Posts Tagged "culture"

Sting: Rediscovering the Muse as The Last Ship Sails

Posted by RZ on Jun 28, 2014

— STING —

Sting grew up in the shadow of the shipyard, with giant ships rising into the air at the end of his street. Newcastle-Upon-Tyne was at the heart of the British shipbuilding industry.

 The Dream

But instead of wanting to follow in the footsteps of generations of Tynesiders whose lives were inextricably linked with the docks and the shipbuilding industry, Sting had a different dream. It was one that grew exponentially with the discovery of a guitar in the attic at the age of 8 . “I was bequeathed a guitar and realised I had found a friend for life.”

 The dream would become his life and Gordon Sumner would become internationally known as the musician Sting, but first he had to turn his back on his roots and travel away. He had no desire to return to the traumatised society he witnessed during the closure of the ship building industry.

— STING —

 The muse Sting chose to follow as a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist was one that would bring us such unforgettable songs as   “Roxanne”, “Fields of Gold”, “Message in a bottle”, “Every Breath You Take” and “Englishman in New York”.

 Sting’s astonishing success both as a member of “The Police” and during his solo career, together with his prolific song-writing ability made it particularly difficult for him to come to terms with a long period of “writer’s block” which  stretched into years of self-questioning.

 He eventually acknowledged a need to return to his roots in Newcastle, a decision which was to reunite him with his muse and he has spent the past few years working on a theatrical production called “The Last Ship” – inspired by the demise of the shipbuilding industry in the North East. 

Sting released the album “The Last Ship” in 2013 and the musical production launched its pre-Broadway tryout in Chicago last Wednesday with songwriters Paul Simon, James Taylor and Dennis DeYoung watching from the orchestra seats, according to the review by Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune.

Political Activism

A sense of the injustices caused by corrupted power led Sting along the path of political activism, participating in many of the focal moments in which creative artists have joined forces to raise international awareness of major issues: Band Aid, Live Aid, Feed the World”, Live8 etc.

 His long involvement with Amnesty International which  began with his appearance at the “Secret Policemen’s Other Ball” in 1981 has inspired some of the songs he has written.
“Before that I did not know about Amnesty, I did not know about its work, I did not know about torture in the world” .

 Sting’s song “They Dance Alone”  threw a spotlight on the plight of the mothers, wives and daughters of “The Disappeared” (political opponents killed by the Pinochet regime) in Chile. These women, under constant threat from Pinochet’s infamous death squads, were afraid to voice their opinions publicly but would pin photos of their missing loved ones to their clothing and dance in public places in unspoken outrage.

Dendropsophus Stingi and The Rainforest Foundation

Sting, his wife Trudi and Raoni Metuktire, a Kayapó Indian leader in Brazil, founded the “Rainforest Foundation” to help save the rainforests and protect the rights of the indigenous people living in them.  (In recognition of his “commitment and efforts to save the rain forest”, a species of Colombian tree frog, Dendropsophus stingi, was named after him.)

In addition to 16 Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, an Emmy and several Oscar nominations. Sting has sold nearly 100 million records worldwide, was 62nd on Paste Magazine’s list of 100 Best Living Songwriters, 63rd on VH1’s “100 Greatest Artists of Rock” and 80th on A magazines “100 Greatest Musical Stars of the 20th Century”

Why is it Always Four in the Morning?

Posted by RZ on Jun 25, 2014

If Aliens were to float around examining our culture for a while, they may well decide that four in the morning has a special significance in our culture. It might take them longer to figure out why.

Which is what American performance poet, storyteller and author, John G. Rives discovered after reading a poem which he couldn’t get out of his head.

Most of us have had that experience but this one was so convincing that what began as a minor obsession ended up as the creation of the Museum of Four in the Morning…

If you doubt the significance, watch the TED Talk presentation.

If you know why this phenomenon exists, please post your wisdom on the forums.

Museum of four in the Morning

http://mofitm.tumblr.com/

In an earlier appearance at TED Talks, Rives performed one of his poems, sharing what it would be like…

If I Controlled the Internet

If I controlled the internet
You could auction your broken heart
on Ebay…

Presentations by Rives at TED  include

• “If I controlled the Internet”
• “A mockingbird remix of TED2006”
• “The 4 a.m. mystery”
• “A story of mixed emoticons”
• “Reinventing the encyclopedia game”
• “The Museum of Four in the Morning”

Maya Angelou: The Song Bird Flies

Posted by RZ on May 28, 2014

— Maya Angelou —

Maya Angelou, a voice that inspired generations through powerful prose and poetry and the light of a fiery and shining soul, has died at the age of 86. 

Like thousands of others, I discovered the power of  Maya Angelou’s writing when I came across  the book “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” – seven words that I couldn’t get out of my head, and never left my heart. Why would someone put something as beautiful and free as a bird into a cage? And why would a caged bird choose to sing?

Three year old Maya and her brother Bailey Junior were sent  to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas after their parents divorce. Maya spent 10 years discovering what it was like to grow up in one of America’s poorest regions with all the prejudice and racial segregation of the Deep South (such as the white dentist who refused to treat Maya’s rotting teeth, even when reminded by her grandmother that she had lent him money during the Depression).

Maya was born Marguerite Ann Johnson in St Louis, Missouri on 4 April 1928 and the name Maya originated from her brother’s way of saying “My-a sister”.

The Silent Voice
At the age of 7, when visiting her mother in St Louis, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. When she told her family what had happened, the man was arrested, tried and released, but was murdered shortly afterwards. For the next five years, Maya Angelou didn’t speak:

“When I heard about his murder, I thought my voice had killed a man and so it wasn’t safe to speak.
“After a while, I no longer knew why I didn’t speak, I simply didn’t speak.”

During her silence, she read incessantly and was eventually persuaded to speak again by Mrs. Bertha Flowers, “the aristocrat of Black Stamps” who encouraged her reading, and recognising her love of poetry told her that to be fully experienced, poetry had to be read aloud. “You will never love poetry until you actually feel it come across your tongue, through your teeth, over your lips.”

Maya Angelou went on to have an extraordinary career which she writes about in her books, including becoming San Francisco’s first female cable car conductor at 15, the experience of being a young mother at 16, time as a dancer, waitress, prostitute, actor and singer, travelling around Europe and Africa with the Opera Porgy and Bess, her involvement with the civil rights movement, working with both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and experiencing the trauma of both their assassinations – King was killed on her birthday.

She writes of falling in love with South African civil rights activist Vusuma Make and moving to Cairo with him, practicing as a journalist in Egypt and later in Ghana during the time of decolonisation, her son’s car accident and the years after her return to the US in 1965 and her decision to start writing “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings”.

Other autobiographical books that followed the Caged Bird include
“Gather Together in My Name “(1974),
“Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas” (1976),
“The Heart of a Woman” (1981),
“All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes” (1986), 
“A Song Flung Up to Heaven” (2002), and
“Mom & Me & Mom” (2013, at the age of 85).

Ritual
Maya Angelou used the same “writing ritual” for many years and described her writing process as regimented.

The Ritual involved getting up at five in the morning and booking into a hotel room where the staff have been instructed to remove all pictures from the walls. She has a bottle of sherry, a deck of playing cards, a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus and the Bible, and she writes on legal pads.

She places herself back in the time she is writing about, even when traumatic and plays solitaire she says to reach a place of enchantment and access her memories more effectively. “It may take an hour to get into it, but once I’m in it—ha! It’s so delicious!”. It is not the process which she finds cathartic but rather the relief that she finds in “telling the truth”.

“I try to get there around seven, and work until around two in the afternoon … Maybe after dinner I’ll read to [my husband, Paul du Feu] what I have written that day. He doesn’t comment. I don’t invite comments from anybody but my editor.”

Angelou has credited African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar along with Shakespeare for inspiring her “writing ambition” and the title of her first book comes from Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy.”

— Paul Laurence Dunbar —

Judge Rules on Matrix Copyright

Posted by RZ on Apr 30, 2014

– Morpheus –

A judge has ruled that the Matrix film trilogy did not plagiarize the work of  Thomas Althouse.

Althouse claimed he had submitted a screenplay “The Immortals” to Warner Bros in 1993, and the Matrix Trilogy produced by the studio had infringed his copyright by incorporating ideas from his screenplay into the Matrix films.

He listed 118 alleged similarities in the Matrix to his own work.

Judge R Gary Klausner stated that the areas referred to were “too general for copyright protection.. or are commonly used, unoriginal ideas.”

The Matrix, written and directed by the Wachowskis is a science fiction action film set in a dystopian future with a storyline in which computer hacker “Neo” (Keanu Reeves)  discovers the world experienced by most humans is a dream world of simulated reality – “the Matrix”, created by sentient machines in order to subdue the human race, while machines harness electrical energy and body heat from them as an energy source.

 Other humans who have been freed from the illusionary world are involved in a rebellion against machines  – a rebellion into which Neo finds himself drawn.

Althouse claimed that his screenplay, set in the year 2235, in which CIA agent attempts to stop  a cryogenically reanimated Adolf Hitler from destroying non-immortals, was the inspiration for the Matrix films.

Judge Klausner ruled:
 “the only similarity in plot [was] that both stories portray a protagonist attempting to prevent a dominant group from oppressing and annihilating a subservient group”.

“The basic premises of The Matrix Trilogy and The Immortals are so different that it would be unreasonable to find their plots substantially similar,”

“Examining the protectable details in the two works, no jury could reasonably conclude that The Immortals has substantially similar expressions of ideas to The Matrix Trilogy.”

Other projects by the Wachowskis (formerly the Wachowski Brothers) since the success of “The Matrix”,  have included writing and directing its two sequels -” The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions” (2003),  “V for Vendetta” (adapted from the Alan Moore comic), “Speed Racer” a live adaptation of the Japanese anime series and “Cloud Atlas” based on the David Mitchell novel and co-directed by Tom Tykwer.

 The next Wachowski film “Jupiter Ascending” and their television series “Sense8” are both due for release in 2014.

International Womens Day 2014: Inspiring Change

Posted by RZ on Mar 8, 2014

 Every year the United Nations chooses a theme for International Womens Day
This year’s theme is “Inspiring Change” other themes have been:

There have been many changes since the first International Womens Day in 1908, but there is still a long way to go.
Looking at a list of some of the earlier themes chosen by the UN for International Womens Day and noticing how many times “Violence Against Women” occurs is a reminder of how serious that one single problem is. That is before one even starts to look at equal employment rights,  the right to vote, property rights, the right to education, birth control and reproductive rights and many other issues of gender equality and human rights for women.

 – 2013: A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women
– 2012: Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty
– 2011: Equal access to education, training and science and technology
– 2010: Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all
– 2009: Women and men united to end violence against women and girls
– 2008: Investing in Women and Girls
– 2007: Ending Impunity for Violence against Women and Girls
– 2006: Women in decision-making
– 2005: Gender Equality Beyond 2005: Building a More Secure Future
– 2004: Women and HIV/AIDS
– 2003: Gender Equality and the Millennium Development Goals
– 2002: Afghan Women Today: Realities and Opportunities
– 2001: Women and Peace: Women Managing Conflicts
– 2000: Women Uniting for Peace
– 1999: World Free of Violence against Women
– 1998: Women and Human Rights
– 1997: Women at the Peace Table
– 1996: Celebrating the Past, Planning for the Future
– 1975: United Nations recognizes International Women’s Day

Inspirational Quotations for Women

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” 
– Maya Angelou

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” 
– Anais Nin

“I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.” 
– Mother Teresa

“It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union…. Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.” 
– Susan B. Anthony

“A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform.” 
– Diane Mariechild

“Most people who meet my wife quickly conclude that she is remarkable. They are right about this. She is smart, funny and thoroughly charming. Often, after hearing her speak at some function or working with her on a project, people will approach me and say something to the effect of, you know, I think the world of you, Barack, but your wife, wow!” 
– Barack Obama, “The Audacity of Hope”

“People think at the end of the day that a man is the only answer (to fulfillment). Actually a job is better for me.” 
– Princess Diana

“It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.” 
– J. K. Rowling

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” 
– Maya Angelou

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” 
– Alice Walker

“Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.”
– Virginia Woolf

“Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the President’s spouse. I wish him well!”
– Barbara Bush

“The fastest way to change society is to mobilize the women of the world.”
– Charles Malik

“A world without men would consists of a bunch of fat, happy women with no crime.” 
– Jennifer Love Hewitt