Zimbabwe has been on my mind quite a bit recently. I sincerely hope that peace, stability, and prosperity can be brought to that nation. I was listening to Bob Marley's song Zimbabwe the other day just to give myself a little hope followed by a listening to his song Africa Unite.
To bolster more hope concerning Zimbabwe and to put some positive energy in the air regarding the country, I was happy to see a flyer at the Flying Star on Silver today announcing an upcoming ABQ concert that will feature a local band I discovered last summer called Wagogo. I previously blogged about Wagogo here. Wagogo is a locally based band here in Albuquerque that delves into the music of Zimbabwe, featuring lyrics in Shona and prominent use of the mbira which is so much a part of music from Zimbabwe. Wagogo will be hosting a performance in ABQ on SUNDAY, JUNE 8, 2-6 PM along with Mawungira Enharira, a musical group directly from Zimbabwe at the VSA/North 4th Theater, 4904 Fourth Street NW. More info can be gleaned here.
This should be an uplifting show!
While drifting in and out of sleep this afternoon I was listening to a lot of KUNM. I was shocked and appalled at the broadcast from Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!. The broadcast was titled:
Memorial Day Special…Winter Soldier on the Hill: War Vets Testify Before Congress
... the testimonies were very disturbing and put my Memorial day in perspective.
Nonetheless I was happy to hear an interview on KUNM this afternoon with Charles W. Lowery II,New Mexico Jazz Workshop. The NM Jazz Workshop has a very exciting summer music series of which I plan to attend as many events as my budget will allow. I do know that this Friday I will check out the inaugural concert in the Salsa Under the StarsChino Espinoza Y Los Dueños Del Son.
More info on the entire New Mexico Jazz Workshop series can be found here.
who is the Executive Director of the portion of the summer music series. Friday's show will feature a salsa band from Los Angeles,I pay attention to a great deal of information on the Internet but as this blog has shown I've been starting to focus and narrow the scope of my information intake or what some would call my "media diet". I do NOT own a television and the only time I really watch TV is when I go to bars to watch basketball or the occasional baseball game. I must admit I do miss watching things like major tennis tournaments from start to finish, C-Span, and original HBO programming. However NO television is good television in my opinion. I do spend a lot of time listening to public radio and using the Internet audio and visual resources for entertainment as well as information.
The past few weeks I've been devoted to refining my approach to the Internet and making productive use of my time while online. My daily online routine is to log on to Gmail. I check personal messages, pay attention to Google Alerts, browse news and info from various subscription services, and then respond or write any pertinent messages. After checking Gmail I move on to the days news by visiting the New York Times site and the BBC World News site. As the nature of my work involves financial news I then will visit at least the home pages of Yahoo Finance, Business Week, and Fortune.
Another way of staying current with the zeitgeist of the Internet and the currents in the blogosphere is to log onto Twitter and FriendFeed. Both of these services have been quite awesome ways of connecting and sharing with others who share my interests in technology, media, communications, law and education. I've also just discovered a great web application called Snackr that I have used to supplement my Google Reader feeds. I now feel as if I am getting the concept of information overload under control and hope to use the information I am gathering and interacting with for progress and prosperity.
I am going to use this space of my blog to outline my media diet and I hope to stick it to with a good deal of exactitude over the next few months and keep information overload at bay.
News - New York Times, BBC News, Original Signal, Latino USA
Financial News - Yahoo Finance, Business Week, Fortune, Venture Beat, Marketplace
Technology -Silicon Valley Insider, All Things D, MIT Technology Review, Ars Technica
Education/Libraries - Library Journal Academic Newswire, The Wired Campus (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Media/Commnications/Internet and Society - Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Center for Internet and Society, Read Write Web, Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Advertising Age, On the Media, Paid Content
Law - Denise Howell, Tim Wu, Lawrence Lessig, John Palfrey, Wendy Seltzer
I just love radio and audio broadcast. Thanks to the Internet I am able to listen to public radio from all over the world and through podcasting I am able to listen to all types of information from all sorts of sources. Today I discovered "The Sound of Young America" from PRI (Public Radio International) broadcast over WNYC. This unique show bills itself as the “anti-Prairie Home Companion.” Now I still find "Prairie Home Companion" to be entertaining but I am pretty much over listening to it on a regular basis so it's great to find "The Sound of Young America". As I type this post I'm listening to an archived edition of the show which features an interview with one of my favorite musical groups the Lifesavas. Awesome stuff!
Morehouse College is one of my greatest loves. I was very intrigued to read this news from my alma mater about the valedictorian of this year's graduating class. Very interesting indeed ... http://tinyurl.com/57m25v
I just found interesting news from my favorite source of independent, foreign, and art film DVDs, the Criterion Collection. In October Criterion will begin issuing films on Blu-ray DVD. The films selected to be issued in October will be:
The Third Man
Bottle Rocket
Chungking Express
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Last Emperor
El Norte
The 400 Blows
Gimme Shelter
The Complete Monterey Pop
Contempt
Walkabout
For All Mankind
The Wages of Fear
I just found out that The Roots have a new work out entitled "Rising Down". I can't wait to get my hands on and my ears around this one.
This morning I woke up fairly early and just rambled through my DVD collection looking for something to entertain as well as edify my early morning mind. I took out the DVD of Spike Lee's epic "Malcolm X'. I first watched the 1972 documentary done by Marvin Worth, also entitled "Malcolm X" which is an extra on Disc 2 of the Spike Lee DVD package. I had never watched it before and was sorry that I had not watched it previously. Worth's documentary was nominated for an Oscar and it contains footage of Malcolm and the civil rights era that I was not entirely familiar with. It is a crowning companion piece for those who have read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and watched Spike Lee's film. At the end of watching the Worth documentary, I was left wondering as I have often wondered---what did America, Black America, and the world truly lose with the assassination of Malcolm X? He was killed at such a crucial point in his trajectory after the pilgrimage to Mecca and his embracing of universal brotherhood.
I also watched the second half of Spike's film with the audio commentary turned on. The audio commentary features, Spike Lee, Ernest Dickerson (cinematographer), Ruth Carter (costume design), and Barry Alexander Brown (editor) . I own almost the entire Spike Lee film collection on DVD and one of the hallmarks of each one is Spike's serious dedication to the director's commentary. Spike elucidates how scenes were shot, what went into making the particular movie, as well as enlightening anecdotes surrounding the film. The commentary on "Malcolm X" does not disappoint. Ernest Dickerson is particularly poignant in his discussion of the role of lighting in this film and in general.
Needless to say I woke up this morning in a different frame of mind after watching that disc. I was inspired by Malcolm's story again and truly amazed at the potential his work represented. I was also brought back to what a great filmmaker Spike Lee is.
