Otherworldly Videos: The Alien Project + The Vacuum Is Too Loud

Here are two videos I watched from New York’s Channel 13’s Reel 13 film showcase and competition: Catron Booker’s The Alien Project: “Alien imaginings? Alien times?Alien futures? Alien lives matter. An Afro-Futurist vision of resistance.” Gus Péwé‘s The Vacuum Is Too Loud: “The story of a man who finds himself lost on Earth, determined to […]

Modern Griots Reviews: Nova Sparks’ ‘Dome’

The first in its trilogy, Nova Spark‘s apocalyptic, alien novel Dome is filled with characters figuring themselves out as their home disappears and a new questionable home arises that forces them to find the truth and what is real home. Alternating between the point of views of a father and daughter, Sam and Emma, the […]

Otherworldly Videos: Colored Girls Hustle’s “Afro Aliens” + Pink Oculus’ “Sweat”

Here are premieres of two videos from women taking female empowerment to higher levels: Colored Girls Hustle (Taja Lindley and Jessica Valoris) – “Afro Aliens” Donate to their Colored Girls Hustle Hard mixtape fundraiser!

Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth: My Poetry 4

This is the last day of National Poetry Month and I wanted to share a couple of the poems I wrote for the NaPoWriMo challenge this month: Prosthetic Conscience We are the abominations: _ And like a bomb in nations We go off as we enter their spaces _ The sight of us Blowing off […]

Moving on the Wires: Black Science Fiction Festival, Alien Bodies, Blitz the Ambassador and The Last Poets, NYU Black Surrealism Conference…

*Black Science Fiction Film Festival on February 7th in Atlanta, Georgia. Watch clip below: *The Alien Bodies: Race, Space and Sex in the African Diaspora Conference will be taking place at Emory University on February 8-9 in Atlanta Georgia. Sadly, I won’t be there, but at least it will be recorded for later viewing. Also, […]

Otherworldly Videos: Meridian’s “Truth”

Meridian – “Truth” This video is interesting. Before I saw the quote at the end, it made me think of how the introduction of an alien or new tool or culture can change another society, and the benefits and/or dangers of that introduction. Some of the clips are from a South African film, The Gods […]

Modern Griots Recap: The Outsider in Science Fiction Panel

I am one who likes to believe in synchronicity and having watched a National Geographic documentary a few days ago called, “When Aliens Attack,” this panel at the Museum of the Moving Image happened at the right time. What does our encounters and representations of the outsider or “alien” reveal about our psyches? On Sunday, […]

Otherworldly Videos: Black Body Radiation

Written and directed by Greg Tate, Black Body Radiation is a short film that “imagines a future New York dominated by three rival, warring, black religious sects after two space ships mysteriously crash into Manhattan. Kulu, leader of a circle of priestess healers lives beneath the African Burial Ground. Through trance she is in communication […]

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 […]

Modern Griots: Afronauts and Afro-Aliens

We are embedded in space, even if we do not travel to outer space, and social politics have revolved around the the struggle to define time and space. Several artists have appropriated the terms, astronaut and aliens, and used them in their artwork within an afrofuturist context: 1) The above video is an excerpt from […]