Big Sole Blog (BSB)

If you would prefer to read the text of this poem outside the video, click here.I do not have an easy answer to that question in the title of this post--"What's wrong with writing sentimental poetry and fiction?"--but I have a few thoughts about why writing critics reject poets who write what they call "Hallmark Card verse" or fiction authors who slather on the sentimentality that causes readers

English Translation of "Nessun Dorma"Nobody shall sleep!... Nobody shall sleep! Even you, o Princess, in your cold room, watch the stars, that tremble with love and with hope.But my secret is hidden within me,my name no one shall know... No!...No!... On your mouth I will tell it when the light shines.And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!...(No one will know his name and we

I did not intend to mention the Dartmouth Aires again, but as I said in my post about NBC's The Sing-Off finale, I'm catching up with what I missed via OnDemand. Anyway, the Aires's performance of R. Kelley's "Ignition Remix" on Episode 9 had me howling with laughter. As judge Shawn Stockman said, "there were so many uncomfortable moments ..." in the performance, and yet it was fun. Ben Folds

My eyes ached. I thought for a moment I had crashed and burned. Aging, damn it, was getting the best of me, and I was waking some days with that blue moon in my eye, but I made it through. Sorry for speaking in code, people, but I've learned discretion can save a body trouble.Time to go back to the gym, too. Missing so many sessions kicked me into the stress pool.Playing Alabma 3's "Woke Up This

The video embedded in this post is from Democracy NOW! and is about a documentary co-produced by actor Danny Glover. As described on its YouTube page:(the documentary and the clip feature "rare archival footage of Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton, Stokely. The Democracy NOW! episode and was) broadcast from Park City, Utah, home of the Sundance Film Festival, the nation's largest festival for

I will be moving this blog away from discussions of politics and race toward something less controversial, mythology perhaps. Something less personal, too, but what I do not know because existence is personal, is it not? Suddenly I am aware of the many reasons a woman should confine her own freedom of speech to the abstract or less threatening and yet even that decision is political. How will I

As I work at putting my life in order, which means doing the things I've always said I would do before my time runs out on this planet, I realize that I'm spending less time online. That's a good thing, but it's also a strange thing given how much time I've put into the Internet since 2002 and even earlier. I should probably elaborate, but I've got someplace to go right now and later it's

Patti Labelle tribute at BET Awards 2011 with Marsha Ambrosius, Cee Lo, and Shirley Ceasar. Patti herself performs at the end. I enjoyed watching the show with my aunt and cousins last night, three generations in one place with a difference of opinion about what is good music. The younger ones were more

In some ways this blog is a commonplace book for me, and so, as I am researching closet dramas and their relationship to Plato and the dialectic or dialogue, I'm storing this definition or summary of closet dramas from The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Volume 1. Wikipedia is good starting point, too.

I got up at 5:50 a.m., again complying with my dearest cousin (yes, the same cousin with whom I went to the Zulu Ball) but also with pressure from my son, and went to one Mardi Gras parade, the first of Mardi Gras Day, which is the Zulu Parade. We stood somewhere on St. Charles Avenue between Jackson and Felicity Streets. Scenes from the morning are in the video above.We didn't stay until the end

What I miss about driving less is getting lost in a radio show, specifically narratives on NPR via WWNO here in New Orleans. I can't seem to listen to talk or narratives on radio sitting still in my bedroom or living room because my mind starts to travel to all the things I need to do in my house, and if I try to do chores and listen, I don't enjoy the story the way I can in the car.This Saturday

I am struggling through reading for classes, and procrastination is calling my name much more than any love, but still I love this song.

I discovered today that my poem "Remembering a Life" honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was read at a Hagerstown Community College celebration for MLK Day 2011. This is not the first time the poem has been recited at such an event. I started to learn of people reciting it and some of my other poems at special occasions around 2006, and I think I wrote about the recitations in 2008.However,

More than likely, any attempt to remove your personal data from Spokeo.com will only result in Spokeo having more information about you.Everytime I look around on Facebook lately, someone is posting a warning about Spokeo.com, the same website discussed in the video above. Spokeo is a personal information aggregator promoting itself as a search engine with the tagline "not your grandma's phone

This was my day yesterday: At 8:30 a.m., I got a call. My son, 20, had wrecked my daughter's Chevy Cobalt. He was lost, and had made a bad turn, committing a failure to yield. An SUV hit the car on the passenger's side. Thank God he was alone in it.The Cobalt then careened into a traffic light pole on Marconi and Harrison by City Park. The Other driver, one of the city's District Attorneys, was

It's been raining ducks and alligators here, and my dog, who is afraid of thunderstorms but won't go in his dog house, has been outside going nuts. Furthermore, I postponed a trip across the lake partly because I don't like driving over the Twin Span when the rain's pouring down, but also because I'm functioning on little sleep today. Verizon Wireless called me this morning before my wake time

Just when I thought some Tea Party leaders could sink no lower, I learn that one of its most prominent leaders, according to the Huffington Post, is calling for the United Methodist Church to be disbanded. I take this personally since I grew up in the UMC.My grandfather and great-grandfather were UMC ministers and many of my family members are still on its rolls. In fact, I've been thinking about

I took these photos last year during the 2009 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Actually, I shot video that was too crowded with tourists walking in front of my view to post online. More photos are posted on my Facebook page. I probably need to check this with Kalamu ya Salaam, but I think these two black Mardi Gras Indians in the first two photos both serve as the wild man that clears the

I am most definitely not a Pollyanna, always seeing the best in everything, but neither do I see the worst. I consider myself to be a realist who sometimes battles an inner pessimist. However, I think in order to maintain sanity that if you're going to be pessimistic about your prospects, then at least ground your pessimism in reality. So, when I read an article at TheRoot.com today by Helena

My dog started whining early, a lab. He's outside these days but he used to be an inside dog, and even though he seems to like being outside, he's got this habit of barking and whining whenever the kitchen light goes on in the morning. Sort of saying, I think, "Hey, you people. I want in!"Anyway, to drown out the barking, I grabbed my mp3 player. I accidentally clicked the wrong song, and Eric