The Root highlights this segregation in radio airplay and discusses how Monáe might break through that glass ceiling. It’s well worth the read, but I think it left out a crucial part of the discussion: we can go on and on about how crossover artists have a hard time, but it’s not any old crossover artists. Like the Jezebel commenter noted, it’s Black crossover artists. I don’t remember Eminem and the Beastie Boys having a hard time getting played on both Power 106 AND KROQ when I was a kid in Los Angeles.

In the meantime, since Monáe is the musical equivalent of a force of nature, I’m not too worried about her. As she said in her liner notes (a quote that will appear in my dissertation dedications!):

Dedicated to the “THRIVALS”: a generation not bound by many of the old limitations that previous black generations were, nor occupied with race as a potential barrier to their accomplishments (words by Nat Irvin II).

I don’t think she intends to be toppled by racism anytime soon. Of course, she will be happier, and so will you, if you go buy her album and enjoy it.

For the last month or so I have been particularly neglectful of DO. This is a combination of a few factors, including a mystery illness that has basically obliterated my ability to willfully focus on lengthy writing. In other words, I can do it, but never when I’m planning to! This has been a complete disaster for my dissertation

One way I survived is via the new poetry site that I set up in March. I got really interested in seeing how I could connect with other amateur poets on the internet and discovered the Read Write Poem community, which is sadly closed as of midnight May 1. To go out with a bang, they celebrated National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) with a challenge: everyone who completed a poem each day, posted a comment about it on the site and in 50% of the cases wrote poetry that responded to the daily prompt would be included in an anthology at the end of the month.

So, what little creative energy I’ve been able to muster has been devoted to cranking out at least a poem a day. I’m very proud of my accomplishment: 46 poems over the course of 30 days. Here is a selection of my favorites:

• Magic
• A Map of Now
• Zayde
• In the End

I encourage you to have a look at the April 2010 archive. I’m now hoping to keep posting daily (that was the original plan anyway). In the end, napowrimo was a difficult challenge. Some days the poetry came easily and other days it didn’t, and I learned a lot about persistence in the face of inevitable failure. Even if the poem flopped on a particular day, at least I could say I tried. That gave me momentum for the days when I actually did write something decent (or at least something I was happy with). I also learned how to allow my poetry to be a vehicle for healing, and I’m extraordinarily glad for that.

So, one shrimp told me that I had been bad about writing recently. And so I thought one way to encourage the process was to pretend I have an audience. Thus was born .poetry.

Comments are turned off, so if you have something you want to say, you’ll have to email me.

Also, I encourage everyone to boogey down with Long Cool Hallway, where the poetry is better.

Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking to his congregation in Montgomery, Alabama said:

I think the first reason that we should love our enemies…is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil… Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off, and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love. — “Loving Your Enemies” 17 November 1957

Paul and I agreed that my latest post on IGT would be an interesting contribution, although there was some equivocation about whether people would respond to it maturely. Well, let’s see! Check out my article White Self Indulgence which is a meditation on music, race and fandom:

I often need to rev myself up with defiant words. I like this particular version of it because the music, the words and the delivery are furious, and lurking underneath it all, I’ve got a competitive fury. Deep, I know. The problem is that Mindless Self Indulgence (MSI), the band that performs the song “Shut Me Up,” also really, really likes to throw the word “nigga” around in their lyrics. Well, the problem is that I’m not quite sure this is a problem.

My latest public piece of writing is an essay on Pasadena at Is Greater Than:

During those trips, I dreamed of Pasadena and its sprawling lawns. I dreamed of a car with fancy automated locks and windows that had ventilation in the back. I dreamed of living far enough from the freeway that I couldn’t hear it at all hours. I dreamed of bookstores and buying the occasional novel. I dreamed of the brown and cream colored buildings that said, “We are Californian, just like you.”

Is Greater Than – Pasadena.