Moving-on-the-Wires: Class on Octavia Butler

I found out about this yesterday: If you live in New York City, the Brooklyn Brainery will be having two Thursday classes, March 22nd and March 29th, on short stories from Octavia Butler. The class cost $27. At this time the class is full, but you can get on a waiting list. This is the […]

Otherworldly Videos: The Universe Is In Us

Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, “What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?” This is his answer. Narration: TIME Magazine’s “10 Questions for Neil Degrasse Tyson”

W.E.B. Du Bois, Africana Studies and The Human Future

Dr Yaba A. Blay discusses colorism and black Identity within the context of global white supremacy in her lecture, “Whiteness and the Color Line…” Watch the other Temple University lectures here. The lectures included conversations on representation vs. self-determination, capitalism, neoliberalism and marxism, blackness and philosophy, social activism and social transformation, and Black Philadelphia.

What is Afrofuturism? Part 6: Afro-Surrealism

According to D. Scot Miller, the Afrosurrealist Manifesto goes as follows: (Make sure to go to the end to see my commentary) AFROSURREAL MANIFESTO Black is the new black — a 21st century manifesto By D. Scot Miller For San Francisco Bay Guardian Wednesday May 20, 2009 I’m not a surrealist. I just paint […]

Modern Griots: Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, A Visual Mythologist

From her website: “I teach but mostly I make journeys. Sometimes I am a photographer; sometimes a painter, writer, historian, documentarian, bohemian artist. But most times, I am all of the above. I am inspired by the magic that occurs when one goes looking for ancestors–those unmapped spaces that are realized on front porches, at […]

Otherworldy Videos: Make You Move

Culoe De Song feat. Chappell I like the mysterious priesthood imagery, and the connection of technology and electricity to rhythm as spiritual life force.

President Obama as an Alien

Washington Post writer, E.J. Dionne Jr., wrote a piece about the ridiculous disrespect of Barack Obama as president: “They say that President Obama is a Muslim, but if he isn’t, he’s a secularist who is waging war on religion. On some days he’s a Nazi, but on most others he’s merely a socialist. His especially […]

Otherworldy Videos: New York Flexing

“Zilla March”: Flexing in the New York subways “Flexing, or bone breaking, is a mix of street dancing and contortionist movements mostly specific to Brooklyn. This video in particular is mesmerizing, almost ritualistic with this group of shirtless guys [they forgot to mention the female dancer] in gas masks all dancing together in the subway. […]

If I Had My Way…

…This would be a tv show, movie, book series, etc. Any takers? From Myisha on Palace of Funk Antoinette “Toni” Batiste, occult detective. I choose to design a detective from Louisiana who works specifically with the occult, particularly Voodoo (or rather the stuff people get up to when practicing Voodoo maliciously, rude). She’s also a […]

Otherworldly Videos: Films to See

1) Love Will Tear Us Apart: Japanese and Korean directors created a group of films on the strangeness and madness of love. 2) Attack the Block: Urban teenagers in London fight against an alien invasion. 3) Transfer: An older white couple inhabits the bodies of a young black couple to stay alive.