Babel

Writer: Guillermo Arriaga
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Cinematographer: Rodrigo Prieto
Production Designer: Brigitte Broch
Editors: Douglas Crise, Stephen Mirrione
Featured Actors: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal
Paramount, 2006

everyone is a stranger to someone:
Babel and the international scene
daniel garrett

Babel (2006), written by Guillermo Arriaga and directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, is not the first film to focus on the international scene, not the first film to show us people of different ages, classes, ethnicities, and genders, not the first to demonstrate that despite unique languages and great distances of experience and space we manage yet to affect each other’s lives in important ways, but I think it is an exemplary film—excellent in many ways—and the kind of film that may be exactly what we need now.  It is—like Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic (2000) and Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana (2005)—a film that helps us to understand a complex world.  So many times artists are blamed for not bringing their audiences significant knowledge; but in certain cases artists do bring the necessary knowledge and it is refused.  I hope that is not the case with the better international films we are lucky to see.  continue

Alexis Peskine:  I think that the better you know the world around you, the better position you are in to make judgments, to speak about what you see, and to understand what you observe. I’m a voracious learner and hungry about traveling and discovering new things and new cultures.  How people feel in their environment and the reasons they feel that way interests me.  My art is just an elaborate response to my reflections about what I have witnessed.  I think my diverse background helps me understand that the problem is not White on Black hatred, Jewish on Arab hatred or Arab on Jewish hatred, the problem is hatred, or domination or anything that hampers liberty and equality. continue

For more information on the work and ideas behind the man go to www.myspace.com/alexispeskine. Alexis will be around for a long, long time but why not get to know him now?

To get a better feel for Marcus' work, visit www.marcusjansen.com. You will like what you see.

Ray Charles. Willie Hutch. Leon Ware. These ladies kept good company. Classic material.

Robert Glasper
Mood
2004 Fresh Sound | New Talent

If you aren't hip to this pianist and composer then it would be advisable to correct that. Start here with his pre Blue Note release.

During his run of brilliance, Stevie went into the studio with Syreeta and came out with another testament to his genius.

Where many have failed in their attempts to bring a definitive Hip Hop sensibility to Jazz, Madlib hits it dead on. Classic.

Having already immersed himself in Haitian history with his historical fiction Trilogy set in Haiti, Madison Smartt Bell returns with a biography of a major Haitian figure who is known for having led the first and only successful slave revolt in history, Toussaint Louverture. Well researched and worded, Bell weaves fact and circumstance to tell a tale that every person of color should know.

The Race Beat
Gene Roberts | Hank Klibanoff
ISBN: 0-679-40381-7

An amazing play by play of the Black American press, and the press in general, beginning with a study on race relations just prior to the first World War, through desegregation and beyond. What happened and who did it will astound and amaze you as the struggle is waged for equality in a nation whose laws are based on freedom.

Surprisingly enough, many have not read this classic work that not only paints a vivid and rich picture of the different periods of Malcolm’s life- Detroit Red, Malcolm X and El Hajj Malik Shabazz- but also captures the times of his life locally, nationally and internationally. If you have not read it now, read it later and thank us then.

Saint-Louis, once known as “N’da,” means large terra cotta vase. Here, this term takes the sense of the reservoir. The Wolof name of Saint-Louis comes from this word. I was thus at the source of my origins.

Saint-Louis is a melting pot where a mixed culture formed itself, in rupture with the old ways. The intensity and the quality of the mixing of ideas, of races and of cultures made Saint-Louis what it is and gave birth to this type of human that is the Saint-Louisian, the “dommo ndar.” He is a mixture, often on the ethnological level, but always on the psychological level.

Delphine Diallo is a graphic designer, illustrator, painter and, obiviously, a photgrapher. A Parisian turned New Yorker, Delphine still carries her scion of the world stamp proudly. For more of Delphine's work and Delphine's story please go to..

www.myspace.com/diawart

Even though the Oulof people are more numerous in this region, many bear Bambara, Toucouleur, French, English, and Portuguese names. Some are Catholic, others Muslim.