Brothers and Sisters: Acting Out

For my friend V, who's an accomplished actress, it was no thing to spend parts of the last two weekends at the iconic Public Theater on Lafayette, but for me it was a wonder. She scored tickets for us to see a trilogy of works called the Brother/Sister Plays.

It's been a while since I saw so much staged work and in so little time. Add to that, she got us backstage access to meet and chat with the handsome and insanely talented playwright, 29-yo Tarell McCraney, and the cast of equally talented actors, as Oskar Eustis nibbled on pizza nearby before jumping on his bike homeward.

The plays, which borrow liberally from Yoruba legend, follow brothers Ogun and Oshoosi Size, and a satellite of orbiting characters from Elegba to Oshun. Set in the Louisiana bayou, the dialogue has a rich, contemporary flavor. McCraney can weave in laugh-out-loud references to G-Unit and Ralph Tresvant, even while exploring themes like black male sexuality.

So inspiring being in the company of bright, young, black, M.F.A.-having actors, V (fresh off Ruined) included. You must see these plays, I'd recommend seeing Part II if you can't do both. (Thru Dec. 13)

Life Is 'Precious'

Every couple of months or so, I'll be racing up the stairs of my building only to stumble over my neighbor splayed out on the steps with her pink backpack at her feet. She's about 14, skin the color of cooling espresso, and although she is baby-faced, she stands 6' with an equally imposing weight.

On the days she forgets the keys to the apartment she shares with her mother, she lies in wait. Her mother shares her physical dimensions but with a masculine frame and the combat-booted gait to match. Unfortunatly, I'm witness to the tongue lashings she endures for minor offenses like forgetting her keys.


My young neighbor is precious and a teenage girl's psyche is fragile. Every word you aim at them is a weapon. How many times have you passed an exhausted, bitter mother berating her little ones?

So I try the little bit I can to sprinkle verbal honey her way, whatever I can do to cut the sting. When I first started seeing the trailers for "Precious" (Nov. 6), starring 24-yo newcomer and Harlemite Gabby Sidibe, I couldn't help but flash to my neighbor. One of a few films I'm genuinely eager to see.

Raymond vs. Raymond

A couple days ago, I caught an episode of PBS' American Masters (ugh, I love this long-running series), focussing on the legendary Marvin Gaye. On a random note, I didn't know Marvin's father - an abusive, troubled minister who shot and killed his son in 1984 - had a serious cross-dressing habit!

Anyway, the segment in which they revisited Marvin's post-divorce album, Here, My Dear, reminded me of Usher, who's dissolving his own marriage to the much-maligned Tameka Foster. During their union, Foster was Yoko Ono'd on nearly every blog; women just couldn't stomach her.


Gaye spun the strife, conflict, and projected alimony payments from his crumbling union with Anna Gordy into Here, My Dear. That LP included "Anna's Song," kinda like "Papers" for the late '70s. After Usher's lukewarm Here I Stand, maybe he'll find his post-nuptial fire like Marvin did.

Prison Break...Wasted A Million Flows

Is it just me or does it seem counterintuitive to put a rapper on ice when he's bringing heat?

The inexplicably prolific author of '08's Top-selling album with a rebirth in the offing; the 27-yo Young Money Entertainment general with a raspy, Robitussin DM-laced growl who spits the dirtiest clean I know (ask Nivea or Lauren London if you don't believe me, lol).


I know that every man has to be accountable for his actions, but the particulars of Lil Wayne's attempted weapons possession case are questionable. My heart sank a little when I saw flicks of a resigned-looking Weezy heading into a Manhattan courthouse last month.

Another young black man entering the revolving door of the prison industrial complex. In February 2010 a judge'll hand down a yearlong sentence as part of a plea deal.

(Consider this: In 2003, a U.S. Justice Department report estimated that about 10.4% of the Black male population ages 25 to 29 was incarcerated.)

Regardless of how much rap has glorified the bid, there's nothing glamorous about a pen - unless you're using it to write bars. And no matter what issues we might have with his extracurriculars, Wayne belongs on a stage, not in a cage.

A Ray of Light

Ray of Light is one of those albums that I come back to again and again, like a musical Bhagavad Gita. It's Madonna and the genius William Orbit at their collaborative best - this is what Awakening sounds like.

The "Material Girl" becoming a Spiritual Girl.

Look at the LP cover: She never glowed like she did c.1998; that Ashtanga yoga practice was serious. When I'm getting too far from the center, this collection helps bring me back to mental equilibrium, organic fruit, white tea, Buddha beads, lotus position, and right mind.

What Big Eyes You Have!

I know a little something about wolves in sheep's clothing...maybe that's why am I so enchanted these days by the saga of Little Red Riding Hood.

In September, for Fashion's Night Out, Vogue editrix extraordinaire Grace Goddington recreated her recent 'Lil Red fashion spread for the PRADA Store windows, showing well-suited wolves out to tea with leggy, couture-clad mannequins.

But truth be told I get a kick outta the saucy undertones. In the adaptation that I dig, it's about a good girl in a hooded red toggle cape on the verge of going bad. Into the woods...and into...serious mischieflaughs.

I mean, she's carrying a bottle of Bordeaux and couple of baguettes in that basket. That definitely wasn't for Grandma. (Illustration, Odessa Sawyer, 2004)

Boy Meets Girls, Girls, Girls...and More Girls

I just read a fascinating Q&A in the November Elle with Diddy, who shares this recollection with columnist Andrew Goldman:

I was in pursuit of female attention from when I was probably four or five. It started with my mother's friends putting me to sleep on their laps.

You've met this guy, right? He might not have had a record label and a net worth of $380 million, lol, but I bet he was just as charming and swaggerific. What, you thought you captured his attention? [Laughs.] So did the next chick.

Guys like Diddy live with a gnawing hunger for affirmation from the opposite sex that has no point of satisfaction: They're never full (and seldom fullfilled), always chasing, looking for something off the menu.

Unless they undergo some seismic transformation, guys like this always comes up short 'cause they can't see the value of the one (The One?)- over the many.

Cop that Elle!

The History of Glamour

Before Theresa Duncan dug into a glass bowl of Benadryl and Tylenol PM to take her own life, she'd been a writer/filmmaker/gaming designer for girls. Duncan also spent the better part of 12 years as one half of a glamorous art world couple with her boyfriend, the equally talented multimedia artist Jeremy Blake.


As tragic stories go theirs is major (Gus Vant Sant and Bret Easton Ellis have a biopic in mind and are writing the screenplay). A week after 40-year-old Duncan's suicide in 2007, the naked body of 35-year-old Jeremy was found off the waters of Rockaway Beach.

Among the ambitious projects they realized was Duncan's wry, genius, loosely autobiographical The History of Glamour (2000), a 40-minute animated flick that showed in that year's Whitney Biennial. Blake served as co-illustrator and art director. I'm just absorbed and tickled by this vid:

Video: "The History of Glamour," by Theresa Duncan Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com

Massacre... J. Cole

The man who would be King.

The Blues

The bike, the blues, the Louboutin shoes.

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.

Dark & Lovely: A Good HAIRstory

There were three things I wanted when I was starting school for the first time:

1. A LISP
2. A BROKEN ARM
3. A HEAD OF STRAIGHT HAIR

The Long Island Catholic school I went to from pre-K-8th was initially predominantly white, and for the first couple years, I was the token black girl (named becky) in my grade. Whenever you're outnumbered, whatever the majority is doing/being can seem appealing, sanctioned.


So no matter how many Cosby-worthy affirmations about how beautiful and gifted I heard I was at home, when I stepped onto that asphalt playground, felt like I came up short.

Since the Tiffanys and Danielles had lisps - forget that this was a speech impediment, I used to fake one for good measure. Broken arms and legs requiring casts that begged to be signed and doodled on? OMG, I wanted a cast! (But I never broke any bones and my theory is that my Caribbean family didn't ski.)



And they had hair I noticed most when the last bell rang: In one sweep, they'd slip zippered jackets over uniforms and fling a grip of hair out from pressed collars. Like the shampoo commercials. I mean, Dark & Lovely was good, but I wanted to be Pert Plus, Head and Shoulders above my classmates.

Years later, I'd chop it all off, go back to the natural essence, before finally realizing it doesn't define me.

So I get why Chris Rock thought Good Hair was a compelling topic for a documentary. Opening this Friday, and nationwide Oct. 23, Rock is pulling the curtain back on black girls' relationship with their hair. From what I've seen so far, I think it's flawed by sweeping generalizations, but dude is a comedian not a professor of African-American studies.

I'm curious, will you see it?

Gentlemen Prefer Heels

It's no secret that when it comes to footwear, men almost to a head prefer heels on a woman. I think in the male fantasy, we'd step off the stoop always looking like Cassie and Lauren in a Sean John ad.

And most of us willingly indulge this preference: We do feel sexier when we're strapped (to heels!), after all, and we (for the most part) appreciate the extra love we get in the streets for making the effort.

But in New York, a pedestrian city that sits on killer sidewalks, running around in killer heels can be taxing, even injurious. Some of us resort to the Superman-in-the-booth quick change from flats to heels.

Though there's something inelegant about ramming your bare feet into a pair of peep-toes on a subway platform as you balance latte, oversize clutch, and mag.



So give the arches a break! To be shod in sole-ful shoes can be appealing...right? [Laughs] I nominate Christian Louboutin's dazzling Fred Flat Lace-Ups as a counterpoint to your most flirty frocks. (Above, variations on the dance shoe by Louboutin and Repetto.)

I Want to Be Influential: A Great Sunday in Brooklyn

Are you standing in someone's else's light? Reflecting...Drawn like a gypsy moth to their fire when you could be generating your own?

The Mighty Mos Def once remarked that you should not only "shine your light on the world," but "shine your light for the world to see." At the Corridor Gallery this past Sunday for the "Brooklyn Influence" exhibit featuring the portraiture of lensman Jamel Shabazz, I was struck by how each of his subjects seemed to emit a certain light.

Now maybe that's just Shabazz's extraordinary documentary touch at work, but it's probably a combination of both. Somewhere in the gallery literature, I read that the borough claims the highest concentration of artists, activists, and entrepreneurs. It sure feels that way.

The light was blinding.

The show, running through Nov. 7, is curated by Raquel Wilson in conjunction with the community arts organization Dope Swan to commemorate the anniversary of “A Great Day in Brooklyn” and “Another Great Day in Brooklyn.” (Rapper/Actor/Activist Mos Def, above, by Jamel Shabazz)

Even When "I'm a Mess", I Put On a Vest With an 'S' on My Chest

There's something highly comical and just refreshing about putting your mess where people can see it.

That's exactly what artist Natalie Osborne did in a room adjacent to the Corridor Gallery's main foyer, as part of the newly opened exhibit "Strictly Regulated". The group show highlights the work of six emerging female artists and runs concurrent with the exhibit "Brooklyn Influence".

Osborne's video series and installation "I'm a Mess: Finding My Pace" (wall detail, above) confronts the notion of the black superwoman: a towering pile of shirts, shoes, and frocks is thrown into a corner of the gallery. Kinda looked like my bedroom on a Monday morning, lol.

You have to see the entire piece for yourself, but from now on when the kryptonite's got me down if you ask me how I'm doin', I'm just gonna say, I'm a mess, and finding my pace. So much more liberating, don't you think? [Laughs]

We Major (Lazer): Nina Sky On Their Own Time and So Flavor-full

In ancient folklore, they say that the witching hour represents the moment when black magic is at its most powerful. Cast a spell, cast off an albatross...

If that's true, then the soreceresses of Nina Sky, Natalie and Nicole Albino, have been boiling up a serious bitches' brew.

To fly-by-night fans, the Queens, N.Y.-born duo haven't made noise since 2004's super-hit "Move Ya Body," but the ladies spent the last five years or so making a label change (Universal to Polo Grounds/J Records), writing music, DJ-ing, re-mixing for artists like The-Dream and J.Holiday, and touring like mad.

Homegrown but Puerto Rican by blood, they have that quintessential New York City-native something that a million June Ambroses couldn't recreate if you ain't have it already (They shout out Pio Pio, for goodness sake, lol! Okaay, A.).



That je ne sais quoi extends from the external - a certain way we put our look together - to the internal - a melting pot mentality that sees culture in every quarter.

In October, their oft-delayed sophomore album, Starting Today, is slated to drop and anyone who's heard early singles like the sugary electro-pop "Beautiful People" or the R&B-flavored "On Some Bullshit", can attest to the growth. Even the vocals are fuller, more lush. (This is the music Diddy wishes Cassie could make.)

On the significance of the album title they've said, "We believe if you dwell on the past, you can never move forward. Our songs now are about putting past experiences to rest and approaching life with a positive outlook.”

Nowhere is this forward outlook more apparent than their collabo with Major Lazer (feat. Ricky Blaze) on the flavor-full "Keep it Goin' Louder", off Diplo and Switch's dancehall-drenched Gunz Don't Kill People, Lazers Do. Pitchfork calls it one of the best pop songs of the year.

Bitches. Brew.

Just For Kicks

It's Autumn in New York and that always gets me thinking about fall dressing. Some weeks ago, I was stopped at a traffic light in the West 50s and noticed a girl probably in her early teens, dirty-blonde hair cut into a messy pageboy, pale skin, freckles, and clad in a tissue-thin grey shirtdress. Like she'd been plucked out of a Norman Rockwell tableau.

Then as if to dot the "i" on the post-war American girl look, I looked down and realized she had on grey cap-toe canvas sneakers, a single shoelace trailing behind her.

Like the perfect black ballet flat, vintage dime-store canvas sneakers have been my obsession for a couple years now. (Guys in Chucks give me butterflies...but that's another story) I just think nothing says Autumn like warm layers, a boyfriend jean, and battered Keds. That's a detail up top of Rockwell's 1964 The Problem We All Live With, and a 1993 Bloomie's ad for the classic shoe.

Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency...We Fall For Mad Men

Elegant. Throwback. Sexy.

While it's impossible for me to conjure the early 1960s without also confronting the spectre of fire hoses, barking dogs, and black bodies swinging in Birmingham, AMC's "Mad Men," now in its third season and unfolding in 1963, transports, leaving the historical ugliness largely off-set.

These days the scripted television landscape is rife with sociopaths, blood-suckers, and men in their prolonged adolescence, but with "Mad Men" there are ad-ults (you have to put the emphasis in its proper place, laughs). The writing is impeccable of course, and the exceptionally polished fashion (pencil skirts, jumpers, shifts, red lipstick, men's suiting and cardigans...) makes me yearn for something bygone.

It's been an added bonus to watch as the writers revisit iconic American brands and businesses in the guise of Sterling Cooper accounts: John Deere, Madison Square Garden, even the little-known "Patio," which was featured on one of my favorite epis so far this season.

Patio, in real-life, marked Pepsi's foray into diet cola in 1963, an appeal to women watching their waistlines. Execs changed the name from Patio to Diet Pepsi after winning thumbs for the low-cal beverage. And I only know this because the Queens Museum mounted an exhibit on it - but Pepsi Co. was also the first to train and hire an all-black Sales team during the Jim Crow era to market and sell to African-American customers. The advertising they created is fascinating to examine. Those gentleman became the first of a generation of black corporate Ad Men in the 1940s and early 1950s.

(Hey DJ) Hard Hittin Harry, Play That Song That Kept Me Dancin All Night Long

Recently swept into Deity. It was night, and it was hot. Feeling flushed, I slipped into the ladies' lounge to dab the dew from my lip. At the door, I found the reverential spirit in which the place had been named, no christened, extended to the loos, which were appropriately marked "gods" and "goddesses."

And although it was Sunday, the only laying on of hands happening at this Downtown Brooklyn boite was between the women and the men. Did I mention that it was hot? Well... It was many things...

Presiding over this mass of undulating brown bodies gathered on two floors was DJ Hard Hittin Harry. Part DJ - part beat minister, the Brick City, N.J., native (by way of Port-au-Prince, Haiti) had even those of us who'd bypassed the rum punch feeling punch-drunk off his unimpeachable set list.

Helpless to shake the sounds from my step, I went in search of DJ HHH. "Before any party you can usually catch me in front of my computer downloading music and organizing my playlists for the night," said the DJ (below, c.Stella Magloire), who wears his considerable soul, reggae, hip hop, and rock stripes without pretentiousness.

I asked him to create a playlist for BGNB comprised of the 10 songs he'd play if he could only go with a dime. The veteran selecta, who counts turntable icons Kool DJ Red Alert, Mr. Magic & Marley Marl, and Frankie Crocker among his influences, did not disappoint:

DJ HARD HITTIN HARRY UNITY SOUND PLAYLIST

Win Some - Courtney John
Time To Win - Half Pint
King Pharo - Everton Blender
Why Can't We - Jah Cure
Many Things - Seun Kuti (pictured, top) & Fela's Egypt 80
Amour De Nombakele - Pamelo Mounk'a
Premier Gaou - Magic System
K'em Pa Sote - Boukman Eksperyans
Love You No More - Shabba Ranks, featuring Mavado
Mama's Love - Mavado

For more, tune into the DJ's weekly online TV mixshow, The Global Jam Session, Tuesdays, 2-5 p.m., www.axiomonline.tv. (Peace to Coup D'Etat Brooklyn.)

Where Do Broken Icons Go? To Oprah's Show. Whitney Houston Opens Up.

One year, for my catholic school's annual Talent Show, I decided I'd perform a lip-synced rendition of Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know?" So I come home the day of the show (after weeks of rehearsal) with a copy of the single and told my Grams she had to do my hair JUST LIKE WHITNEY. [Laughs]

My septugenarian West Indian grandmother was all, "little young ladies don't go out with their hair out!" We argued, argued, and then compromised on a single braid. She tied a long swath of lace ribbon around my big head and sent me on my way with my pastel leggings, boots, and chunky sweater. (Placed first by the way! Haha.)

But my Whitney thing was always more than poster-hanging fandom; I adored this woman. During her surprisingly candid interview today with Oprah Winfrey, I remembered why. Whitney, looking luminous in a chocolate-bronze shift, remarked, "I didn't know about the largeness of what they call icon."

The Newark, N.J., native who grew up waiting in the wings of fame (mom Cissy a well-known gospel singer, and cousin Dionne Warwick a chart-topping recording artist), admitted nothing prepares you for success on that scale - All At Once.

If you wrote her off that season Bravo aired "Being Bobby Brown," where she prowled Atlanta in a tired fur coat, drowning in drugs and dysfunction with Mr. "My Prerogative," O's two-part season premiere is worth watching.