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Thank you to the few close friends and family who joined the first discussion about   The Berlin Stories . My hope is to create a sense of community and cohesion for folks, to read more books, and books that speak to this particular age in which we are enmired. It feels like both a constructive and arcane activity during this time and an important way to understand that we have been here before, that art as literature lingers. It's indulgent and speaks to the dichotomy of introvert and extrovert. Wondering if it's the introvert who is really seeking the reassurance or the extrovert; in this case, I know I will be compelled to finish a novel if I have others relying on me. And Isherwood. I have always wanted to read Isherwood's The Berlin Stories . Made up of two novellas about ex-pat life in Germany, these works are distilled into what becomes the first movie that scared me out of my wits Cabaret. I can't imagine it was in a theater and why would it have been on TV in t

Last week I did an Instagram Live session with Badir McCleary the founder of Art Above Reality . Badir and I met first at a session he participated in around an exhibition at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) entitled Digitalia: Art & the Economy of Ideas (2018), curated by Lady Phoenix . Badir and I met again later that year at Miami Beach in the UNTITLED tents. In the video here below we talk about a lot of subjects, including my going on a bit about Michael Eric Dyson's writing about Jay Z; and I get *really* excited about Paula Cooper. I got my copy of Jay Z: Made in America at Marcus Books, an independent, Black-owned bookstore in Oakland. You can support their Go Fund Me campaign here . A link to the Paula Cooper article " ‘I’ve always been wary of big business" is here ; as well as one to the Magda Sawon article " This Is the Toughest Challenge My Business Has Ever Faced. But Here's Why Small Galleries Like Mine Will Come Out Alive,&q

Indulge me here, please: so much of my professional writing has been about structured, often grant-oriented work and epistolary pieces intended to persuade; and more often than not written to be said, sent or published under someone else's name. I do want to post a few blog posts to exercise my own voice, which is more typically conversational and about wending threads that come together at the end. This is my second post. You can find the first one here . These are extraordinary times. We are living history, right? It’s odd, because so much of my upbringing I have felt a sense of the ahistorical: that we are beyond history; that polemics about socialism vs. capitalism were passé; and the future was so uncertain that we could no longer see ourselves as part of a continuum, but instead near the end game. Why prepare for the future? A lot of this is what defined Gen X, I think, inspired by Richard Hell and the idea of The Blank Generation. Now, we are in the midst of an unpre

Toni Morrison (1931 - 2019) In 2019 the living earth lost a giant. Toni Morrison died . The week she died I had just watched the new documentary about her life The Pieces I Am (2019). It is an artful, art-filled documentary, complemented by artist works, from Mickalene Thomas to Hank Willis Thomas to Jacob Lawrence. Mickalene Thomas did the opening credits. Please check it out. In the film, at one point, Morrison starts to talk about the use of the idiom of the “American Melting Pot.” Morrison makes a gesture with her hands as if to caress the vessel, adding that “Black people are the pot.” Well, at least that's the way I remembered it right after the film. Morrison further amplifies and qualifies the idea, adding that it is how everyone else relates to African-Americans by which being American is truly defined. It felt like a light going on; not unlike the first time I heard that the melting pot metaphor itself is in fact a concept used to suppress labor: namely, if you do

Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami My rating: 4 of 5 stars While not quite as fantastic as some of the other works, this small smart collection of stories is precious and succinct. I continue to be amazed at how Murakami draws you forward as a reader, wanting to read the next and the next page, even when seemingly so little is happening. The details are little little lamps along the road of shared humanity, familiar and encouraging, faulty and reassuring. View all my reviews

King Henry VI, Part 2 by William Shakespeare My rating: 5 of 5 stars I have just now gotten to part 2 of the Henry VI plays. the first had amazing speeches and frickin' Joan of Arc and I thought it couldn't get any better. THAN this one's got conjurors who evoke prophetic specters, multiple beheadings, and a mad rebel named Cade who just starts to try to take over the whole country, no Empire for like no good reason then gets killed after hiding ten days without food in a hedgegrove. The language is extraordinary from the get go where pious Henry says, "O Lord, that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!" I am going to make that my motto! View all my reviews

Dear members of SJMA’s community, Community and advocacy are at the heart of the Museum’s work. With that in mind, I wanted to write with a few updates and to keep you apprised of the Museum’s accomplishments, especially at this time of change in our nation. Government support is so important to the San Jose Museum of Art. The Museum has received critical support from the  National Endowment for the Arts’ Artworks program for several of our recent major exhibitions—including  Border Cantos: Richard Misrach| Guillermo Galindo   (2016) and  Postdate: Photography and Inherited History from India  (2015). These competitive NEA grants support opportunities for the public to engage with “diverse and excellent art” across the country. They play an instrumental role in enabling mid-sized, community-based institutions like SJMA to develop and present ambitious original projects.   It is similarly thanks to a 2015 generous grant