“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Film”: Version 2.0
Freshly online at Jump Cut, a reprint — with additional images — of an essay by Heather Ashley Hayes and myself on Django Unchained. PDF of the original essay can be found here.
But if not
In honor of Martin Luther King Day, a “video” of King’s sermon — “But If Not” — at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on 5 November 1967. The whole thing is well worth a listen, but the real takeaway moment comes at 18:25: I say to you, this morning, if you have never found […]
Accidental haiku of the day [Rerun Sunday]
Mother– “Shut yo’ mouth!” But I’m talkin’ about Shaft! “Well, we can dig it.” You can find a brief explanation of “Rerun Sunday” here. The post above originally appeared on 4 January 2012.
All the news that’s fit to ignore [Rerun Sunday]
As I type these words, there’s a story about the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests sitting near the top of the front page of the Guardian‘s website. The Guardian, of course, is based in London. Wall Street, of course, is in New York City. As I type these words, at the very top of the […]
Videos of the week (month)
Two examples of two great tastes (or maybe one great taste and one mediocre taste) that taste great together. Both the television shows in question would be improved dramatically if they worked more like they do in these clips.
Where do you want to live? [Rerun Sunday]
Like so many interesting things in life (or at least on Facebook), this began by chance. Actually, to be honest, I’m not sure exactly when it began. Maybe it was when I first created a “check-in” entry for a place that did not yet have one. Maybe it was when I first noticed a check-in […]
The singer, not the song [Rerun Sunday]
That should probably be “The filmmaker, not the film” or “The screenwriter, not the script,” but somehow neither of those has the same ring to them. Anywho, a good friend posted a query to Facebook asking for people to name their favorite holiday movies. I chimed in with a joke answer . . . that, […]
Out of the mouths of mothers [Rerun Sunday]
Mom’s got dementia/Alzheimer’s. It’s not fun to witness. She’s still (mostly) able to recognize me and my siblings as people who she knows and loves, though she’s not always clear on exactly who we are in relation to her (back in May, for example, she clearly thought my sister and I were married to each […]
High price for a hard road
As I write these words, there is precisely one copy — described as “gently used” — of The Hard Road to Renewal, Stuart Hall’s only solo-authored book, available on Amazon. I’ve noticed this mostly because my copy of Hard Road is among the books that the US Postal Service swallowed back in May, and it’s […]
Fun with math: BP edition [Rerun Sunday]
Sometimes the toss-away lines in news stories are the scariest ones. The item linked above includes the following, otherwise unremarked-upon sentence in its concluding paragraph: The company has set aside $32bn (£20.5bn) to cover its liabilities arising from the disaster, which US lawyers say has affected tens of thousands of people in the Gulf, particularly […]