Random Thoughts

I am getting the hang of this blog thing, which is quite timely. Today, I attended a training session for the web portion of this class I'll be teaching next month, and many of the features of that program require me to use some of what I've had to learn here. Ours is an online world, so when in Rome...

Cult of Celebrity Breaking News: Britian's Prince Charles plans to wed his mistress of 30 years! While I am ashamed to admit my odd fascination with these people, is life in England so dreadful and boring that they need the royal family's scandals to keep them entertained? That is the only logical reason for the continued existence of the monarchy. It may also explain why all of the interesting and talented Brits leave and move here to the U.S. At least we pay attention to people who actually do something for a living.


When We Were Kids: Does anyone remember all of the speculation about the world in the Year 2000? In the 70s we were told to expect great things in 2000, but most of that turned out to be a bust. There are no flying cars, no one has yet set foot on the planet Mars, and there are no villainous super computers running things (like HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey") at least, not yet...those customer service phone menus are just the beginning.

As I went searching for a link to "2001" I found this cool animated explanation of the film. I saw this movie as a kid and it went completely over my head. After seeing the animated version, I might be up for seeing the real thing again.

Retrospectives: I saw "For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf" by Ntozake Shange last night. This play had been shown on PBS over 20 years ago and I remember that I stayed up to watch it with my mother. I recalled bits and pieces of the different scenes, and now that I am older, I can finally appreciate Shange's take on Black women coming-of-age in the 70s.

Weekly Soapbox: So why is Black theater so corny these days? After watching "For colored girls" last night, I can't help but to complain about the current crap that passes for Black theater. Shange's work was innovative and daring, but today's work is trite, formulaic and so stupid that everyone associated should be ashamed of trying to pass it off as having artistic value. You know what I'm referring to: Guilty Until Proven Innocent, Why are Men So... (fill in the blank), Medea's Family Reunion (featuring a cross dresser), etc. These are just UPN sitcoms on stage!

People fill the theaters and these plays sell out, but the more intelligent works don't have the same appeal to mass audiences. My mother and I lament this fact whenever we go to Arena Stage or the Studio Theatre to see works by August Wilson, Suzan Lori Parks, and others. I have similar complaints about popular movies, books, art and music. Where are the real Black artists?

Just my rant for the day. Since I can't think of anything else to talk about, I guess this is GBFN.

Ciao!