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

Jay Braun and I go back. Way back. He is one of my best buddies and I will always love him for his sense of humor, sensitivity, ability to run around the house nude amidst unsuspecting visitors and not least of all, our favorite quote, "The Torah teaches Love, baby." (but that's another story). Among all the great memories and the stellar comraderie I am blessed to experience with him, he is an amazing artist. Here's one of his joints. Enjoy! farvel, the lab

A life honestly lived is capricious. Life cannot be controlled-- no matter the institutions constructed around us in an effort to do so. No, life is unpredictable and therein is where all the pleasure and the pain can be found. Both feelings--pleasure and pain--and all those in between, are what must be navigated when one is alive. There are no shortcuts, no cheating, no matter how much of a semblance of stability you have constructed. Anyway, right now I'm on the positive receiving end of this dichotomy (although, dichotomy is such a bad word, cause it suggests duality, and in reality, it is much more than that, but I like using dichotomy, cause it shows that I have read Kuhn, and that was my attempt at having a sense of humor...) But back to the subject: Life is great right now and I am experiencing that fleeting feeling called happiness and I am enjoying every second of it while it pulls up a chair and warms my soul... Friday I was supposed to take my 7th graders to The Royal Li...

Although the heart is Empty I will fill the page: Emotional Warrior Slay that heart for me, I’ve been wounded in love I wanna see that Heart bleed. Emotional Warrior Come, come Set my heart free I feel so Weary and trapped I don’t wanna be me Emtional Warrior Take this pain from me Take it & Toss it Into the wide Empty Sea. Emotional Warrior Give me some of your strength Give power & faith Put life Back into breath Emotional warrior Come Please come & rescue me I’m in the middle of Battle A victory I can not see Emotional warrior Gather my pieces of self Put me back together A wholeness That is fed. Emotional warrior Make a fighter out of me Take all my little losses And turn them to victory. Emotional Warrior Help me Help me break free Break away forever Break break Away from me.

The Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest) is a cultural roadshow that tours Palestine annually. Last year novelist and PULSE coeditor Robin Yassin-Kassab was a featured participant alongside other well-known writers like Suheir Hammad and Andrew O’Hagan. PalFest combats one of the most negative effects of Israel’s continued occupation of Palestine: the isolation of the Palestinian people. In the following interview, PalFest creative producer Omar Robert Hamilton discusses PalFest’s origins and what they have planned for the future. (The creators of Palfest are currently working on their upcoming 2010 roadshow and are expected to release the names of this year’s participants in April. In the meantime be sure to check out their website and become a fan of them on Facebook for regular updates.) Jasmin Ramsey (JR): How did PalFest begin? Omar Robert Hamilton (ORH): Ahdaf Soueif and Brigid Keenan were talking — as they almost always do — about what they could do to help Palest...

I love it. I really like your your style, the way you put words and sentences together. It's rhythmic and satisfying. Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck, Jimmy Smith, Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald were burned into my brain on the jazz side; everything from Johnny Cash and Hank Williams and Sly and the Family Stone and Al Green and Bill Withers and Stevie Wonder and The Rolling Stones and The Beatles and Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits and Van Morrison and Los Lobos and Bruce Springsteen and Willie Dixon and Howlin Wolf and The Clash, and the Ramones and The Pretenders everywhere else, and a lot more. I've lived in a lot of places as well - New Orleans, New York, Quebec, Austin, U.S.V.I, Baltimore, etc. I am still looking for the road that will take me home. Keep writing, I find it delicious.

The remix, in this commercial, to this song is dope. The city in the tv commercial is Lisbon (which I LOVE), and either way, thanks Priscilla for helping me find it. Here is the whole remixed song here's the band, the cool hearts' myspace site http://www.myspace.com/thecoolhearts And thanks to the guy who wrote this on a discussion forum: I haven't laughed this hard in a LONG time: "I just thought of this song for some reason, but I can't remember anything about what commercial it was in...in fact I'm not even 100% sure I heard it in a commercial. If it makes any difference I pretty much only watch FOX, NBC, and ABC...and usually just on Hulu. Anyway, the song is electronic/techno-ish and I'm pretty sure there are no words. I don't really know how to describe it but it starts off quieter and progressively gets pretty loud. I think it's probably in a car commercial, again I don't really know. I know this is really vague but now this song just pop...

photo: Karen R. Good

Blackgirl… You are … (choose only one) happy sad employed Unemployed Married Single Single mother A whore Virginal Uptight Happy Depressed Angry A dyke Lonely A churchgirl A party girl Laying in the arms of your lover Lonely Starving in Africa Eating fast food Working in an office Artist Teacher Taking your first trip to Europe Fat Skinny Beautiful Ugly Overrated Underrated Scheming A Buddhist A racist A hippie… A criminal Struggling… Earning… Biting.. misunderstood misrepresented limited expanded none of the above... Blackgirl you are (choose one) Fed up.

The problem with reaching for the stars is that you miss your footing and forget to look at the flowers you're so busy trampling upon. Sometimes you think it is all THERE and actually, it is all HERE. You got it, no one else can give it to you, no one else can take it from you. Clean and simple. Last Monday I came home from work. My son was at his dad's and I figured I'd do nothing. I switched the television on and saw the most incredible BBC documentary entitled Heroes and Villains --the Hernán Cortés part. I managed to miss the first three quarters of it, but got the last part. The last scene was brilliant. He's standing there, with his "native lover" at his side. He's looking at the destruction 600 Europeans managed to make on an entire civilization (guns, germs and genocide) and he laments, "But it was all so beautiful before." To which the woman at his side remarks, "Yes, but it was not yours before. Now it is." My 38th birthday is...

i am sorry i could not catch you while i was f a l l i n g.

Things are going unbelievably well professionally. The ideas are coming out my nose, the inspiration is there, the artistic fellowship and support in response to my work has stepped forward. I can't tell you how many times I have been tempted to kill this blog. But I don't. I keep on keeping on despite the fact that I wonder why I do it. But whenever I ask myself that question, the answer is always loud and clear: Because I have to. I am here and these are my experiences. My desire is not only to give voice to my experiences, but to those around me. Most of the time I walk around Copenhagen feeling that nobody gets me, that I am speaking another language (!). But on closer inspection I realize, once again, that I am wrong. Some people do get me, understand my language and what I do. And what do I do? I write. I know that most of the time, I do not present myself as a writer. The question, "what do you do?" has been one I have wrestled with all my grown-up life. I do ...