woman’s work

Thanks to Claudia for posting this link on Facebook: Pop Culture Shock blog shared this link about Nicole Mitchell, a Chicago jazz musician and composer who has written a tribute to Octavia Butler….

Also, a lot of people have defined her, as well as jazz musician Sun Ra, as “Afrofuturists”–people who took this idea of “intergalactic” music–music that reached back into ancient times and then reached forward and beyond what had ever been done before. That’s a concept I’ve also embraced as a musician. The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) also embraced this “ancient to future” concept. It’s almost like being a scientist–by using music as a way to experiment with new sounds and understanding the impact it can have and understanding its power to be transformative and inspirational to people. That’s what I’m trying to do with Intergalactic Beings out of my inspirations of Octavia Butler.

Are women book bloggers making nice or faking nice?  Check out this provocative post on HuffPo…

Book bloggers and reviewers–female book bloggers and reviewers especially–often seem to subscribe to a kind of cultlike apologism, in which they feel the need to defend the author as a person even if they are temerarious enough to be displeased by her book. Negative reviews are met with a resounding chorus in the comments: the author is a wonderful person, the author worked hard, the author did her very best. The idea is, apparently, that women are so exhausted by the intellectual labor required to produce the text in question that we are unable to withstand any subsequent critique, and ought instead to fall back on some kind of rosy-cheeked sorority of lady writers, exchanging stain-removal tips and sob stories.

Lastly, you know how your blog’s dashboard shows which searches led people to your site?  Well, yesterday I noticed that someone out there in cyberspace asked this: “Where does Zetta Elliot live?”  CREEPY.  Every bio I have out there ends with, “She currently lives in Brooklyn.”  Did someone really think they could find my home address online?  I regularly post my upcoming events on this blog, and don’t think I should have to stop; after all, that’s the most appropriate way to meet an author…maybe it’s just a potential reviewer who wondered whether I live in Canada.  I’m going to hope it’s not a stalker.  Living a public life is tricky, but folks should respect the right of any blogger to lead a private life OFF line…