blackgirl on mars: notes on a life in copenhagen (or how my alienation brings me closer to people).

“QUILOMBO COUNTRY,” New Documentary about Black Rebel Villages of Brazil, In Debut Run at the Pioneer Theater in NYC, September 19-25, 2008 – Narrated by Public Enemy’s Chuck D WHAT: Debut run of “Quilombo Country” WHEN: Fri, Sept 19 – Thurs, Sept 25, 2008. Most shows at 7 pm. WHERE: Pioneer Theater, Ave. A & 3rd Street, NYC PLUS: Q&A with director Leonard Abrams after Fri & Sat shows. CONTACT: Leonard Abrams at 212-260-7540, leonard@quilombofilm.com or Marjorie Sweeney Publicity at marjorie.sweeney@mac.com "Quilombo Country," the award-winning documentary about Brazilian villages founded by escaped and rebel slaves, will have its premiere theatrical run at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater from Friday, September 19th to Thursday, September 25th every evening at 7 pm. The film is narrated by Chuck D, the legendary poet, media commentator and leader of the iconic hip hop band Public Enemy. The Pioneer Theater is locat...

I've uploaded the conference on podOmatic, so give a listen... http://blackgirlonmars.podOmatic.com/rss2.xml http://blackgirlonmars.podOmatic.com farvel, the lab

UltravioletUnderground: Featured Friend: Blackgirl On Mars

Yankee Girl I come from a family of travelers. By the time I was six, I had already traveled at least twice, on my own, to Trinidad and back to Brooklyn. As drivers licenses are an integral part of any suburbanite’s existence, so is the passport to my Caribbean family where migrating to the U.S. promised each and every one of us an opportunity otherwise seemingly denied in a country referred to as “home” but once left, would never to be lived in, again. My grandmother, Gertrude Balbirsingh was a pioneer in my family. She dresses like Queen Elisabeth II for Sunday Mass. She smells like ginger and dinner mints. She has liver spots all over her hands which, as a child, I traced with my little brown fingers, imagining them to be islands of chocolate. Thoughts of Mummy Gertrude always make my heart gurgle like a spring newly sprung to life on parch, cracked soil. See, during the 70s the U.S. was giving out green cards to Caribbean folk for jobs in the service industry. My grandmother,...

I can’t remember the first time I met my sister. All I know was she was older than me & I thought that she was cute. She wore black-rimmed glasses that pinched the end of her nose. She had two ponytails that constantly came undone (I can not remember my mother ever doing her hair). My sister and I spent a lot of time together in a stale, dark bedroom we shared with our brother. We weren’t really encouraged to have friends or to go out. Our dark, airless, messy chaotic room full of hand-me -downs and broken toys became an island, sitting in the wake of a possible tsunami. My mother was a defective shelter that always faltered when you needed it most. She buckled whenever the wave crashed in on our backs, thick leather with metal that left marks on the skin but worst of all, confusion in our souls. Copenhagen, 2006

I am sitting here, in a hospital room, holding my dying father’s hand. There was a time when I feared it. It could, his hands, reign terror on any of his children or, when its fingers played across the keys of the Hammond, belt out the most profound array of molasses-like notes any person would glow to. His face is round like the moon, and sprinkled with the minutest moles across his face. His nose is round at the end, without a bridge in that space between his eyes and the tip of his nose. His eyes are small: chinky we called them and as he slept, with his hand in mine, I could not help but ponder, How did he conceive me when he could never, I think, in his wildest dreams ever conceive of me? His snoring becomes a bit more pronounced and I rub my thumb against the skin of his hand. He flinches a bit. When was the last time someone touched him with the taste of love on her fingertips? I try to envision my father as a little boy. “Dolly” his mother called him, because she believ...

XXXX sent you a message. -------------------- Re: How have you been? Lab, you continually remind me that anything is possible. Thank you for entering my life. Your brilliance and beauty remind me that we are not products of our experiences. Far from it. If only we would have the audacity to leave the prisons of our minds and realize how easily we could transcend all the painful situations that we once thought defined us. I no longer choose to define myself by struggle. It was fun while it lasted. Certainly addictive (there is a great, perverse beauty in pain and angst, is there not?) But I was tired of hurting all the time. And once the searing pain of living had eased, I actually realized I was bored. Ridiculously bored without the angst to entertain me, to thrill me, to motivate me. I look at you as a messenger, as a warrior ushering a new spirit of honesty and revelation to the human experience. Only by acknowledging our experiences can we begin to transcend them. Your writing is a ...

Today was the first ever annual Black Women in Denmark Picnic! Thankfully, the weather held up and we were able to talk about everything from Danish Immigration Laws to the implementation of Apartheid in South Africa (I really need to read more about that). The mood was positive and inspirational and in the end, I couldn't have asked to be surrounded by a more dynamic group of women. So hats off to all you fierce women that I am lucky enough to know, and I look forward to many more gatherings here in Denmark & throughout Europe! Special thanks to Adrianne for coming down here from Sweden, Clarice, Priscilla, Doreen, Paulette and Nize for their contributions toward making this event a success!

My summer was wrought with realities from which I am still reeling...going home always seem to rip at the paper thin semblance of sanity you thought you had so artfully put together. I'm sure you know what I mean...I apologize for the silence... the lab