Author: onajide

LJ users, try this one. This one I first used back in Dec., 2000. It has relevance today.

What Kind of World Leader Are You?

Music: John Cage: indeterminacy

I just found out Nina Simone died… a huge loss.

She was a classically trained pianist, yet gained fame singing in a style reminiscent of Billie Holiday. She later became known as a protest singer for penning fiery songs that chronicled the pain, pride and hope of the U.S. civil rights movement.

In a 1998 interview, Simone blamed racism in the United States for her decision to live abroad, saying that as a black person, she had “paid a heavy price for fighting the establishment.” She was said to be extremely bitter.

I totally understand… (a 12 yr. hiatus for me)

Music: Nina Simone

Semester ends this week, final projects due, and Friday, final exams at 7:45am! That’s an insane schedule. I already have to get up at 5:30am for my 9am class. Of course, I cook breakfast before leaving. The class is 3 hours long.

Personal projects can commence next week after finals are submitted. This is a good thing. It will also give me some time to send out another application I found today for an institution that does independent study, my favorite kind of college work. Self-motivated students that create their own course of study grow beyond their own beliefs. Most of my grad classmates went through grad school totally changed. Two women found themselves reading feminist & gender works (since their art already dealt with those subjects), delved deeper into themselves, graduated, went home, divorced and started new lives! I wish both lived closer, we had a blast in school.

Today was also one of the Cycling World Cup races, Amstel Gold. Lance Armstrong raced it but ended up 8th. He’s not a single day racer but he said he loved that race. He’s planning on racing a couple more one days races then take the entire month of May to train for the Tour de France. Most cyclists race and take some time off to stay sharp but, he wants to go into the history books by winning his 5th Tour AND doing it consecutively. Only Miguel Indurain has done that. Lance thinks he will try for the 6th making him the only cyclist to do it, if he succeeds. His coach and I used to train and race together before he went into coaching.

Glen Gould Piano Works: in my ears. His playing is cool and precise.

I found the short test results so interesting, I took the longer advanced test. Some change in the reults…

Conscious self	Overall self

One thing I can say about LiveJournal users, they sure are into self-analysis. This latest ‘test’ looked more balanced than the quizilla ones, so I took it. Deciphering the results will take time with all the charts and graphs but, here’s what I can up with:

Conscious self	Overall self

Take Free Enneagram Test

Japanese Shakuhachi Flute

If you are interested in art, this is a must read. :: Battles over the legitimacy of conceptual art occupied a good part of the 20th Century. In the 21st Century those concluding that art has taken a wrong turn with conceptualism are a growing chorus. “The world of fine art now appears exclusively concerned with semiotics, ?the crisis in representation? and other academic matters. Visiting a gallery in the hope of being made to stare in wonder is, according to the prevailing critical theory, ‘sentimental’ and ‘naïve’. Beauty, it would seem, is merely something to be analysed in a cloud of righteous deconstruction. However, the rapidity with which conceptual art evaporates from our consciousness undermines such grandiose pretensions. Once the tribal rituals of endorsement or derision have passed, the oeuvres of our more prominent artists actually evoke very little sense of meaning or avant-garde unease.” Eye: the International Review of Graphic Design 04/03

About time… I got an email from a highly qualified person for me to hand over the reigns of control and, he has volunteered to be the New Editor! I emailed him the keys! … just kidding. After we exchange protocols, I can work on other things for the site. A web design person volunteered yesterday. I’ll be fully released soon… I maintain 8+ sites.

Carmell Jones

Thanks to the motivation of jawnBC, I’ve been working on my writing projects with the kind of focus needed to end up with the quality writing I should have. Even though the writing is for MiamiArtExchange (MAEx), I should publish an abstract there and have the full version published in ArtPapers, Atlanta (where I’ve had work published in the past). Getting paid is what I need to happen. My tenure of being the volunteer Editor of MAEx has been for 14 months and now is the time for someone else in this art community to step forward and take over. It’s very difficult to do as much as is needed without a staff. I did have some help with the calendar and now a new person is taking care of it. Anyway…

Semester is ending soon. Students need to have their projects finalized this week, next week is the last week of regular classes, then finals. I’m under pressure, too. The economy is tight and again, I have no classes this summer. Being an adjunct is so unstable… I should go back into construction work. I have one company I know would hire me at the drop of a hat because I was just about the only employee that didn’t smoke pot on the job (or off).

My mind went wandering over those guys… mercy! One guy, a ‘biker’, and I ended hanging out quite a bit after we both left that job. I was working on my bachelor’s degree then. He was working on having a good time. His beard was so sexy… *wink*

How evil are you?
Finally, a “test” that I can agree with… 🙂

Some days, too many, I don’t feel that I get enough significant stuff done. I have been here all day working on writing. I’ve got 2 interviews to go thru and glean something from. However, before I can make sense of what I want to say, I need to write a preliminary article that frames the interviews and subsequent articles in a series that I’m working on.

I’ve asked three, and will ask other, museum directors to look to the future and tell me what the future looks like for Southeast Florida art and culture. That’s from W. Palm Beach to Miami. There are a number of museums but I’m also interested in the universities. There are two prongs to my thinking. One is that they are holders of collections (only some of the universities have collections as such) and all that that means to be a repository. The second is along the lines of the educational mandates that go along with having non-profit status, although corporations are snuggling up to the museums for the high profile cultural value it lends them (with some high dollar “donations” for programming). And even though museums are not-for-profit, they usually do have gift shops, books stores, and such which brings in commodification of that culture.

So, as can be seen, I’ve bitten into a big project but, it will have something self-serving in the end. It will first of all, allow me to get to know the museum directors better and, it will give me something more important to write about than what exhibition I might have seen over the weekend. Normally, I only write on what really interests me and that is something I can bring some personal experience to. Whatever those things are usually have a socio-cultural framework from which I can contextualize in a way that is not the hegemonic view, and postcolonial is highly preferred to postmodernism.

The beginning of postmodernism I was on hiatus, out racing bicycles and traveling. I was, however, still reading critical theory, anthropology, ethnology, non-western religious systems (African in particular), ethnobotany, and plenty of books on nutrition, athlete training, massage, and race tactics based on physiology and musculature.

Anyway, it’s way past my bedtime again. I’m more in tune with the night than getting up early in the morning… I work in the afternoon tomorrow. 🙂