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    Water

    Water

    Bernhard Edmaier

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    Book

    In his seminal photography books, Bernhard Edmaier combines his training as a geologist with an...

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Mick Hucknall recommended Bob Dylan by Bob Dylan in Music (curated)

 
Bob Dylan by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan by Bob Dylan
1962 | Folk
8.0 (4 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I love this record. Of course Bob Dylan is a genius, and most of the acknowledgements of Dylan are for his compositions. These tracks, many of them I think are traditional songs, there's one or two originals. I love listening to this all the way through. His extraordinary rendition of 'The House Of The Rising Sun' is somehow overlooked. It amazes me. I know the Animals' one is brilliant, but I prefer the Dylan one, because it just tears your heart open. You really get a strong sense of the meaning of the lyric when Dylan does it, the melancholy of it. I think the reason why I love it is, you get the sense of the beginning of something. You know, this guy's gonna have a future. The simplicity of it, as well. It's just this guy with a harmonica and a guitar, yet it's profound. And I think credit has to be given to [producer] John Hammond as well, who's one of my great heroes. What a guy. A champion of African American music, yet at the same time, a champion of bringing white music and black music together. That to me is the message of the last century, more than anything. It's not separating the two, it's what they did together. You wouldn't have a job, and probably I wouldn't [laughs], without that marriage, because rock music wouldn't have happened without it, it wouldn't even exist."

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Kurt Vile recommended Live At The East by Pharoah Sanders in Music (curated)

 
Live At The East by Pharoah Sanders
Live At The East by Pharoah Sanders
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I had that record for a long time and didn't pay much attention to it. I turned Jesse onto it. He's since tried to get it, and it's like $20, but I found it in a bin for like $4, $6. I didn't pay much attention to it, but then once I got deep into him - it's an incredible performance around the same time. The first song on there, 'Healing Song', does that very similar thing where it's just a couple of chords, but on this one they have two bass players. So they have one guy that's just playing the basic chords, the other one's really walking around it in this spiritual way, and the piano player's incredible, and people are even singing along. It sounds like late '80s or early '90s pop, like I think about this Janet Jackson song, it's a prototype for African-American pop, where it's all these songs, like... It's not like, "Ah man, I love me some Janet Jackson" - that stuff just gets embedded just 'cause you hear it on the radio 24/7, [but] you know that song, 'Escapade'? There's a riff in that song that I play on my guitar as a joke, but it's actually the best riff ever, it's sort of like that: this simple hook, but obviously they take it beyond, because they're all such good players. It's just pop that you can't deny mixed with free spiritualism."

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Black Panther (2018)
Black Panther (2018)
2018 | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Diverse casting (no, seriously.) (6 more)
STRONG WOMEN
Subverting stereotypes all day long
Excellent soundtrack
Ambiguous "villain"
Representation
The seamless blending of tech and tradition
BEST. MARVEL. MOVIE.
Contains spoilers, click to show
OH my god. This was definitely the best Marvel movie yet. Chadwick Boseman was absolutely amazing as T'Challa. (Warning, SPOILERS AHEAD.)

I loved that the love interest was already established - there weren't any "falling in love butterflies" to distract from the plot. SO MANY STRONG WOMEN. All of T'Challa's support were strong, gorgeous women of color. His mother, his sister, his general, his love interest. The female guards. Absolutely fantastic.


The blending of technology and traditions was superbly done. People still tend crops and animals and tan hides and go to the marketplace in Wakanda - but they have vibranium armor and weapons, and technological wonders on their wrists that pop up virtual screens, and their medical care is the best in the world. Oh, and ships. Spaceships, basically.


THE CLOTHES. The dresses, the makeup, the armor, the weapons - the appearance of Wakanda was amazing.


And then the plot. The difference between "Well, we're Wakandan, and we look out for the Wakandan people" and "We should be looking out for ALL of our people (black people all over the world, not just Wakandans.)" That was where the real conflict arose in Black Panther - and it was interesting that the two leads, while opposing each other, actually felt the same about it. Just with different ideas of how to do so. (There's a lot to unpack about why they feel this way - some of it, I think, goes back to African-Americans having their nationalities forcibly stripped from them during the slave trade - so being black is the only thing white people left them with; while non-American Africans have their national identities to look to. So they might be Nigerian or Ethiopian instead of one unified black group. And the opposing lead was brought up in America.)



The differences between how the Wakandans viewed white people, and how the American prince viewed white people, are a very important conflict. You can watch the movie as just another superhero movie, and it'll be good. But watching it looking for the racial undertones makes it absolutely fantastic.


Also - the casting is diverse. Just because it's almost all black people doesn't mean it's not diverse. Again, that's a white American thing, looking at black people as one unified group. They're not. Also how many movies have been almost all white people with a token black guy? People complaining about "lack of diversity" in this movie need to take their white supremacist selves out of the theater and away from this amazing movie.
  
FF
Far From the Tree
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I thoroughly enjoy the way, Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant capture the true essence of African American female relationships in their books. Far from the Tree was no exception.

Ronnie and Celeste are sisters that have never really gotten along. Odella, their mother is also not the easiest to get along with. When the three are brought together in the same house after many years of being apart, their relationships start to take on a whole new meaning. Following the death of Will, the husband and father who had always been around to love and support them, the women are forced to examine their lives and make some hard decisions in order to move forward and grow.

Celeste, married to Everett, who is a doctor, has never been satisfied with their simple lifestyle. She has always wanted more for them even though she has never had to want for anything.

Ronnie, who has been a struggling actress in New York and fools herself and her family into thinking that she has it all together and is doing great. She actually has had more addresses than acting roles.

Odella, who had run from her past for so long that when it comes rushing back at her, she is overwhelmed by it all.

Together these women learn to love themselves and one another again.

There are talks that this book may be made into a major motion picture. I would be the first in line for a ticket. I would love to see who they get to portray the characters.