You've got to dig to dig it, you dig?
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
The Good Pervert by David Velasco (Harpers)
“The newspapers, even if they get the facts right, will get the story wrong.”
Colonisation had sought to exclude the natives from politics, and Africans were viewed as objects that could be destroyed, animals who should be trained or children that needed firm leadership. The essence of neocolonialism was to perpetuate this habit: the African, forever immature, must not venture into politics.
The Cameroon war : a history of French neocolonialism in Africa / by Thomas Deltombe, Jacob Tatsitsa and Manuel Domergue ; translated by David Broder.
Africa Restored (Cheryl as Cleopatra), 2003-ongoing
Notably, Marshall adds new elements each time the sculpture goes on view, including for this current presentation. Thus, the work can be seen as an unfinished, living sculpture—open to continued revision by the artist. (Art Institute of Chicago)
Edwidge Danticat joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Two Men Arrive in a Village,” by Zadie Smith. (New Yorker) (PRX)
Sarah Bejerano. Cargo. Rialta.
Casi al final del prefacio de su Atlas de islas remotas, Judith Schalansky escribe: Los cartógrafos deberían reivindicar su oficio como un verdadero arte poético y los atlas como un género literario de belleza máxima; en definitiva, su arte es digno merecedor de la primera denominación que recibieron los mapas: Theatrum orbis terrarum [Teatro del mundo]. Si hubiera un atlas del mundo en la fotografía cubana, sería la obra de Sarah Bejerano. Si hubiera un atlas de la poesía en la fotografía cubana, sería la obra de Sarah Bejerano:
—¿Hay música en tus fotos?
—Hay música en mi cabeza, todo el tiempo. No puedo vivir sin música. Normalmente organizo mi vida por canciones, y mis fotos son lo mismo. Todas las series que hago tienen bandas sonoras, que muchas veces se conforman a la hora de realizarlas y otras viene cuando las visualizo posteriormente. No podría enmarcarlas en un género musical u otro, porque mis listas de reproducciones van desde Irakere hasta Rammstein, desde Vivaldi hasta Elvis Manuel.
—¿Crees en Dios?
—No, ¡por Dios!
“Of course, I am not K, but I find myself uncannily identified with his predicament. For in the letter you have sent you and your offices have informed me only that you have sent “a file or report related to alleged antisemitic incidents” that includes my name. Two aspects of this communication stand out to anyone who has read Kafka’s work. The first is that you imply, without stating it, that I have been accused of antisemitism or that my name is associated with an incident of that kind. But you are also actually more careful since you say that the incident of antisemitic harassment or discrimination is “alleged,” which means simply that the allegation was neither reviewed nor adjudicated but left to stand on its own.”
Judith Butler to David Robinson, in response to the University of California, Berkeley informing 160 students, faculty, and staff that files containing their names were forwarded to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in connection to its investigation of antisemitism on college and university campuses. via The Nation.
Aquí confluimos hacia la única estrella.
Volquémonos amado mío,
dejemos caer los remos
hasta donde la noche no existe.
Here we converge toward the only star.
Let’s fall in, love of mine,
let’s drop our oars
down to where night doesn’t exist.
Lacao, Rosabetty Muñoz, translated By Claudia Nuñez de Ibieta