Oni Faida Lampley: 1959-2008

From the New Dramatists site:

"Oni Faida was raised in Oklahoma City. A lot of her work grows out of the comedy and the conflicts of growing up Black in the Midwest in the 70’s. She's especially interested in taking a machete to the cliché of the "Strong Black Woman" (SBW), to expose the physical and spiritual exhaustion, the self-denigration, and authentic triumph underneath. Through it all, Lampley celebrates the spirit, language, and courage of people who are fighting for love, and survival."

I was blessed enough to have playwright and actor Oni Faida mentor me when I was a Van Lier Fellow at New Dramatists. Wonderful, generous spirit. Greater writer. She will be missed. Visit her memorial site here.

Songs I Hum - update

New songs! Yay!

Most of the songs in the list are selections I heard while in Africa. R&B music from the 90s is alive and well in the motherland, ya'll.

I've been humming Rick James' "You and I" for almost a week. I didn't hear him in Africa, but I'm sure folks appreciate him just as much as Christopher Williams.

Naija Boy

Okay, so all kinds of elements pop up & out in this video. It's a parody (I hope) but it addresses the relationship(s) between Africans, African-Americans, Black Americans, hiphop, and, of course, what white folks do with all of it.

It's gotten over 2 million hits on you tube:



Source: Annansi.com

Playin with your Sweeney

Medicom Toy will release this set in October. I'm excited to see musical theater creeping into the action figure world.

Source:Hypebeast.com

Picture an Africa...

I'm working on the 1st draft of my Africa Trilogy contribution (see left column for more info) and have grown hyper-aware of the advertisements about Africa that appear in American magazines and newspapers. It seems that Bono is a popular image as well as text arranged in the shape of the continent. Seeing these ads again and again makes me think there's a shortage of creativity when doing an awareness ad, or maybe the agencies are hip to America's lack of knowledge/tolerance regarding the issues; maybe a market survey revealed we can only take texts and pictures of U2 asking us to donate money.

It feels particularly ridiculous when I consider the poster book Revolucion!: Cuban Poster Art that includes powerful and creative images of socialist and cultural issues in Cuba during the 60s.

I came across the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America posters:







Source: Art of Cuba

If agencies can come up with eye-catching Apple and Jordan ads, why not give me same for the things that matter??

And the Obama "hope" poster ain't enuff, man.

Francoy

On a quiet train ride from NYC I did a stick-figure comic.

It stars a lil' known badass named Francoy:

Weekend rap-up

I traveled to DC this weekend for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. My play Inked Baby received a 2nd place nod for the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award. Every winner got some sweet swag this year:

-One year membership to the Playwrights' Center and the Dramatists Guild of America
-One year subscription to Script magazine
-AND a copy of Final Draft scriptwriting software(!!!!)

I won the 1st place prize a few years ago and these additional perks were not included. I was excited to win then and now, and I'm also excited to know that the festival is making connections with organizations and companies.

Oh and FYI:



I don't know the history behind this b-ball tournament, but I thought this was so ridiculous. One country plays against the world???

Speaking of ridiculous-ness the Phoenix Suns let the Spurs come back from a 19-point deficit to walk away with a win in yesterday's playoff game. WTF!!!

This Monday marks the beginning of my Af. Tril first draft. I'm doing an extended bakeoff with three other playwrights.

What's a "bakeoff"?

Paula Vogel started it with a group of other playwrights while living in NYC back in the day. Each writer tosses in an ingredient (a secret, limmerick, wooden leg, etc); everyone gets 24-hours to write the play. You can daydream, research, outline all you want, but as soon as you type the first stage direction or character name, you got 24-hours to get it done.

We're giving ourselves a week to make it happen. For three of us, this is a reunion. I posted our first bakeoff 2 years ago. Holy smokes time flew.

Hank Willis Thomas

Thomas' photographs examine, among other things, advertising geared towards Black folks. A very interesting body of work.

[click the pic]

The Big Pic

I've been in the library for almost 8 hours. Lots of reading, googling, email writing, and outlining.

While researching for a new play, I came across Kate Bingaman-Burt's blog. She documents one (or some) item(s) she purchased, representing each purchase in an ink drawing. She's a funny writer.

Also while chilling in research land I read a great essay, New Commodities, New Consumers: Selling Blackness in a Global Marketplace, by sociology professor Patricia Hill-Collins. I read her book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment when I was a senior in high school. I have to find that copy and post pictures of the pages so you can see how I underlined and highlighted almost every line in the book because it captured the TRUTH in an accessible way.

Her writing, her thoughts, her approach continues to teach me how to tackle issues in my plays.

OMG

[Click the pic for more]

Shake yr groove thang

Yesterday we got a bundle of nice weather that made me wiggle and jump around with glee (in the privacy of my back yard, of course). That burst of spring time energy felt good. Felt great.

I decided to start my get-yr-ass-up-and-bust-a-move drive to raise awareness of my inactivity and long hours spent banging away on my keyboard. The sedentary lifestyle ain't good for the soul (or the hips).

The task at hand: to work out for as cheaply as possible--free is even better.

Let's do it.

Richard talks about Africa

I'm going through a mound of research before I write my play for the Africa Trilogy project. I remembered this bit from back in the day and decided to revisit it.

NSFW, unless you wear headphones.
This is from a stand up routine in 1984.

click, click

Look out [insert name of famous photojournalist here]!

An article on aids-freeworld.org features a photo taken by yours truly. :)

Dem Kicks

Oh la la.



[click the pic to find out more]

Abandoned Library

oh man.
[click the pic to see more]

link via coudal.com

Kansas Jayhawks grunt to the finals

I talk a lot of trash about Kansas teams. I grew up watching the Royals, Chiefs, Jayhawks, and Wildcats lose more big games than win 'em, so I always get a warm fuzzy feeling when da boys do good.

[Click the pic to read about the win]

Motivation

electronic mail

my gmail is a mess.

So cra, who went to Africa with you?

Liesl setting up her camera for some shots.


Binyavanga on the phone handling business while riding on a boat.


Anurita on the phone handling business while standing on dry land.


Ross is the brains behind the Africa Trilogy project. He's also very cool dude.

Kigali, Rwanda

Jet lag has temporarily made me a morning person.

It's time to offer up another batch of pics!

As you know, we drove from Kabale, Uganda to Kigali Rwanda. The five of us crossed the border by foot to get an entry stamp, and I have to say it was a chilling experience. I never felt any real danger, but the potential that something, anything could happen was off the charts.

Everyone was silent as we zoomed away from the border toward Kigali.


Towards the city.



We arrive at our hotel.
I was a fan of the funky 1970s font on the van.


View of the city.


We visited La Benevolencija and met with (l to r) Johan Deflander, Head of Missions, and Albert Nzamukwereka, Program Coordinator.

A snippet of text from their website that explains the organization :

Radio Benevolencija HTF (Radio Benevolencija) is a Dutch humanitarian multi-media production NGO that uses broadcast campaigns, events and grassroots activities to encourage people to become active bystanders in the face of incitement to violence.

In other words, mass movements towards violence and hatred might be stopped if people are given the resources and tools to know when they're being manipulated and ask questions before it's too late.

La Benevolencija produces, among other things, a popular radio soap opera. Albert used the term "edu-tainment" to describe how they incorporate anti-hatred and anti-violent messages in the story lines. They were generous enough to give us a few scripts. I'm excited to read them. It was clear from our meeting that they take great care in writing each script and building the plot. Lots of hard and good work. Another example of drama/arts being used to make a difference. Very inspiring.

After our meeting with Albert and Johan we went to the Kigali genocide memorial.


Tombs where 258,000 bodies are buried.


A memorial wall that's a work in progress.



A tomb and the city in the distance.


Rocks lined the path. The sound and feel of them under my feet made me think of bones.


Steps leading to the front courtyard.

We couldn't take pictures inside the museum. Even if they did allow it, I wouldn't do it out of respect.

Needless to say, this was very intense experience.

Kigali street scenes

I feel like...



I need to write captions....



to break up the steady stream of....



pictures.