Each new year we kick off with beautiful resolutions and amazing ideas. I’ll spare you the jokes and cynicism. Since, it’s almost the end of January and this year I’m on that Beyonce smile.
Matter fact, I kicked off my day with a doses of Betty Wright, which almost felt like the sun was shining in Amsterdam. Betty Wright is a special lady. A grand vocalist, who’s twice my age, but could still wine faster to the ground than the average twenty-something girl. I always felt like Betty Wright was the ultimate artist and entrepreneur. Ahead of her time, since she remains one of the few black female musicians to have a gold record on her own vanity label. Aside of that, she’s definitely made of sassiness and wit and as much as I appreciate the new wave of electronic soul, third hand soul (post vintage) and lo-fi soul. I must underline that my legs move faster when the artist knows how to take music to new heights and Betty Wright flipped her own hit ‘Clean Up Woman’ and had me dancing at 9 in the morning.
(by Geoff J.Kim)
Googling, oogling and jumping from one photographer to article to blog is a major love of mine. A coach might classify it as ‘time wasting’, but part of my job in the real life is to explore, investigate and absorb (new) things. Sure, you can call me mademoiselle Sponge 
.
Gathering requires storing, which is why I’m semi-addicted to Pinterest, an online pinboard that helps me organize my chaos.
A few other gems on the digital planet:
> Kesselskramer redefines Yoga from a political stand (literally & figuratively).
> Starving artists becomes a bearded Baker, it’s truly the era of craftsmanship.
> Beauty by the Brazilian mixed-media illustrator Camila do Rosario
More to come as the week enfolds.
The Netherlands is currently abducted by a disgusting debate on the future of a teenager. Not a normal teenager, but an Angolan teenager who’s classified by law as an adult. In any other situation, life, or with any other ‘approved’ by the West passport, he would have celebrated his entrance to adulthood with his friends in his favorite pub in ‘backwards and serene’ . Unfortunately he’s trapped in the body of an illegal Angolan who’s caught in the web of laws, lawyers, good causes, politicians and media. Apparently a decade in the Netherlands, assimilating to degree of inheriting a soft G (characteristic of Limburgers) and adopting the society as his own doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of Dutch politics. Or let me rephrase, it’s invisible to the programme of the Christian politicians and government. Yet, the question remains. Why is this teenager taken to the unfortunate ordeal of a decade in the Netherlands only to be sent back to a place unknown to him?
It’s disgusting, disappointing and depressing to realize that the media madness is merely about +/- 75 cases. Forget the families who are held in horrible prisons to be kicked out of the country, dismiss the children born in this country who are deported right now. In the past 10 years this country has joined Denmark in an anti-human-rights campaign, which has seen cases of people being deported to burning hells like Somalia or Iraq.
I tried to ignore the Dutch society’s fear for ‘asylum seekers’, foreigners, accidental or economical refugees and multiculturalism, because ‘fear makes the wolf bigger than he is’ and ignorance, which reigns supreme in this society- only cripples us. Yet, the harsh reality is if I wouldn’t have come in the era of ‘tolerant’ Holland. I would have been Mauro or another 7-year old waiting to be kicked out of the country into the lap of Al Shabaab . The harsh reality is not the only reason why I am compassionate towards his cause, I’m also angry about the inhumane politics which has been merely about re-election than the individual case of a teenager who needs to be embraced by society whom he embraced a decade ago.
C’est tout for now.
I’m a sucker for beautiful titles. Especially, titles which celebrate curiosity, an underrated journey which takes us beings on adventures to new and different things. Which is why the beautiful animation by Laura Sicouri caught my eye.
enjoy.
A whirlwind of events changed the course of my summer. Nothing too spicy or mind blowing, but definitely adventurous. Soon, I’ll share bits and pieces of my summer ’11. A summer in which I spent enough hours in the sky listening to some promising young vocalist. Not necessary voices of the future, more like rusty travelers of today with vocal cords that reach deep into my ears and send positive vibes to my brain cells. In human speech often explained as ‘pleasurable sounds’, in Amalingo elaborated as remedy against the chaos .
Sampha is a dreamy restrained vocalist using emotions to blow his words into visual balloons. I’m a sucker for poetry in motion and he seems to be a verbal filmmaker, stretching words to tell beautiful tales.
Emeli Sandé’s voice is vintage yet suited for electronica, balancing between dubstep monster hits and anonymity, she gathered enough fans on the strength of her catchy and melodic voice. Lets hope hype turns towards her music.
Pien Feith is as Dutch as cheese, stroopwaffels and rain. Yet her sound, lyrics and stage presence exceed the average Dunglish artist (Dutch artist singing in English). If the words adventurous & awkward were dipped in a pop electronic sound, they would become synonymous with her lazy rainy Sunday afternoon music.
A note from past glorified days. These words have come to live and are dedicated my grandmother. I think I wrote this almost a decade ago. Not too bad for a young big headed Somali girl .
Women of Buhodle
Allah has called you
By your appellation
Naya
Lady
Bibi
Jump up
And beat down
The patriarchal
Worms eating you
From the inside
Swaying honeys
Your transparent
Cloth wont cover
Up body fat
And curves of
Loneliness
Don’t kill
Us
To be Adam’s
Bruised rib
Beaten by passion
Wrapped in a dirty
Niqaab
Dear mother,
Willingness
Chants in the dawn
Between
Yes and no
Later and now
When comfort found
You in silent compromise
And I wish Hope
Could challenge
Your fire to burn
Down sterilized
Dreams
And scattered pieces of you
Rotten in United Nations
Neglected camps
Where confrontation
Sleeps
In between two
Clans on the
Cushion of
A nation
Woman of Buhodle
I hear your stumbling
Cry
Because
“ drum are never beaten without a reason”
As much as I love the digital world, I was born in a semi analog world, and out of nostalgia, a tiny idea/project is born: Analog Hello, an ode to pen pals, chain letters and random postcards.
For the past few years, I have been meaning to send out postcards, letters, thoughts/ideas etc to friends, but it was a bridge too far. Handwritten postcards with beautifully painted mountains or funny naked legs or my rusty bike. Tons of ideas dance in my head, but never exit to the real world. Curiosity and a genuine desire to share, explore and write have been overwhelmed by my adult world, reality and digital randomness. Hence, the reason, that I want to explore and see where words travel and kindness goes. And by making it a collective effort, maybe then, I might be able to sustain the desire to explore and share. After, all, I’m only a minuscule dictator of my own ego. Maybe we can bring the digital and the analog together, make someone smile and share with another.
Analog Hello is simply a way of acknowledging the presence of your friends, stories and people. I would like to document the journey of postcards (of recipients) on Analog Hello for 1 year. I will send 10 people a post card next week, and each one of you recipients, sends it to another 10 people within a week. Only requirement: each recipient post a photo of their postcard on Analog Hello (tumblr for now). A three sentence reaction on the postcard, is always welcome. Let me know if you care to join via analoghello[at]gmail.com
Writing and I broke up few months ago. So, Hence, the reason I will be sharing some thoughts on writing by the wonderful author Cynthia Ozick:
That’s an interesting question. I think it’s a condition, a given; content comes later. You’re born into the condition of being an amphora; whether it’s wine or water that fills it afterward belongs to afterward. Lately I think of this given condition as a kind of curse, because there is no way out of it. What a relief it would be to have the freedom of other people! Any inborn condition of this sort is, after all, a kind of slavery. There is no choice. Nor can one choose to stop: although now that I’m no longer young, I talk to writers of my own age about this. About the relief of being allowed to stop. But I know I will never stop until the lip of limitation—that is, disability or the grave. But you ask about the beginning. The beginning was almost physiological in its ecstatic pursuits. I’m embarrassed as I say this—“ecstatic pursuits”!—but I am thinking back to the delectable excitement, the waiting-to-be-born excitement, of longing to write. I suppose it is a kind of parallel Eros.
(link: The Paris Review)
Music that makes butterflies breakdance in my stomach should always be shared. On the other hand, I will keep my resolutions to myself. After all, statistics have proven that within a month, the majority of the humans befriend their bad habits again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the child of repetition or boredom, both are battled with curiosity and some juju medicine, I inherited from my grandmother.
Curiosity might be the magic word, lets hope it ends up high as 2011′s favorite trending topic on twitter. Why? This world needs a little bit more curiosity and less mediocrity, more silence and less talking, more chaos and less routine. Well, chaos might not work for everyone. Especially, not for the zillion authors of self-help books helping ‘us’ to reorganize, declutter, our mind, stomachs, societies, and spirits.
So far 2011 has already proven to be a remarkable year. The wind of freedom is roaming through the deserts of North Africa and the Middle-east. Hopefully, it will travel down the Nile and take a left towards the Indian Ocean. After all, 20 years is a long time to be a muse to despair.
