The Present is a Gift....

A confession. When I worked at a daily paper and was producing clips at a fast clip, I often found myself torn between wanting to share a piece I was proud of and a desire to refrain from huffing and puffing too much, a desire to leggo my ego.

Similarly with this blog: I vacillate between using the most public of forums to promote it and then hanging my head over the shameless plugging [laughs]. Ideally, you'd feel comfortable to come to it as you please - be it once a week or once a year.

Well last Monday, I had one of the most BEautiful nights I've had in a long time, seeing Maxwell and Common in concert on the same night. I was reminded of Common's liner notes for the '05 album Be.

If you build, defend, make, heal, bridge, or connect things, people, or moments for a living and ever feel conflicted about recruiting soldiers to your movement, luring captains to your street team - just gotta acknowledge the source. Regardless of where/how/to whom you bow your head.

Love of My Life

Met a guy a few months ago on a New Jersey Transit platform. Asked whether I was a Delta, and did I like long walks, jazz clubs, Barack Obama. Said I seemed like the kind of girl who could only be with a guy who was visionary, ambitious, creative. I've often been drawn to the dude with the most eclectic record (see Mp3) collection; with the obscure, imported comic books preserved in a box; with his notebooks full of charts, prose, and rhymes; the one slinging his guitar like an ax, his camera like a gun. In a city like Gotham though, it can be hard to distinguish the humble, thinking, creative type in a sea of pencil jean-wearing boys who can shop like a m'uu'r but whose minds are hollow. connecting can be confusing. If you swab the relationship trajectory of someone such as Erykah Badu, you'll of course turn up a predilection for MCs -Andre 3000, Common, the D.O.C., and most recently Jay Electronica (pictured) - sweeping aside for a moment her grasp on family values. Lady clearly has a yen for men who commit. To the art that is. And I can understand it.