In June of 1980 my manuscript submission had won me a place in the School of Visual Arts pilot program of study with writer/composer Paul Bowles in Tangier, Morocco. At the time of my acceptance to the program I was working as a regional reporter at … [Read more...]
Vast Regions from Nowhere: Paul Bowles, Unfathered Authors, Mother-Bonded Sons
“I think that having spent my life trying to hide everything from everyone, I’ve ended up by no longer being able to find many things myself. Seriously.” —Paul Bowles, 1975 The Core “Other people’s indifference is the only horror.” —Paul Bowles, … [Read more...]
An interview with Michael Guerin of the Diartspora Gallery
Michael Guerin is the owner of the Diartspora Gallery, a private art collection focusing upon African-American art, and the art of the African diaspora. Collected over a period of over 20 years, the collection includes many pieces by self-taught and … [Read more...]
Calling on Paul Bowles: Tangier, Morocco, August 1979
Calling on Paul Bowles Tangier, Morocco, August 1979 ”There it is,” someone says, and in the darkness, in the distance, you can see Tangier sprawled across several hills, a white city illuminated by electric lights and veiled by a thin fog. … [Read more...]
(Music Review) IR 29.1: New Generation Dub
One of the biggest crimes committed by the music industry has been their ability to co-opt, dilute and turn even the most radical of genres into something safe for mass consumption. Disco, punk and rap have all been taken and watered down so they would … [Read more...]
Movie Review – Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom
As a kid in the 1960s, I remember asking my mom why we didn't ever have Granny Smith apples in the house. She replied that she refused to buy anything from South Africa because of what the government did to its people. As the years passed and I became … [Read more...]
(Music Review) Music of the Sahara: Tinariwen’s new album Emmaar
In the early 1960s the creation of artificial borders in the trackless wastes of the Sahara desert might have been cause for celebration among the inhabitants of the newly created countries. However, the throwing off of colonial masters in Niger, Mali, … [Read more...]
Book Review – IR 30: Indigenous Visions In Dub
I guess it's appropriate that blockades have gone up again on the Tyndengia Mohawk reservation in South Eastern Ontario Canada as I begin to write this review. Here in Canada the First Nations people are usually out of sight and out of mind unless they … [Read more...]
(Movie Review) Come Back Africa: The Films of Lionel Rogosin, Volume ll
Documentary movies always seem to get short shrift. For too many people there the things people tell them to watch at school so they will learn something. Growing up on a diet of talking heads sitting around talking about subjects you're not really … [Read more...]
(Music Review) Soutak by Aziza Brahim
At first glance the Sahara Desert of North West Africa seems like one of the most inhospitable places on the face of the earth. Movies, and other Western media, usually show us images of trackless wastes, endless miles of sand dunes dotted with the … [Read more...]
Finding Faces: A Century of African-American Portraiture in Philadelphia, Feb. 2014
First-Time Showing of Private Collection of Portraits by and of African- Americans Debuts as Part of Black History Month "Finding Faces: A Century of African-American Portraiture," is a selection of artworks that will debut at the University City Arts … [Read more...]
Music Review – Tartit With Imharhan – Live from the Sahara
When the annual Festival Au Desert in Northern Mali was cancelled in 2013 due to the territory's occupation by terrorist organizations intent on imposing a very narrow definition of Islamic rule, organizers of the Festival were determined, if the world … [Read more...]