Video Spotlight: Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Yesterday I went to the UMMA (United Muslims Moving Ahead) & IMAN (Inter-City Muslim Activist Networks)'s "CommUNITY Cafe" show in honor of Black History Month. It was off the chain. (Can a goofy white girl like me even say that and not sound stupid?) They had Amir Sulaiman (a Chi-town, 2 time Def Poet), Three Generations (with Maimounna & Nataska Youssef -- Maimounna was featured in "Don't Feel Right" on The Roots' last album), a whole crew of local Hip-Hop DJs, MCs, beat boys, and music makers, and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, a Chi-town born and raised group of street jazz musicians who crash through boundaries of genre definitions grafting this crazy soul, funk, hip-hop, marching band, classical infused jazz music that you can't help by move to. (And they just got off tour with Mos Def. Yeah...) They're good. So, I've gotta show some Chi-town love. Check it.

And if you want a little more history/context for the group, you can watch the short vid The New York Times did on 'em in 2006.

Yes We Can!

if you know anything about me, you know that music is a deep passion in my life. it's a part of my every day going-ons and brings a depth to my existence that is rarely paralleled by other pursuits. i am especially drawn to the music that you start to feel in your blood and your bones -- the kind that you breath in, as deeply as it can go, because to let it just fill the air isn't nearly good enough. and when you find music that truly speaks to you in that way, the inspiration of it can be truly powerful.

a friend sent me a music video today that kinda gets at me like that. it's will.i.am's Yes We Can Song -- a labor of love brought to fruition in the 48 hours of January 30th and 31st, 2008. featuring the voices and presence of many, including Common, John Legend, Scarlett Johansson, Tatyana Ali, Herbie Hancock, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and Nicole Scherzinger, among many others, will.i.am grafted the words of Barack Obama's Yes We Can speak (which you can see in its entirety here) into an anthem of voices speaking up for change. under the direction of Jesse Dylan, the video speaks to the power of the American people to seek hope and to seek change.



if you would like to read the elegant, heartfelt words with which will.i.am describes the project, go here. and if you would like to see an interview with will and jesse dylan on abc news, you can go here.

and most importantly, if you live in one of the 24 states holding primaries or caucuses this tuesday, february 5th, 2008, i encourage you to get out and vote. i don't care who you vote for. i just care that you make your voice heard.

and if you're not registered to vote, take this opportunity to get registered. it only takes a few minutes and instructions and applications should be available through your local or state elections board. (most folks have all the info online, so you don't even have to leave your house.)

and, "yes we can" make a difference!

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

your voice carries a weight that no one else can fill. use it.

why Unilever isn't so squeaky clean

Hey y'all. It's been a bit. I hope the new year is bringing good things your way. As for me, I've had a bit of a bee in my bonnet as of late (honestly, when do I not?). So, back in June I shared a short digital video I really dig -- Dove's 'Evolution.' (It looks like the original link is outdated. Here's where you can check out the video.) As part of their Campaign for Real Beauty, Dove released a follow up video a little while back entitled 'Onslaught.' Here it is:

Essentially the film highlights (subliminal-speed style) the advertising industry's common portrayal of women -- a highly sexualized version of womanhood -- and they close with the message “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.” Rock on, right?

In and of itself, yeah, maybe. But, here's the part that gets my goat (not that I have a goat to be gotten, but for the sake of literary flow...): Dove's parent company is Unilever who, as we'll get to, seems to have some conflicting intentions. In describing the Dove brand, Unilever say things like:

In a world of hype and stereotypes, Dove provides a refreshingly real alternative for women who recognise that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.

and

Our ground-breaking campaign for our new Dove Firming lotion, which features women of all shapes and sizes, ... underlines our commitment to breaking down stereotypes and enabling you to celebrate your beauty.

Yay! A brand that cares about me as a REAL woman -= no supermodel, no 100 pound, flawless youth decadently pretending the world is mine because of the body I've got to master it with. A company that believes women are more than boobs and asses. Finally. Woohoo! Raise a flag, do a dance, sing a song, and for the love of all that is good, buy Dove! Right? Perhaps not...

Unilevel is parent to a large number of brands, including Slimfast, Bertolli, Pond's, Country Crock, Hellman's, Knorr, Sunsilk, Vaseline, and Axe. You know Axe, right? It's the world's most popular brand of male grooming products (sold as Lynx in the UK, Ireland and Australia). On the Axe website, they describe the 'work' of their brand as follows:

The Axe Effect is the internationally recognized name for the increased attention Axe-wearing males receive from eager, and attractive, female pursuers. Regardless of where you live (shout-outs to Cindy and Diane in Dawson City, Yukon!) you can "get you some" Axe Effect by going to a store near you and purchasing one of our fine products.

And on Unilever's Axe brand site, they say,

With its coolly seductive fragrances and packaging, the brand has established itself as the world's top male grooming brand by coming up with a constant stream of new ideas to keep guys a step ahead in the mating game.

Um, uh, what? Axe is body spray (and other products for men) to help the male members of our species get a little leg up on the "mating game." You got that "get you some" innuendo, right? Yeah. Thought so. Hard to miss. Axe is a brand that's sole purpose is to help men get into girl's pants. Awesome. I feel so clean and wholesome now. And a bit objectified. Just a bit.

And, just to stress the point, if you visit the Axe website, you get an even clearer image of their view of women. After you get through Flash loading, oh, excuse me, I mean "Your mojo is loading," you have a couple options. You can watch a video about The Axe Vice Naughty to Nice Program designed to 'rehabilitate' all those unfortunate sweet women who have fallen victim to the irresistible lure of Axe products and as a result committed crimes. (It's the 'good girl gone bad' scenario, 'cuz really, does anyone want a bad girl who's already been bad? Seems not.) You can watch The World's Dirtiest Film. (I'm sure you get it. What more do I need to explain about that?) You can play the Dirty Rolling game to see 'how much dirty fun you can get into.' Mind you, if your digital giggling self and lip-locked partner roll over women to join your rolling trout in the mud you get bonus points. If you roll over men, you lose points. We only want one guy per dirty game, apparently. Or, and this may be my 'favorite,' you can download a "Long Lasting Axe V.I.X.E.N.S." (Very Interactive Xtremely Entertaining Naughty Supermodel) for your online pleasure. Is it fair for me to say yet that I hate these people?

(Okay, and for my own satisfaction, I also have to highlight that Unilever introduces Axe saying, "In the film The Matrix, Keanu Reeves is given two choices. He can either take a blue pill and wake up in the morning as if nothing has happened or pop a red pill and enter the unpredictable 'wonderland' of the Matrix. As millions of guys around the world know, Axe has taken the red pill." Just so we all know, The Matrix was inspired in part by a book written by Jean Baudrillard called Simulacra and Simulation. Simulacra and Simulation, like Baudrillard's other works, is a critique of contemporary consumer society, suggesting that our obsession with material things and the societal meanings we ascribe them (example: body spray makes you irresistibly sexy) leads to our own apathy, nihilism, and eventual destruction. We live in a world of constructed lies -- false images obscuring the truths of our existence. Essentially, everything we come to believe is in a falsehood. In The Matrix, Neo's acceptance of the red pill doesn't take him to a 'wonderland' where deodorant makes him every woman's sex dream; it takes him to a reality stripped of the images we place upon it -- exactly the opposite of the result Axe suggests. Just needed to point that out. Yeah, I'm a nerd. And I'm cool with that.)

And, just to make it more fun, Axe has fronted this 'band' called The BomChickaWahwahs who taut themselves as "the world's naughtiest band." And who are they? Well, a group of four lingerie-clad Axe minions whose theme song (uh, only song?) includes the lyrical anthem:

Bom chicka wah wah. It’s the labido’s mantra.
Yeah it goes bom chicka wah wah. Mmm, baby come to mama.
The scent goes up through the nose and then into the brain
Attacks the common sense, whose always super lame...
It invades a woman’s mind. Her limbic region goes insane.
She’ll start aching for a man and acting so profane.
It’s a sexual turrets. Strange words break out your mouth.
We’re here to warn all you girls: there’s a monsoon headed south. ...
How to explain this sensual feeling,
Somehow my panties end up on the ceiling.
Even guys we cannot stand have us eating from their hands. ...
Bom chicka wah wah...

(There is also a music video, which I can't quite bring myself to post here, but if you want to see it, go here. It's also on the band's website.)

Have I highlighted enough examples yet to demonstrate the demeaning way women are portrayed by the Axe brand? So, then how do we (you, me, whoever cares) reconcile the reality that Unilever actively promotes Dove, a brand claiming a desire to break from the traditional messages of women as sexual objects and promote a more realistic view of women, while also pushing Axe, a brand centrally grounded in the promotion of women as sex-objects to be mastered/owned/conquered (whatever language you prefer) through the purchase of products? (This is the stuff that keeps me up at night, folks. Seriously.)

So, what do we do about it? Do we deny the value of Dove's messages? Well, no. If they impact positive growth or change, I wouldn't deny them that power, nor would I want to. But, recognizing the purpose-serving motives of advertisers is important as well. Unilever, through Dove, promotes 'real' women as a marketing ploy, just as Unilever, through Axe, promotes women as sex-objects as a marketing ploy. They create the same material they warn us to save our daughters from. Unilever's mission says

Our mission is to add Vitality to life. We meet everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene and personal care with brands that help people look good, feel good and get more out of life.

And regardless how it is framed, the company's purpose is to stay in business, to make money. And apparently it doesn't matter whether you do that by portraying me as a 'real' woman or as a sex object. Whatever sells. And it's too bad, really, because I've got this soft spot for companies that are interested in serving real people, not the almighty dollar. And my cash follows my interest.

P.S. - If you'd like to do something about Unilever's hypocrisy, one option is to join a letter writing campaign being led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. You can encourage Unilever to consider the mixed messages they endorse in their expressions of concern for girls' and women's well-being while also positioning women as sexual objects.

Reading List 2007

Howdy folks.  So, I like to read.  Spare nearly three years post-undergrad, reading has been a life-long love.  (Attending college with an overloaded course schedule and just over two hours of sleep a night for the final two years was more than enough to destroy a 20-year love of reading.  By the time I got out of school I contentedly walked away from books – of all kinds – for a long time.  Ironically (but perhaps not so uncommon), school killed my love of reading.  And it took me years to get it back.  I started slowly – reading just fiction and children’s lit and staying away from anything too serious or academic.  With great thanks, I moved on and rediscovered all the brilliance that is literature, reestablishing my love of language.)

After moving to the Chi and starting grad school I decided that I needed a way to catalog my reading, particularly as I was building a library of non-fiction I knew I would need to remember for my upcoming thesis.  Enter GoodReads.  (Since, I have also established a complex EndNotes database to organize my reading, but that’s another story...)

It seems only relevant that as the year rounds to close that I would look back on what I have read during the past twelve months.  Now that I’m in grad school, there is (again) little time for independent reading.  (Or perhaps I just use that time for other things – like sleeping, eating, or staring blankly at the wall, trying to clear some space in my brain for more grad schooling.)

So, without further ado, I present my Reading List for 2007.  It’s everything I’ve read this year (I think).  I’m a non-fiction nerd, for sure.  Take note, too, that every book on this list, save one, was a grad school required reading.  (And that one book was a required read for a class I didn’t take, but picked up from the bookstore anyway.)  Typically I would typically toss in “for fun” books on breaks, but on the Christmas holidays I just needed a brain break and over the summer I was in Mexico (for school).  So, my literary life is all school, all the time.  And I’m more knowledgeable for it!  (The list includes readings from Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall terms 2007.)

I have organized the books into fiction and non-fiction categories, and they are listed in date order such that books I read early in the year are listed first and books I read more recently are listed later.

Until next time, read on, my good fellows!

Fiction

• 1.  Passing by Nella Larsen

Non-fiction

• 1.  The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies by Marcel Mauss
• 2.  The Edison Schools: Corporate Schooling and the Assault on Public Education by Kenneth J. Saltman
• 3.  School Commercialism: From Democratic Ideal to Market Commodity by Alex Molnar
• 4.  Concepts of the Self by Anthony Elliott
• 5.  The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures by Jean Baudrillard
• 6.  The Accursed Share 1: Consumption by Georges Bataille
• 7.  Working Towards Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White:  The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs by David R. Roediger
• 8.  White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism edited by Ashley W. Doane and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
• 9.  To Be an American: Cultural Pluralism and the Rhetoric of Assimilation by Bill Ong Hing
• 10.  Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity by Samuel P. Huntington
• 11.  Immigrants Out!: The New Nativism and the Anti-Immigrant Impulse in the United States edited by Juan F. Perea
• 12.  Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism edited by Ruth Frankenberg
• 13.  Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes by Lev S. Vygotsky
• 14.  The Child's Conception of the World: A 20th-Century Classic of Child Psychology by Jean Piaget
• 15.  An Invitation to Social Construction by Kenneth J. Gergen
• 16.  The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything by Joe Trippi
• 17.  Education for Critical Consciousness by Paulo Freire
• 18.  Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage by Paulo Freire
• 19.  Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
• 20.  Rancheros in Chicagoacan: Language and Identity in the Transnational Community by Marcia Farr
• 21.  Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood edited by Joe L. Kincheloe
• 22.  Language, Culture, and Teaching: Critical Perspectives by Sonia Neito
• 23.  Shop 'Til You Drop: Consumer Behavior and American Culture by Arthur Asa Berger
• 24.  What If All the Kids Are White?: Anti-Bias Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families by Louise Derman Sparks and Patricia Ramsey
• 25.  What If and Why?: Literacy Invitations for Multilingual Classrooms by Katie Van Sluys
• 26.  The Consumer Society Reader edited Douglas Holt
• 27.  Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld by James B. Twitchell

(2012.06.18)

The Nutcracker: a re-envisioned holiday classic

I saw a brilliant play this past Thursday. The House Theatre of Chicago put on a version of The Nutcracker unlike any you are likely to have ever seen. I've seen several versions of the classic tale as told by other companies in the past, showcasing diverse artistic interests - both dance and theatre - including the Boston Ballet's classic version set to the Tchaikovsky score and the Ballet Rox Urban Nutcracker rendition that similarly follows the story penned by E.T.A. Hoffman but uses both Tchaikovsky and a little Duke Ellington in a modern retelling. But this production was something totally new, and in some ways so much better.

In its promotional material, the show, currently playing at the Upstairs Theatre of Chicago's renowned Steppenwolf theatre house, is described as follows:

When their son is killed in the war, David and Martha are unable to help their daughter Clara comprehend the loss. Instead she retreats into a nightmarish world in which evil rats are trying to destroy her. Just when all hope seems lost, Great Uncle Drosselmeyer arrives bearing a mysterious gift that may help Clara and her army of toys defeat the rats just in time for Christmas.

The House’s completely re-imagined version of The Nutcracker isn’t the dusty old ballet you remember. It weaves together riveting dialogue, astonishing puppetry, beautiful song, spellbinding spectacle, and a thrilling eight piece string orchestra to tell a darkly moving story of magic and mystery that you never knew existed.

Sound interesting? I thought so too. Staying true to select structural points that have carried the traditional Nutcracker for decades (the dinner party, the gift from Drosselmeyer, the coming of the rats, the great battle), The House Theatre's version brings a new life to the old tale. Writers Jake Minton and Phillip C. Klapperich create a world whose depth distinguishes itself from the happy holiday piece we're so familiar with. There are no Sugar Plum Fairies or dancing sweets. No prince. Little revelry. And no dreams one can easily wake from. Instead the traditional story of The Nutcracker is transformed into the dark, yet playful, psychological journey of a little girl struggling quite deeply to deal with the death of her beloved brother. Her story is told through the true-to-life "play" of children battling to understand a world of adult hardships that are anything but joyous and protective of innocence. Strikingly true to the psychology of a child struggling with the loss of a loved one, I was moved, sometimes nearly to tears, while still laughing (quite loudly at times) at the rich comedy built into the characters and the script.

And despite the "feel good" sense you walk away with, you are also reminded of the difficulties and hardships the holidays can carry. The show's director Tommy Rapley said in November, just after the show opened,

Not to get too personal on you, but my family has lost some pretty key players in the past year and a half, and the holidays have changed for me because of that. They still have candy, and magic, and Santa, and warm cocoa and fireplaces, and twinkling lights, but they also have loss. Deep loss. And I’m not the only one. There are a lot of families in this world who gleefully watch their children open presents as they mourn for someone whose presence is sorely missed. Making our Nutcracker helped me to identify that for myself. This play is about people who are having a hard time at Christmas. It’s not always cookies and bunnies all the time for everyone out there, and I’m proud that we acknowledge that. I’m also proud that in our story we persevere with lifted spirits by the end, as we all will and do in our personal lives.

What an important truth to acknowledge. And what a strong voice reminding us of the power of the arts, including theatre, to serve humanity. To make us feel less alone. To allow us a place to reconnect.

Rapley goes to to paraphrase Jake Minton, (the play's co-author and the actor who plays Drosselmeyer) , saying that

We think of the theatre as a safe place to come together — with friends and strangers alike — and exercise our emotions; to practice for the things that may, and probably will, happen to us in real life; to share with others in the triumphs and losses of fiction, so that we may endure our own facts with strength and dignity.

Perhaps that what I enjoyed so much about the production. It wasn't just a happy (unrealistic) story. It captured the joys and deep sorrows of life and intermingled them richly, just as is true in our everyday world.

In an interview with the Lincoln Square Chamber of Commerce (The House Theatre was highlighted the Member of the Month in May 2006, as their main office is in the Lincoln Square neighborhood), the House Theatre was described in the following ways:

The House Theatre presents all original work, with most plays written and co-written by its prolific members. The plays are built on the myths of their generation and spring from influential pop culture like rocket ships, monsters, space, movies like Star Wars and E.T. "The stories are mythic, epic and playful," explains Nathan [a founder, Nathan Allen]. "We want our audiences to have a great party and celebrate life." But make no mistake: the players may be whimsical, but the subject matter is as serious as Shakespeare. Explains House Theatre founder and writer Phillip Klapperich, "Our treatment of the subjects is never childish. We include elements that could be found in stories for young people, but we've woven in serious topics." Actor Chris Matthews puts it this way: "We want to break your heart, but we want to trick you into having fun while your heart is breaking."

Pretty accurate, if you ask me. It was truly my pleasure to see such fresh and truly rich theatre this past week, and I am looking forward to keeping my eye on this young company. I am sure there are good things to come.