VOD: hidden dimensions

just sayin...

Something I'm thinking about today:

"You think that because you understand "one" that you must therefore understand "two" because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand "and."

-- Sufi teaching story

Re: VCCA

Or: v-ca-ca-caaah --

Thank you thank you thankyouthankyouthankuthankuthanku

Hard to say good bye. So instead: fare well friends. See you soon.

Goodbye Peter Cottontail

I saved walking the glassbox labyrinth for last. My way out of the
forest and back into the world.

The world includes you, dear readers, who informed me clearly that
abandoning this space is not an option for me.

So pack it up, kiddos! Next stop: we're going to New Yawk City!

I'm hoping it's restaurant week when I get there. After all, dear
cottontail, I hear you are simply delicious.

Blackademics Review Gospel

In Alexis Pauline Gumbs' new Blackademics.org review of Gospel: poems, the issues and themes lovingly treated in the book get serious consideration and a rave response:

"Set in the mouths of crows, on the edges of couches and dirty tables, and in the hands of the dispossessed, Bashir’s poems awaken a desire to caress the mundane," said Gumbs, "hoping your fingers will find divine crumbs of revelation."

"Bashir’s project, inhabiting the tradition of black gospel music’s straddling contradiction, standing in the sacred and the profane, is timely," continued Gumbs in her review. "In a moment when the question of the relationship between faith and sexuality has been put in the media limelight through the discourse of marriage amendments, this project takes a step back, redefining both sexuality and salvation with a close look at the infinite places and moments when the human body meets despair, pleasure and transcendence."

Want more? Click here to read the rest of the review, comment, share and join the discussion!

Order your copy of Gospel: poems here!

Missing Pënz | Pënz Lives On!

Awwww!

So I just got off the phone with an academic genius I know up at University of Pittsburgh who just informed me that she's doing her disssertation on -- you guessed it -- Pënz (it's pronounced pants)!!




"It was my church," she said. And yes. I agreed. Mine too. And then The Good Rev came in and she agreed too. It's so so exciting her approach to the work, it's all deep and intriguing and I can't wait to read it!

So then of course, I went to review The Art Year that was 2008 due to Pënz. And then I watched Good Night Pënz, the video. It gets me all verklempt every time. Sigh.

Thank you Pënz, and thank you Morning (Feeler), Noon (Materialist), Twilight (Conceptualist) and The Good Rev, for making 2008 an Art Year indeed.

Love,
Night (Linguist)