This Election is About You

People gathered outside INVESCO Stadium Thursday night

Watching Obama’s acceptance speech last night recalled the feelings of pride and excitement I had watching the tallying of votes come in for the Iowa Primary last Spring. The Democratic National Convention has been a treat to watch this week with my parents who have seen firsthand how far our nation has come since they were married in the Sixties.

Speaking clearly and directly Barack Obama looked like he was giving a State of the Union Address last night laying out what he will do once elected as President. Joe Biden is the right choice for Vice President given his extensive Foreign Policy experience and commitment to his family and country. He cares about the outcome of the Iraq War because his son Beau is an enlisted Officer who is going there in the coming months.

I will be paying close attention to the upcoming Debates between the two Presidential candidates this Fall. Looking forward to this November 4th election, I feel inspired especially after seeing all of the people in the INVESCO stadium in Denver last night, tens of thousands and people across the country watching from home who have come together and believe in the American Dream and that Change is possible.

Cook.

I’m home this week! I made this pasta and chicken dinner last night…

This week

August 25-28, Denver

I was moved by the speeches of Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama last night. I’m watching today (Tuesday), awaiting Senator Clinton’s speech which I hope will be another seminal event continuing to move the Democratic party in a positive direction.

Various roads and routes

I like how frenetically descriptive On the Road is. The protagonist Sal starts out for Chicago on a trip cross country and ends up stranded in Bear Mountain before heading back to the New York City to doggedly start over.

“‘If you want to go to Chicago you’d do better going across the Holland Tunnel in New York and head for Pittsburgh,’ and I knew he was right. It was my dream that screwed up, the stupid hearthside idea that it would be wonderful to follow one great red line across America instead of trying various roads and routes…I walked down the river…and me swearing for all time and the money I wasted, and telling myself, I wanted to go west and here I’ve been all day and into the night going up and down, north and south like something that can’t get started. And I swore I’d be in Chicago tomorrow, and made sure of that, taking a bus to Chicago, spending most of my money, and I didn’t give a damn, just as long as I’d be in Chicago tomorrow.” (11, Kerouac)

Here are some photos from today:

Jack Kerouac:Original Hipster

Jack Kerouac

I stumbled on an exhibit at the New York Public Library this Spring which caught my attention but only recently started reading Paul Maher Jr.’s biography Jack Kerouac’s American Journey.

So far I’ve been struck by how intensely driven and egotistical Kerouac appears to have been. However imperfect he was, “Kerouac sought to apply to himself a new manifesto: ‘Let’s have another man who lives his life in the world, complete, and also writes great books.’” (Maher, 108)

His dream of being a great writer like Mark Twain was moving him further away from ’sacrificing life for art’ while he identified with the alienated fringe of society consisting of the down and out. (Maher, 108) Apparently his writing was especially influenced by Bebop music, from which he “later incorporated the stylistic elements of its spontaneity and free form into his writing.” Bebop was associated with drugs and therefore had a stigma and underground quality compared to the popular Jazz music of the Fifties. (Maher, 46)

I was somewhat surprised to find that Kerouac was drawn to St Thérèse de Lisieux especially since he seemed to have his doubts about Catholicism, “though Kerouac was no atheist, he was anti-clerical like his father and questioned the church’s authority over its flock.” (Maher, 32) I read her autobiography last summer and was amused by her stories. I liked her approach to religion realized through small gestures of love.

I’m looking forward to reading his book On the Road.

Tableaux Vivants

Photos from home. Enjoy ( :

Nikia Phoenix: Interview with the Model and Writer

I love reading Nikia Phoenix’s blog Model Liberation which I found recently after seeing a post at the blog Make Fetch Happen . You may recognize her from a music video for Cut Chemist feat. Hymnal, “What’s the Altitude.”

Nikia Phoenix

She was kind to give me an interview this week providing genuine insight on the fashion industry from her perspective as a Model:

What do you do as a Model and what do you love about it?

Being a model isn’t just about posing for pictures and walking down the runway, I think it’s a lifestyle. You have to know how to be a good business woman and market yourself. Modeling forces me to take care of my body instead of abusing it. I love the rush I get before the fashion show. I love being on a photo shoot and knowing when you’ve just taken the perfect picture. And I love when people recognize me from something, and they like what I did.

Do you think the “Black Issue” for Italian Vogue Magazine is a marker for progress today?

I’m trying not to be a pessimist, but the Italian Vogue makes me feel like black models are just novelties. Yes, we’re special, but you can use us in your normal fashion spreads too. I think Italian Vogue barely skimmed the surface. The magazine only used well-known black models, but what about the rest of us?

What obstacles have you experienced as a Model in the fashion industry?

I’ve definitely seen racial barriers in this industry. I’ve been rejected from projects and agencies because their black quota had already been met. I’ve heard casting directors tell my agent not to send any ethnic models to a casting. I’m either not tall enough, not skinny enough, I’ve got too many freckles…the list goes on. I used to take it personally, but I just shake it off now. I don’t want to work with someone if they don’t genuinely want to work with me.

How have your experiences helped you succeed?

My agent and I make very calculated moves, and she really believes in me. I’ve learned to be honest with myself and to go after what I want. I’m too experienced to have someone waste my time. I lived a completely different life before I started modeling, and life will go one after I stop modeling. I don’t have tunnel vision like some girls.

If you became a Designer what would you create?

I actually studied fashion design for a bit. I’m a soft knit girl. I like things that are comfortable and cute. I also like something that’s versatile and you can breathe in it. I’m sure I can dig up a sketch to show you but it’s nothing to brag about. I believe in effortless beauty and style.

What advice would you give young women of color?

I wanted to model when I was younger, but kept hitting roadblocks. I prayed and asked God to show me that this is what I needed to be doing. He answered over and over again. People, photographers, and designers kept asking me to model for them or telling me that I needed to model. So, I stuck with it. Basically, persevere and you will triumph. I know it’s hard, I’ve been there and I’m still there. But you can’t give up, because then you’ll always think “what if.” If God blessed you with something, don’t waste it.

Sunday Morning

Walking with my Boyfriend today I saw this man. His socks match the chairs and shirt match his flower pots.

New

These are updated sites I recommend you check out when you get a chance:

Graphic Designer Jason Tavarez whose work you can see at http://www.jasontavarez.com/

I also enjoy listening to this fashion photographer with a quirky perspective and voice and I’m excited for the Museum of Arts and Design at 2nd Columbus Circle to open in September 2008.

Édouard Glissant and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

Two quotes resonated with me recently:

“A steadfast persistence in conceiving and speaking, without apology, one’s own reality is the first step into the world.”_ Édouard Glissant (Black Salt, 12)

“But a writer, any writer, has only one recourse: himself, those images that often flit across the mind, those mental reflections of the world around. The chemistry of imagination transforms the quantity of these different images, reflections, thoughts, pictures, sounds, feelings, sights, tastes, all the sense impressions, into a coalescence of a qualitatively different but unified image or sets of images of reality.”_Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (Decolonising the Mind, 80)

Poet Édouard Glissant a Martinican and Novelist and Playwright Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o a Kenyan are both writers who have purposefully used their languages as modes of reflection and self expression. For example, Édouard Glissant writes French in a way that makes it his own while Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o began writing in his mother tongue Gĩkũyũ as opposed to English. In my view their quotes indicate that through writing anyone can learn to alter their own thinking and then behavior in the world.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o also wrote that:

“The reception of a given work of art is part of the work itself; or rather the reception (or consumption!) of the work completes the whole creative process involving that particular object.” (Decolonising the Mind, 82)

A photo I took a few years ago of the shore of Mumbai after the tide pulled the water away.

Writing for consumption therefore creates an opportunity for a rejection or a renewal of thought for more than one person and opportunity to create change in a community.