A dream comes true....

Strangers with Candy is on Hulu.

What a wonderful way to procrastinate.

HBO x Black Folks

A second installment of The Black List is set to appear on HBO tonight. This is a simple and lovely idea with a lifespan that can continue for several installments and variations. Black professionals, artists, politicians, intellectuals...you name it, they'll interview 'em. The portraits are wonderful, too. Very nice.

I'm interested in how this series will branch out. It'd be nice to incorporate regular folks who don't live in the upper echelon of Black society. It'd be cool if they focused on a block of a Black neighborhood and interviewed the folks there.

The Black List is loooooonnnnnng, ya'll. We can't just scan the first 100 names or so.



Jill Scott bypassed the Black List interview and landed her own series on HBO.
I found this out yesterday while walking through Times Square. There's a HUGE advertisement slapped on the side of a building.

It's called The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and it's set in Botswana. I will give credit to HBO for taking on interesting and unique stories. I hope it does well.

Kate Whoriskey, Faces to Watch

It's a lil hard not to get all kinds of cocky when the director of my play gets a feature in the nytimes. The cockiness comes from one place: Whoriskey is great. And she brings a lovely intelligence and sense of play to the rehearsal room. Yay, for that.

She's a part of the "Faces to Watch" segment in the NYtimes Theatre section. (The play get two mentions. Yay...)

Whackinesssss courtesy of Chris Brown

This whole mess with Chris Brown + Rhianna is so, so, so sad. He's wrong. He needs help. And it's foul that Rhianna stayed for as long as she did, because I'm pretty sure the abuse happened in all kinds of ways. A dude doesn't flip out like that from nowhere...it leaks out in different ways.

TMZ posted a leaked image from the LAPD. Chris is a d-a-w-g, ya'll.

WTF NYpost???

This is whack.

All kinds of whack.

I read the reasoning behind this photo (crazed chimp got shot by cops; congress wrote a whacky bill like a crazed chimp???) But any way you look at it brings about a foul taste. I'd bet 20 bucks that a significant number of people didn't link those two incidents when they saw this cartoon. America's history with race is so trill (true & real) that many folks saw this cartoon and linked it to Black dudes getting shot by cops; our Black president; using the slur 'monkey' to describe Black people. So I can't believe a cartoon like this passed through several hands before final print and an outcry wasn't loud enough or ignored.

So, I'm not buying the incredibly thin link (and horrible, horrible, not funny AT ALL joke) that they use to explain the cartoon.

I'm not surprised something like this can pop up in a rather mainstream media source (hello, New Yorker cover), but this explanation is so whack.

But honestly, I can't think of any explanation that'd make this thing okay.

Get it together, ya'll. Find out more here.

I.B. rehearsals - Week 1 went thataway....

Week two of Inked Baby rehearsals starts tomorrow morning.

I finished a round of rewrites tonight. I feel like the work is going well...it's a tricky play that suffers greatly from too much of this or not enough of that, but I think it's walking the line with a certain amount of ease.

I'm traveling from New Haven to NYC ev-er-ry-day. It's all kinds of tiring, but I have to remember this whole thing is absolutely awesome. I'm a part of a production that's happening in such financially difficult times. I'm a part of a production full of committed and generous folks. So, I can't let myself focus on the commute, or the early mornings and the late nights; because, at the end of the day it's about the work. It's about seeing the work happen and learning from the process.

Collaboration is a skill.

Focus is a skill.

Presence is a skill.

Seeing the work, checking the ego is a skill.

Navigating crowds of people in Times Square on a Saturday afternoon is a skill.

Sleeping soundly is a skill.

Rewriting one play while writing the first draft of another is CRAZY.

Songs I Hum - Saadiq

I was watching a clip of soul man, songwriter Raphael Saadiq and realized his music has been a part of my life since I was a kid. I STILL know most of his songs by heart having not heard them in awhile.

If you scroll a bit along the left column, you can find a few of my favorite songs in Songs I Hum...

Saadiq has a new album out The Way I See It. Know about it.

Write on

An Obama font titled "44th President" is for sale:



Insigne Design researched text written by Obama to craft this unique font. I don't know how useful this is, but I will say it's pretty cool. He's a leftie (just like me!).

I.B. rehearsal - day 1

Just finished the first day of rehearsals for the Inked Baby production.

(Have you gotten tickets yet?? Click the graphic!)

I have a great cast. No joke. Very smart. Quick. And present.

The creative team is lovely, too.

Ahhh, theater.

Ruined - Lynn Nottage

Is great, great, great. Holy smokes. Wonderful play, great performances. Kate Whoriskey's directing was on point. Lynn knocked it out the box. Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Saidah Arrika Ekulona--the whole cast was FABULOUS.

Go see this at Manhattan Theatre Club.

You.

Yes, you.

Go see this show.

28 millimeters by JR

I posted about photographer JR's project Women are Heros back in October.

28 Millimeters is a project mounted in Kibera, Kenya. He took photographs of female residents, blew up the images to gi-normous sizes and attached them to rooftops, hillsides, and even the train that runs through Kibera. Amazing.

This is an amazing shot of the train and hillside image coming together:


Rooftop shot:


Go here to see more.

Great, great stuff...

Ooooo la la

[click le pic,yo]

Inked Baby tix on Sale!!!!

You can buy tickets now to this show. It's all a lovely lil thing.

[Click the pic for more....]

Maira Kalman - Hallelujah

A lovely piece by illustrator Maira Kalman that celebrates the inauguration.

[click the pic to read the whole piece]

okay, N.E.R.D., you win....

I like this song...I can't help it. Pharrell can't sing, but he's so sincere. And I love that he can't dance. It's endearing. The beat is hot. The top of this video is nice, too. I wish they had kept with the red-head look and expanded that concept instead of the green screen deal with the space ship....

She Wants to Move, dammit!

Wynton Marsalis on art...

A beautiful thought from Wynton Marsalis:

Inochi

More research...

This is a short video created by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. It's fairly old (I wanna say 2006...?), but I just found out about it so it's new to me...

Inochi ("life") is a series of ads starring a sculpture he made who lives in a human world. Inochi's "cuteness" is highlighted here when it's placed in the midst of "real" kids. Very interesting stuff...



I hope this all makes sense. I'm functioning on 2 hours sleep...
yay, playwriting.

Oooo la la

Not a fan of killing crocs.
Also not usually a fan of Bapes. Or Sponge Bob.
But these are niiiiiccceeee:



Pharrell is rocking these. Doesn't he have little feet? Very manageable.

[Click the pic, yo]

Lamar Peterson

I'm researching for a new play and stumbled upon the paintings of Lamar Peterson:

Mother Nature's Favorite Flower, 2004, Acrylic on paper

I like the colors. I like the mix of fantasy, race, class. The style and technique conjures an old skool representation of Black Americans. There's something very Jet Magazine circa 1970s about this work.


Holes, 2005, Acrylic on paper


Circus Shoes, 2005, Acrylic on paper,


Girl with Cat, 2004

Black folks aren't often placed in these surreal & saturated worlds. I'm tempted to categorize this mix of environments as "juxtaposition" but that label feels limiting. Maybe "defamiliarization" is a better word for it. Either way, I like it.

Travel here and here to see more. Some images NSFW....

Go here to read an interview with Peterson.