Mon., 19 May :: Being an artist is something that needs to be reassessed more often than the average person may think. The ground beneath the artist moves as often as the tides. Sometimes one attempts to shift the ground upon which one stands on purpose. Sometimes it shifts right at the moment one thinks it is safe to step into a new spot. Groundrules change. Contexts change. Philosophies change. Other times movement is imperceptable. One feels at a moment between tides. That moment when there is a haunting stillness and all is at rest. It seems not meditative but constricting and confining. As the tidewaters move up the canals there are eddys and ripples on the water’s surface but that’s not always a reflection of what’s going on below the surface where the density is different. This is also a moment of transition. Transition holds hidden so much. It is frustrating yet fills one with importunity. And this too shall pass…
LeBlanc (chief of the Tour de France) told French sports daily L’Equipe “There is a lot of regret to eliminate (team) Domina (Vacanze). But Cipollini (current world cycling champion) had an early season that was less good than last year. He’s a great sprinter, but at 36 years old, he doesn’t totally deserve to ride the Tour de France because of the mountains. Effectively, there is a risk that Mario will abandon at the end of the first week. We have not forgotten that he’s never finished one Tour de France. I have enormous admiration for Cipo, but the course of the 2003 Tour (7 mountain stages) isn’t the kind of stage that will be useful to (Domina Vacanze). Besides that, in the last weeks, he didn’t reassure us with his form.”
Cipollini is SO popular it seems more than a slap in the face not to have the world champ. He broke the record for the number of stage wins in the Giro d’Italia today. He is the only person to have won 4 stages in a row in the Tour de France. LeBlanc has always done something that causes controversy but he is the Tour boss and he has the last word. This time, the world is against him.
Reconsidering the Souls of Black Folk co-author, Stanley Crouch made some interesting observations on Tavis Smiley’s radio program tonight. I had planned to post this book for next month but it’s available now.