78uuu lumière des étoiles

Dusty:Starlight:Culture



culture vulture
2004-09-22   2:19 p.m.

Oh, Amazon.com. Where would I be with out your oracle's trusty book recommendations? How would I get through life? I search your database for something I want, but then in your alluring and colorful sidebar, you let me know what I really need.

This week, I searched Amazon.com for the books I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Conde and Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunts by Joseph Klaits. So what comes up as "highly recommended" the next time I log in? Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling, by Mark McMinn. Is the Amazon.com Oracle trying to tell me something?

Really, I was just looking for school. But thanks for thinking of saving my soul and whatnot.

This particular incident is almost as funny as the time I did searches on Marcus Garvey and Toni Morrison's new-ish book about the Brown v Board of Ed trial and was offered a 30% discount on a subscription to VIBE or Ebony (my choice!) the next time I logged on.

Heee!

I am planning on using Klaits and Conde for next semester. The Salem Witch Trials are such interesting historical examples of political power in postcolonialism, patriarchal infrastructure, misogyny and classism/racism that I cannot understand why I haven't dealt with them extensively before. I'll be able to cover this material with many classes - my honors comp, my Women in Lit, and my Intro to Women's Studies class. I believe (or I should say hope) we'll also be able to secure a visit by Nichole Cooley, who's researched the subject extensively and has recently written a book about the Parris family’s involvement in the scandal (the name escapes me, so pardon). Her speaking to us and taking questions would make a grand presentation to coincide with the whole thing. This, of course, only happens if we get $$, so I guess I should start preparing myself to be disappointed.

Nonetheless, another avenue I'm pursuing is reading Sindiwe Magona's Mother to Mother, an amazing but difficult book to read. It's a fictionalized account of the murder of Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl in the Cape Town Flats (an impoverished area where blacks were "moved" after the installment of Apartheid) in 1993. She was killed by an "angry mob of black youth", by all accounts, but this novel tells the story from the perspective of the mother of one of the killers. She's imagining a conversation in which she speaks to the mother of the dead girl (hence the title), and so content wise, the books deals again with post-colonialism (because yes, that's still, STILL an issue in SA), misogyny, patriarchal politics and, interestingly enough, the "nature" of motherhood.

I just LURVE it.

I am talking to a few people now about tele-conferencing with a few women at a University in SA who lived through this entire event in 1993, and then some - I want my students to be able to talk to people who have seen these riots, who experienced the school strikes, and who can communicate their experiences with Apartheid. How wonderful, what a concept; for once it's not the American University telling the African University what to do; but instead it's the African University helping the American University to understand extremely complex and difficult subject matter.

I think my goal is to make this next semester FUN and stimulating for my students and, dare I say more importantly, myself. I am in big need of some distraction: I'm trying desperately to escape some ugly, sticky political situations that just seem to worsen every time I step into the hallway outside my office. They have nothing to do with me; they have nothing to do with any of the profs, really, but what goes on affects all of us, if not directly or physically (by changing our "responsibilities" or something) than figuratively and emotionally. I do believe that people's anger or tenseness can carry, can hang in a hallway, or can be projected and thrown right at you. How else do we explain arriving in a good mood, full of ideas and ready to work, and leaving in a bad mood, all tense and yucky, when nothing particularly "bad" happened that day? Bleh. I'll get through it, we all will, but it's nasty, and my usually cheery floor is now withdrawn and cranky.

Sorry I'm not elaborating too much, it's just all so...bleh.

I cannot believe how well the GOP is spinning this CBS/Bush Memo scandal. I still heart Dan Rather, no matter what - I think he's the pinnacle of what a good journalist is, and man does he have a good track record. In any case, is the issue really the authentication of the documents? While focusing on decades-old type settings and whether or not Courier New existed in the late sixties is interesting and all, should we not still be wondering WHETHER OR NOT BUSH HAS BEEN SPOON FED HIS ENTIRE LIFE AND SKIPPED OUT ON MILITARY DUTY? I don't know about you, but I'm still curious.

And you know what? That aggravates me. Truly, I am one of those people who is DONE with dredging up memories of the candidates' Vietnam or military service - I feel it's completely (well mostly) irrelevant to what these men plan to do NOW and who will serve us better. However, since it's clear and now obvious that those Swift Boat Vets for Truth and their "Kerry wasn't even IN Nam!" smear campaign were so obviously set up, paid off, and backed by the Bush admin, I think it's only fair that we see exactly what history Bush has to counter-present. Really, shall we compare notes? Should we really talk about what Kerry was doing while Bush was binge drinking with his frat buddies and getting busted for buying Cocaine? It's that old glass houses thing, I guess. That, and I'm longing for Kerry to get one good break. Just one.

Why why why can't I find ANY information on the song "Sou"? It's hauntingly beautiful and was used in Henry Louis Gates' documentary "Wonders of the African World". I have the soundtrack, but the song and voices stir me so much that I want to buy the album it's from. So the song is either by the band Les Go ("The Girls" in the weird, blended French they speak in West Africa) from Cote D'Ivoire, or by Angelique Kidjo, from Togo. Or perhaps Angelique Kidjo is a member of Les Go? The liner notes from my copy of the soundtrack don't help clear this up, and in fact, Amazon.com credits the song to Les Go, and Barnesandnoble.com to Kidjo. Any website I pull up has the same kinds of discrepancies; while one says the musicians "collaborated", another says they're all "the same band". Perhaps this was recorded especially for the documentary soundtrack, but I also seem to get the feeling that the song is "from" something. But I could be mistaken there - I was trying to read a French website about the band and could have misunderstood. Grrrr. Me and my taste.

But this is a quest - and if you know me, you know what that means. If it takes me five years, and an album by one or all of these artists exists that includes on it the song "Sou", it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine. (Wanna hear it?)

In the mean time, I'm going to pick up Green Day's new album and also the new Cake - tis about time someone released a mainstream song/songs that (gasp) dare to question, criticize, and get outraged at our current state of affairs. I'm also slightly interested in Coheed & Cambria, though the singer's voice is well...I just don't know how I feel about it yet. Having long been on my list of must-gets, also, is The Shins "Chutes Too Narrow", Apollo Sunshine's album whose title I can't remember, and Tegan and Sara's, "If It Was You", because I love the song "Monday, Monday, Monday", because it blows me away how young they are, and because they haven't turned into the Donnas yet. Let's hope they don't. I can't take their watered down, cutesy pseudo- punk and lyrical banality. Only the Ramones are allowed to do that which they created, and with all of them leaving us for better worlds lately, it's just wrong.

My goodness! Next time, I'll can it with the music snobbery.

xo,