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

Check out my latest interview with Uptown Social !

My relationship with Gil Scott-Heron is deep, complicated and old. His genius and artistry has never failed to amaze me. And whenever I saw him live, I always knew I was getting the best of what he has: no matter where in his life he, or even I for that matter, had happened to be in. I remember seeing Gil Scott-Heron play a show, I think it was at the Knitting Factory, but anyway, his telling the audience that his moms was sick, and how he left after the show and ended up standing right next to us in the train station, taking the same train uptown and my being like, damn, that's Gil Scott-Heron...Gil Scott-Heron to me is wisdom for the soul. Real life is complicated: And Gil Scott-Heron never ever tried to tell us differently. So, Blackgirl on Mars would like to express a personal welcome back to the Griot: You've been missed! Here's a taste of his new stuff! Thanks Malaika Adero for sending me this link! Here's a quote from a Village Voice interview he gave a few year...

Tree crowns look like mountain tops & sky lines look like ocean views, deflated men exit OTB's thier dreams dismantled-- yesterday's news. Mother sits next to child a wall of hostility in the air, rocked by the movement of the train, the child, she doesn't stare. Project boys rig intercom systems love heavy on thier hearts, anything just to ring her... Recycling bins sit next to Redemption Centers, Sundays the hats as varied as Africa a laundry basket so full it regurgitates it's contents, clothes spill over all over the carpet, horses are metal with the glitziest of rims sneakers land on concrete hopscotch next to garbage bins. Cardboard smelling streets subways of wet metal steam whistles constanly out of a forgotten kettle. a little brown girl sits at a shaky kitchen table the ripped plastic digs into her young skin she eats salt fish and looks out the window as a plastic clock bought on Flatbush chips away at her lifetime.

BANDIT QUEEN PRESS ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF GOOD WORKS A paperback collection of novel excerpts, short stories, memoirs, poems, song lyrics, original sketches, paintings and photographs by English-speaking women living in Denmark. GOOD WORKS can be purchased from ATHENEUM INTERNATIONAL BOOKSHOP, Nørregade 6, 1165 København K, tlf (45)33 126970. On-line orders at www.atheneum.dk FOR ENGLISH SPEAKERS phone the store or email books@atheneum.dk with their request!! Support Bandit Queen Press! “Refreshingly varied, yet with a common thread….10 women, all accomplished writers, celebrate in 10 individual voices the expatriate experience - in prose, poetry, images and song. A valuable, and enjoyable, addition to the literature of displacement and assimilation.” Heather Spears, award-winning Canadian poet “To leave one's home country can be an exhilarating and even frightening adventure that cries out for expression. Good Works puts words to the expatriate experience in all its frus...

This is just one of those songs that no matter what time in my life I play it, it could only signal one thing: I'm back!