Thursday, January 28, 2010

Get Your Own 12 Days Poetry Booklet When You Support the Alexis Loves Julia Valentine Fundraising Drive for the MobileHomeComing!


turquoise lace edition (aka the victoria's secret of booklets)

Once upon a time visionary lovebirds Alexis and Julia were apart for 12 whole days :(, counting the seconds until they could be in the same place and envision revolutionary brilliance together again... Alexis decided to make the countdown liveable and poetic by writing daily love poems to Julia. This year for valentine's day Lex has decided to publish her infinite love in the form of tiny handmade booklets which can be yours for a sweet donation of 14 delicious dollars or more between now and valentines day!

Make a donation to the A Black Queer Mobile Homecoming - An Immersive Archive

1) Click DONATE.
2) Enter an Amount. And note "12 Days" with the coverstyle that you prefer
3) Click Continue.
(or login to your paypal account).
4) Follow instructions to finish your transaction. You're Done!

Top 12 reasons that you REALLY want to get a copy of 12 days before they're all gone:

12. For the sweet gift basket you are assembling for your sweetie(s).

11.Because you love poetry.

10. Because you are going to create your own long-distance love countdown and you want a model.

9. Because they are just so beautiful!


crimson cover editon (aka fledgling lust)

8. Because you are going to cross out Lex and Julia's names and pretend you wrote this for your honey-to-be for a valentine's day guarantee.

7. Because you support queer black love period.

6. Because you know that the MobileHomeComing is all about you and the world you want to live in.

5. Because you are a romantic, and this will distract you from the sappy Hallmark channel Valentine's Day specials.


black and white edition (aka julia in a tux!)

4. Because you are a fellow do it yourself revolutionary!

3. Because you believe that our ancestors return to us in the form of love.

2. Because you are nosy to see what kind of sweet nothings and everythings Lex be telling Julia to keep that smile so big and bright.

1. Because you are the BEST!


Turquoise and Hot Pink Duct Tape Editon (aka Dkye-tastic!)

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Anger is Useful! New Podcast and Introducing the Little Black (Feminist) Book Series

Who's afraid of the Angry Black Woman? Well BE AFRAID because Angry Black Woman are speaking our minds and transforming the world in the service of our vision. Oppression beware the well-directed rage of Black feminism!

This week for your listening and reading pleasure we have the ANGRY BLACK WOMAN edition of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Podcast Series! As always, we start with the brilliance of our ancestors...meditating on the poetic of rage in June Jordan's angry letters to racist editors and including reflections from Nia Wilson, Mai'a Williams, Moya Bailey, Daria Bannerman and the young visionaries at New Horizon's Alternative School...plus as always music that rocks (including a track from the genuis Jon Anonymous project by Durham's own Shirlette Ammons!)

http://brokenbeautiful.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/final-angry-black-woman-podcast.mp3


And while you're at it...download or subscribe to the podcasts on itunes (search "brokenbeautiful press" in podcasts and we'll be all up in your eardrum!)

And just because my anger about racism, and sexism and gendered violence is based in my deep deep love for YOU and the world we deserve...BrokenBeautiful Press is happy to present The Little Black (Feminist) Book Series Volume 1: RAGE. Including that essay on June Jordan's Angry Letters and 4 other classic angry blogposts from the thatlittleblackbook.blogspot.com. It's pocket-sized in case you need to hand it to someone who clearly doesn't get it. Get one on deck with a donation of 15 bucks or more all proceeds go to the Community Sustained Educational programming from Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind!

Go to paypal.com and send your donation to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com with RAGE in product line and your correct mailing address. (Or just holler at me if you have the divine insight to live in Durham.) There are only 20 so get yours soon :)

Thursday, January 21, 2010




Get Hip and Get Some Black Women's Art in Your Life


Women on Wednesdays: Arts and Culture Series
Curated by Ebony Noelle Golden and Nina Angela Mercer


Description

Women on Wednesdays (WoW)is a month-long series that highlight the arts and cultural practices of girls and women of the African diaspora. Co-curated by Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative and Ocean Ana Rising, WoW features work of emerging and seasoned artists and cultural workers in the fields of theater, music, film, dance, literature, and scholarship. The series culminates in a day long teach-in as we explore activism through creative arts; a reception will follow. There is a suggested donation for all WoW events, and no one is turned away. Events take place at Brecht Forum located in the West Village at 7pm on each Wednesday of the month.

Artistic Manifesta


Culture

I guess that waltzes
Do not move me.
I have no sympathy
For symphonies.
I guess I hummed the blues too early
And spent too many midnights
Out wailing to the rain.

-Assata Shakur


"Magic, Everyday"


In "The Quilt: Towards a Twenty-First Century Black Feminist Ethnography" Renee Alexander Craft offers, “African/black women have all too often been imagined, defined, labeled and packaged in ways that are at odds with who we are and understand ourselves to be” (56). Craft's ideas highlight media representations of the mythic Black woman. Craft acknowledges that Black women's identities, (re)productive potential, and labor/work have been high-jacked by dominant media outlets. Women on Wednesdays Arts and Culture Series (WoW) grew out of a similar acknowledgement. WoW's organizers recognize the intersecting oppressions of race, sex, and gender that marginalize Black women's cultural and artistic labor. We affirm the pressing need to collaborate with Black women artists who are expanding conversations about what it means to be Black, woman, artist, cultural worker, and scholar. As a Black women-led project, we recognize the radical practice of providing an uncensored and economically-supported platform for WoW's participants to articulate identity, art, and cultural practice as a personal evolutionary process and negotiation of violent landscapes founded in doctrines of silence and erasure.

When we harness artistic and cultural practices in the tradition of our fore mothers, we quilt a brilliant narrative that shifts and balances the rhythm of this universe. WoW honors the art women make on the porch, at the kitchen table, in the studio, classroom, street and beyond. This series affirms the movement, stories, melodies, theories, and meditations and laments, placing women's voices at the center of narratives about our shared and unique experiences. Women's artistic practices are not only tools for survival but tools for activating an aesthetics of radical imagination that conjures liberation for the artist and our communities. Utilizing art and culture, women conflate the personal and the political, the intimate and the communal, the artistic and the academic to not only honor our collective legacies but inform and imagine the world we want to live in today and tomorrow.

February 3

Body: Word, Move, Perform
"Body: Word, Move, Perform", is an exploration of the body through word, movement, and performance. The night features literary readings, choreographic works and short performance pieces and ends with a round table discussion about how Black women use dance, performance, and literary art to explore the individual in relationship to surrounding political, environmental, and social landscapes. Talk-back moderated by Ebony Noelle Golden

February 10
She Got a Fierce Up-Rock: Women in Hip Hop
Featuring a screening of the film "Say My Name" and a performance by Kymbali Craig, "She Got a Fierce Up-Rock" provides a space to explore Black women in Hip Hop. From politics of production, to juggling motherhood and career, the panel discussion promises to be a vibrant and necessary conversation. Talk-back moderated Brandy Monk-Payton and Kymbali Craig.

February 17
Daughters of Shange
Featuring a staged reading of "I Am a Drum" by Sybil Roberts, "Daughters of Shange" features short experimental performance works that trouble and conflate traditional categories of theatrical performance. Talk-back moderated by Nina Angela Mercer.

February 21

"Teach the Teacher" harnesses the power of communal learning and knowledge sharing. Featuring workshops, discussion, and performances, "Teach the Teacher" is day-long teach-in for those who are interested in utilizing art and culture for awareness and social justice

February 24
Ñañakuna K’uychimanta (sisters of the rainbow) is a musical, literary and dance performance that will explore the artistic expressions of women from the African Diaspora. The evening employs a reinterpretation of "round robin sessions" where each artist will share with their fellow performers, writers and musicians, their work to generate a discussion at the end of the performance. This event will feature the talents of The Mimi Jones Band; poets Tara Betts, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs and, Tonya Foster; and choreographer dancer Paloma McGregor.
This event is curated and moderated by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs.

Harriet Alston on the Salsa Soul Sisters: January 30th Durham, NC


Saturday, January 30th, 1pm@ the Inspiration Station


POTLUCK BRUNCH
Black Feminism Lives in Durham!
(featuring Harriet Alston, founding member of the Salsa Soul Sisters)




For Each Other: the Salsa Soul Sisters from Alexis Gumbs on Vimeo.



Watch this video to learn more about the Salsa Soul Sisters and come to the potluck ready to ask great questions and benefit from Harriet's wisdom and experience!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Revolutionary Vehicle: Help Lex and Julia Find a Free RV

Hey loved ones!
Check out this video of Julia and I exploring the wide world of RV's. I think Julia might be a reality TV star waiting to happen!

Here is a link to the video on VIMEO: http://vimeo.com/8639900


We know that somewhere in our beloved community there is a pre-loved RV that is waiting to be transformed or an awesome RV dealer/maker who totally gets it! Please help us out by sharing the video with everyone you can think of! Sharing is caring!

Or feel free to send an online donation of any amount! We are so proud for our project to be directly supported by and accountable to our brilliant loving community!

We are grateful to SONG (Southerners of New Ground) for supporting our grassroots fundraising. Your tax-deductible donation of $50 or more will directly support the work of the Mobilehomecoming. Check Payable to: SONG Note MobileHomecoming in the subject line.

You can donate to our project with your credit card or paypal account.


Make a donation to the A Black Queer Mobile Homecoming - An Immersive Archive


1) Click DONATE.
2) Enter an Amount.
3) Click Continue.
(or login to your paypal account).
4) Follow instructions to finish your transaction. You're Done!



For a copy of our budget or any more information please email us at mobilehomecoming@gmail.com

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Apply for the School of Our Lorde Poetics Unit by January 25th!: Available in Durham and the Diaspora!

The School of Our Lorde is comprised of 4 units of Thursday evening sessions that allow participants to deeply engage and build on the work of Audre Lorde as transmitted through the committed (obsessive) research of Alexis Pauline Gumbs on the poetics, teaching practices, political implications and publishing interventions of Audre Lorde’s work (and to enjoy delicious local desserts together) on Thursday evenings. Participants will also get coursepacks with some exclusive and unpublished materials on/by Lorde. Participants can choose to participate in one 3 week semester or the entire 4 month process. Engaging, interactive poetic childcare will be provided at every session with amazing activities imagined with and implemented by Beth Bruch!!!! No one who completes an application and can attend will be turned away.

February 2010: Poetics ****Applications Due January 25th 2010****

Poetics: Audre Lorde is best known as a warrior poet. In February, School of Our Lorde participants will get a change to deeply engage Lorde’s poetry (with the benefit of Lex’s archival research on her revisions) and write their own poetry. We will meet over dessert on Thursday February 4th, 11th and 18th (Audre’s b-day!!!!) and the poets will perform their own new or transformed work at a community reading on Saturday February 20th.

Apply for the poetics course here: School of Our Lorde Poetics Application (pdf version)

School of Our Lorde Poetics Application

email applications to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com or drop them off at the Inspiration Station (email for directions)

Distance Learning

For those of you who are not lucky enough to live in Durham, NC right now...don't worry. Audre Lorde and I both believe in long-distance love.

You can participate in the School of Our Lorde long-distance in 3 ways:


Host Your Own Satellite Campus!:

Why not have School of Our Lorde at your organization or in YOUR living room!? If you can gather 5 or more people to participate in any unit you can get a course packet with the course readings and worksheets to guide you through each session. You can also participate (along with other satellite campuses) in a monthly interactive BrightTalk session and office hours on LiveStream.

Our vision is that each Satellite Campus will be able to make a sliding scale contribution of $75-200 per unit. No group will be turned away.

To become a host, email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com with what session you'd like to host and your vision!

Independent Study:

Let us know how the School of Our Lorde poetics, pedagogy, politics of publishing process can support something you are working on with/for your community. You will get a course packet and worksheets. You can also participate (along with other satellite campuses) in a monthly interactive BrightTalk session and office hours on LiveStream.

Fill out the application for the appropriate unit here: http://summerofourlorde.wordpress.com/registration/

and get 7 people to financially support your participation. Our hope is that each independent student will raise between $50-150 to contribute to the School of Our Lorde. No one will be turned away!

Lorde as Our Witness:

You can participate in the School of our Lorde through this blog. There will be weekly video blog updates and reflections from the local participants and you can always post comments and questions here and I'll respond. Feel free to spread the good news in your community so one day you can host a School of Our Lorde institute where you live!