Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
orlando is an onion
I continue to be surprised by the complexity and intersectionality which is being revealed in relation to the tragedy in Orlando.
1. Hero With a Muslim name Imran Yousuf, the bouncer at the club of partial-Muslim ancestry who acted to save dozens of lives.
2. Peel a layer and get a telenovela Omar Mateen's gay ex-lover claims Mateen was motivated by revenge over being romantically jilted.
3. Contrary to the claims of Trump and others that Muslims don't do enough to help the authorities, here is an account from The Muslim who reported Omar Mateen to the FBI.
4. Imam Zaid Shakir on Orlando
5. A Joint Muslim Statement On The Carnage in Olando
6. Dr. Farrokh Sekaleshfar was a cleric who came to Orlando to give an academic talk on homosexuality in Islam. A snippet of his talk was quoted repeatedly in the news. But here is a broader sample of Dr. Sekaleshfar's comments.
1. Hero With a Muslim name Imran Yousuf, the bouncer at the club of partial-Muslim ancestry who acted to save dozens of lives.
2. Peel a layer and get a telenovela Omar Mateen's gay ex-lover claims Mateen was motivated by revenge over being romantically jilted.
3. Contrary to the claims of Trump and others that Muslims don't do enough to help the authorities, here is an account from The Muslim who reported Omar Mateen to the FBI.
4. Imam Zaid Shakir on Orlando
5. A Joint Muslim Statement On The Carnage in Olando
6. Dr. Farrokh Sekaleshfar was a cleric who came to Orlando to give an academic talk on homosexuality in Islam. A snippet of his talk was quoted repeatedly in the news. But here is a broader sample of Dr. Sekaleshfar's comments.
Friday, June 17, 2016
hero with a muslim name
I haven't been blogging for a while, but I feel like putting this out there. One of the interesting details which have emerged from the horrifically intersectional onion-like complexity of the recent Orlando shooting are accounts of Imran Yousuf, an ex-marine and bouncer at the nightclub who saved dozens of lives during the attack:
What was really weird to me is that the initial reports identified Yousuf as a Hindu when he clearly had a Muslim name (both Imran and Yusuf are in the Quran). It also raised questions in terms of who gets included or excluded in what "Muslim" means in the popular consciousness. The church-going black president who repeatedly claims to be Christian? Muslim. The mass-murdering, Grindr-using, alcohol-drinking, gay-club regular? Muslim. The hero who saved at least 60 people during the Orlando shooting with a Muslim name? Hindu.
I finally found an article which unpacks a bit more info regarding Imran Yousuf's background in India West:
The Yousufs emigrated from India to Guyana four generations ago. Imran Yousuf’s paternal grandfather is Muslim, and his grandmother is Hindu, so his father Rasheed is a mix of both ethnicities. Yousuf’s mother Norma is Hindu, and Imran Yousuf identifies as a Hindu, said Christina Yousuf.
So its not clear how exactly his father identified, but loosely speaking, Imran is "one quarter" Muslim. .. which should be at least one half Muslim by birther standards, right?
Tuesday, May 03, 2016
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
cary grant, esther williams, angelina jolie & the romance of the gun by christin lavin and brian bauers
I first heard this song on the radio last year a few days after a relative was shot. I didn't know the name of the song then, but I finally managed to put together enough clues to track the song down.
Cary Grant, Esther Williams, Angelina Jolie & The Romance Of The Gun by Christine Lavin and Brian Bauers from christine lavin on Vimeo.
And here is another version from a concert:Wednesday, September 16, 2015
maimouna youssef's "we're already royal"
I haven't posted in a while but I just found a new amazing artist who has a powerful addition to the earlier series of covers of Lorde's Royal
and the more raw live acoustic version
Phenderson Djèlí Clark: The Musings of a Disgruntled Haradrim: Already Royal: Reality Trippin’
Monday, July 13, 2015
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
anarchist traditionalism
Anarchist Traditionalism: Hakim Bey is an old blog piece, but new to me. It makes me wonder about what other ways Traditionalism can be reconciled with leftist thought.
Sunday, July 05, 2015
thoughts on tommy westphall fan fiction
For a while I've been fascinated by the Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis. The basic idea is that St. Elsewhere, an 80's hospital drama/comedy is television's version of Kevin Bacon, in other words, if you keep track of the various cameos, crossovers, spinoffs, and fictional allusions, it turns out that hundreds of tv shows arguably exist in the same fictional universe as St. Elsewhere. Furthermore, based on St. Elsewhere's final episode, it turns out that the show (and all the shows linked to it) are happening inside of the mind of an autistic boy named Tommy Westphall who spends his days staring at a snowglobe.
There are numerous sites/blogs maintained by folks keeping track of which shows are part of the universe, but I'm not sure how complete or up-to-date any of them are.
An idea that has been on my literary bucket list is to write stories (something in the ballpark of the League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen) which thoroughly broke down the boundaries between shows in the Tommy Westphall universe
Some more specific notions:
1. A major protagonist would be Det. Munch (who has appeared in several different series, most recently, the Law & Order franchise).
2. A major antagonist would be a Conspiracy which uses Morley Cigarettes Inc. as one of its fronts. (Morley is a fictional brand which connects many shows: The Twilight Zone, Buffy, X-Files The Walking Dead)
3. One of the conspiracies objectives is to find /exploit both Tommy Westphall and the snowglobe as a way of gaining power.
4. Organized criminals / serial killers also connected to the Conspiracy might be a good way to connect different police procedural / legal type shows.
5. The Conspiracy also releases a series of infections which culminates in a Walking Dead style zombie apocalypse. This might be a good way to connect the hospital / medical type shows.
6. UPS Drivers, Postal Carriers, Baristas, DMV workers, might provide an interesting perspective to connect any of the shows, especially the more mundane ones.
It would also be fun to imagine how to combine various genre shows into a coherent pastiche. although doing it consistently would probably be difficult.
7. Supernatural Shows
Addams Family, American Horror Story, Angel, Bewitched, Buffy, Early Edition, I Dream of Jeannie, Milenium, Reaper, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (Is the Conspiracy connected to the Millenium Group or the League of the Black Thorn? Is the snowglobe related to the newspaper in Early Edition?)
8: Sci-Fi (present)
Alias, Alphas, Dr. Who, Eerie, Indiana, Eureka, Flashforward, Heroes, Journeyman, The Lone Gunman, Lost, Mork and Mindy, Quantum Leap, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Special Unit 2, Torchwood, Warehouse 13, X-Files (John Doggett and Monica Reyes from the X-Files might be a good duo to help Munch. Perhaps after Samuel Beckett disappears and Project Leap is mostly boxed-up, a happily married Al Calavicci is appointed to a Cabinet-level position overseeing the X-Files /Warehouse 13 / Special Unit 2 / CONTROL / Dharma Initiative / Department of Special Research)
9: Sci-Fi (future)
Battlestar Galactica (reboot), Caprica, Firefly, Red Dwarf, Space: 1999, Space: Above & Beyond, Star Trek (Star Trek is too totalizing to reconcile with some of these other shows, but perhaps elements can be combined in reasonable ways. There is a Federation/Alliance but there are also Maquis/Brownshirts who want to secede. There is also a part of space where they send Space Marine types to fight a secret war against the Chigs? The Conspiracy, in this period might use Weyland-Yutani / Blue Sun / The ORion Syndicate as their main front.)
10. It would be fun to explain the multiple roles played by the same actors through some kind of Orphan Black- style project.
Just some thoughts. Who knows? Maybe this will become a sub-genre of fan fiction, in its own right?
Six Degrees of St. Elsewhere By Dwayne McDuffie
Eugene is Huge!: Almost all of TV is the imagined universe of an autistic child.
Saturday, July 04, 2015
black loyalists (again)
For a rarely mentioned side of African-American history...
Wikipedia: Black Loyalists
Black Loyalist Info
Black Loyalist Heritage Society
Canada Digital Collections: Black Loyalists
Canadian Encyclopedia: Black Loyalists
Wikipedia: Black Loyalists
Black Loyalist Info
Black Loyalist Heritage Society
Canada Digital Collections: Black Loyalists
Canadian Encyclopedia: Black Loyalists
Sunday, June 28, 2015
"a love supreme" / "allah supreme"?
Did Coltrane say 'Allah Supreme'? by Hisham Aidi
The recording has long been understood to be a deeply spiritual, even devotional, piece. Its four phases - "Acknowledgement", "Resolution", "Pursuance" and "Psalms" - reflect what Coltrane described as a "spiritual awakening" in his overcoming of drug and alcohol problems.
Yet, what was the nature of that "spiritual awakening"? The conventional view is that by 1964, Coltrane had moved away from his Methodist upbringing, adopting a "pan-religious" outlook with a particular interest in Eastern mysticism. In spite of that, "A Love Supreme" is still described as laden with Biblical symbolism: the title "Psalm", and the rising cadences, reminiscent of black preachers' style, are offered as evidence that Coltrane was still rooted in Christianity. But ask one of the jazzmen or Muslim elders who knew Coltrane, and you get a different answer.
The saxophonist Yusef Lateef, who died at the age of 93 earlier this year, worked closely with Coltrane between 1963 and 1966. In his autobiography , "A Gentle Giant", Lateef says: "The prayer that John wrote in 'A Love Supreme' repeats the phrase 'All praise belongs to God no matter what' several times. This phrase has the semantics of the al-Fatiha, which is the first chapter or sura of the Holy Quran. The Arabic transliteration is 'al-Humdulilah…' Since all faithful Muslims say the al-Fatiha five times a day or more, it is reasonable to assume that John heard this phrase from [his Muslim wife] Sister Naima many times."
Lateef is referring to the poem Coltrane wrote and included in the liner notes of the album. Coltrane wrote: "No matter what … It is with God. He is gracious and merciful" and ends with "All praise to God..."
What Lateef and others have noted is that "gracious and merciful" is a translation of "rahman raheem", the opening lines of the Fatiha. Moreover, say the elders, when Coltrane begins chanting the album's title for half a minute it sounds like a Sufi breathily repeating "Allah supreme".
The relationship between Islam and jazz is almost a century-old. It was in the 1920s that the Ahmadiyya movement, a heterodox Islamic movement that emerged in 19th century India, began sending missionaries to US cities, building a substantial following among African Americans in the decades to come. In a trend that still intrigues historians and music critics, after World War II, scores of jazz musicians embraced Ahmadi Islam.
When Coltrane arrived in Philadelphia in 1943, the Muslim presence in the "city of brotherly love" would rattle the young man. As he told an interviewer in 1958: "This Muslim thing came up. I got introduced to that. And that kind of shook me."
The saxophonist was surrounded by Muslims: his drummer Rashied Ali was Muslim, as was his pianist McCoy Tyner (Suleiman Saud), and saxophonist Lateef. Coltrane then married Naima Grubbs, an observant Muslim. Even Coltrane's band members have pondered his relationship to Islam. If Lateef suspected that Coltrane's art was influenced by the Quran, the drummer Rashied Ali thought that the saxophonist was "a real country boy" and that "he was into being a Muslim and everything like that".
One also hears the argument that Coltrane wanted to title his composition Allah Supreme - instead of A Love Supreme - but was worried about a political backlash, given the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
"Back then jazz and Islam were intertwined - the first time I heard the adhan on Temple University radio, I thought it was a Nina Simone song," says Imam Nadim Ali, a celebrated jazz deejay and community leader who spent his youth in Philadelphia. "Artists were deeply influenced by Islam - sometimes publicly in their art, sometimes privately."
It's not inconceivable that "A Love Supreme" could have been inspired by the Quran. After all, as the elders will observe, "Celebration", that great funk hit by Kool & the Gang, was inspired by a Quranic sura.
"The initial idea came from the Quran," says Ronald Bell (Khalis Bayyan), the group's saxophonist and musical arranger. "I was reading the passage, where God was creating Adam, and the angels were celebrating and singing praises. That inspired me to write the basic chords, the line, 'Everyone around the world, come on, celebration'."
This song inspired by Islam - and released in 1980 - would become an international hit heard at ball games and political rallies in the US, and ironically was played by the Reagan administration on February 7, 1981, to welcome home the hostages held by students in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)