there is something breathtakingly beautiful about this photograph of two Spanish pilgrams.

i love the world and all the colors it has to offer. the smell of fresh curry in india, or the feel of the ocean in south africa. i remember it all as if it were yesterday. fresh in my mind is the taste of iced tea in bombay. i look down as if the puerto rican soil will still lie under my feet. i allow the sun to shine over me, as i walk in the shadow of myself. swimming nude in malaysia under a bright moon with strangers, i never felt so free wrapped in memory. benches, people, the conversations long forgotten. walks to destinations, arrivals and departures. names lost and money lost, food eaten and fucks forgotten. the world - so vast, so enormous. i must not suffer in the heat of the ill - the path is forged, i must fall into the ground to roll forwar. Fore the future is filled with 20 questions of people, places and things and i dont want to play, i want to win before the game is over. the essence of a tree calls to me and says "lets go." i watch as the leaves fall to the ground, they whisp down the street as they collect in piles before the tall dark man with black bags comes and takes it all away. eyes see all. lips, mouth, tongue taste. i reach out my arm to touch, pull back and the world's in the palm of my hands. don't take it all away.

sweet r&b

my mood is a little deborah cox with a lot of vivi green.

the sweet, smooth sounds of r&b soothe me in the night, calm me in the day. without otis redding, marvin gaye, lauryn hill, erykah badu, jill scott, vivian green, whitney, mariah, faith evans, deborah cox and artists like them, i couldn't get through this thing called life. i am so thankful for music because it helps me so much. i'm not up on new, hip music. i've listened to the same songs for the last 15 years. But, this music has become the soundtrack of my life and each track plays on periods when i was most sad or happy. songs like "We can't be friends" fill me with energy..the sounds of the music make my heart beat fast or my breathe calm down. i dont know what i'd do without alicia keys or john legend, whose last album really helped me through some hard times. i love r&b, i love the evolution of blues and jazz music, black artists have shaped my consciousness. i'm a white girl from south philly, molded by the musical talents of african american r&b singers. i'm a poet and a person who recognizes the soulful nature of r&b. Why? Because it has soothed my soul.

Old News

A mis 95 años / 95 years old blogger

One step forward for Latinos

http://cnn.ch/2009/POLITICS/05/26/sotomayor.latino/index.html?iref=topnews

How the Media will Smear Sotomayor
(Be sure to check out the interesting commentary from the Huffington Post bloggers at the bottom of the page)

More on this later

Amnesty International Report 2009: State of the World's Human Rights

Prop 8

bo$$ bitch of Sartorialist, 5/28/09

The Jacket, Leggings (LV GRAF), HAIR, BAG = FABOLUST.

Perez Hilton in Time: An Oxymoron Come True

Perez answers Time Magazine's infamous 10 questions:
Interview

The Allure of Anonymity/Fame

Jon and Kate star in the Truman Show

On The Pop Explosion of Lady Gaga

Rolling Stone
gaga on gaga:

When I'm writing music, I'm thinking about the clothes I want to wear on stage. It's all about everything altogether—performance art, pop performance art, fashion. For me, it's everything coming together and being a real story that will bring back the super-fan. I want to bring that back. I want the imagery to be so strong that fans will want to eat and taste and lick every part of us.

on her first tour:

I consider what I do to be more of an Andy Warhol concept: pop performance art, multimedia, fashion, technology, video, film. And it's all coming together, and it's going to be traveling museum show.

She studied art criticism at NYU..appears to be very creative, intelligent//a writer & an artist..why the world can't get enough gaga.
more on this later.

The important thing is to realise that everyone is capable of telling a story. it doesn't matter where we were born or how we grew up.

Maeve Binchy (1940 - ) Irish Novelist whose birthday is today.

Has anything changed?

Segregated Prom Nights

Racially segregated proms have been held in Montgomery County — where about two-thirds of the population is white — almost every year since its schools were integrated in 1971. Such proms are, by many accounts, longstanding traditions in towns across the rural South, though in recent years a number of communities have successfully pushed for change. When the actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for last year’s first-of-its-kind integrated prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi, his home state, the idea was quickly embraced by students — and rejected by a group of white parents, who held a competing “private” prom. (The effort is the subject of a documentary, “Prom Night in Mississippi,” which will be shown on HBO in July.) The senior proms held by Montgomery County High School students — referred to by many students as “the black-folks prom” and “the white-folks prom” — are organized outside school through student committees with the help of parents. All students are welcome at the black prom, though generally few if any white students show up. The white prom, students say, remains governed by a largely unspoken set of rules about who may come. Black members of the student council say they have asked school administrators about holding a single school-sponsored prom, but that, along with efforts to collaborate with white prom planners, has failed.

If you read this post I want to know who you are.
Leave me a comment about where you're from!

THX 1138 - 150th Post

Play me, Promoe - THX 1138

My ex-boyfriend definitely got me into this artist. Songs like Bandit Queen keep me hooked to Looptroop.

Rita Dove

Ms. Dove, the Poetess
Biography
1987 Reading
Speaking at the 2007 Poets Forum


From poets.org:
Rita Dove was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1952. She served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995. Among her many honors are the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in poetry, the 1996 Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities and the 2006 Common Wealth Award. President Bill Clinton bestowed upon her the 1996 National Humanities Medal.

My Mother Enters the Work Force
The path to ABC Business School
was paid for by a lucky sign:
Alterations, Qualified Seamstress
Inquire Within.

Tested on Sleeves, hers
never puckered -- puffed or sleek,
Leg o' or Raglan -- they barely
needed the damp cloth
to steam them perfect.


Those were the afternoons.
Evenings she took in piecework,
the treadle machine with its
locomotive whir traveling the lit path
of the needle through quicksand
taffeta or velvet deep as a forest.


And now and now sang the treadle,
I know, I know....


And then it was day again,
all morning at the office machines,
their clack and chatter
another journey -- rougher,
that would go on forever
until she could break a hundred words
with no errors -- ah, and then


No more postponed groceries,
and that blue pair of shoes!

______________________________

I love that poem so much because Ms. Dove captures the true calling of a Poetess. She reminds me of a modern day Felicia Hemans.
Another Great Rita Link

Sartorialist, 5/18/09

I can't get this photo out of my head. The dudes on the mailbox are my boy's friends. Her shorts are amazing - just the right combo of Cape Cod, MIA and the Beach Boys.

We need to talk about Ri-Ri

Princess Ri-Ri has been OFF THE CHAIN LATELY.
Her outfits are out of this world; totally in sync.
Lets take a looksie:
First she kicked it off at none other than Anna Wintour's MET BALL earlier this month,

Now, this week she has been hitting it full force,

Good Morning

Summer Returns (like Autumn Leaves)

Today is a cloudy day over philadelphia,
the fog covers the window as the moist air creeps.
Children awaken again watch the post boxes pass by -
inside woman cries out.

Thunderous bells highlight the lilacs
Dresses on bicycles fly by,
eyeing the perimeter like hawks,
reading like a prayer for life.

Sizable smiles line the bank
the muck from the river gone aflow
creates a shallow, slimy barrier
between a safe spot and a rock

so summer returns upon the half lit night
angels disguised as manikins return to roam the night

such were the memories of a twelvemonth;
of sun and sol, moon and luna
like an island

All People are Created Equal

HATE is the lowest form of ignorance.
GAY MARRAIGE: The last great civil rights battle.

My thoughts: Gay, strait, bi, trangender, who cares...people are people and love is love. No government should dictate who is allowed to marry. There is no definition of marriage. It is not about Obama's approval - it is about a nation coming together for all it's people and not just some. It is about FREEDOM & EQUALITY - what this country was supposed to of been built on.

Then there are these bastards, the lowest of the low - those ignorant fools who believe gays should be denied the right to marry. Maybe it is fear, call it homophobia, many people hide behind the veil of religion in order to mask their hatred. My disgust with the black, Baptist communities who argue Racial Equality reins over Gay Rights have misunderstood the words of leaders from the past. There is a great sadness amongst the oppressed which should unite people instead of continue to marginazle or seperate them. The sadness that is the present state of human relations, be it racial, cultural, linguistic or sex, becomes our total state of existance. The deep seeded lies that have been fed to the American public regarding AIDS is only the surfance of the problem that is homophobia. America's obsession with female bisexuality is eating away at the minds of our young girls. And the fear that lies in the man who argues that Gays and Lesbians do not deserve equal rights is polluting our American way of free life.

http://news.pinkpaper.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=965

Among the celebs who support gay marriage: Ellen DeGeneres, Brad Pitt, Melissa Etheridge, Steven Spielberg, Mary J. Blige, Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus!

I SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE!

Whatever happened to Michael Vic's sad dogs????

They became happy dogs! Click here!

Urban Boriquas

Un nativo, Puerto Rican Taíno y su primer contacto con la religión

Una Inspiración

Pro Mujer

The kind of work I'd like to be doing and more people should. Inspired by micro-finance pioneer Muhammad Yunus and his creation the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Lynne Randolph Patterson, works in La Paz, Bolivia to help working women. A teacher, Ms. Patterson is partners with Carmen Velasco, a psychologist. Together they formed Pro Mujer (Pro Woman) and it now serves 222,000 women in Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Nicaragua and Argentina.

"It's not perfect but it's hard to think of a more effective way to support women."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8007909.stm

Native American Insights

CLICK TO SEE FULL VIEW.

Trash Culture

This year there has been an explosion of fashionista programming. Apart from Project Runway and the usual, I am particularly thinking of the CW show Gossip Girl.

I read a lot of fashion blogs and I can't believe how many "substaintial" bloggers have taken to discussing the show as if it was reality. Situated inbetween posts of runway events and balls, is a blog on Gossip Girl.

Basically, it makes me wonder. I thought fashion was supposed to be life? Street? Runway? Artist & Muse? But, television? I don't buy it. Sex and the City is one thing - a pioneer and the work of Patricia Field, of course. But, Gossip Girl? Media has really got a hold on us. These are characters for gods sake. They are not worthy of reputible fashion blogs such as The Sartorialist.

Not only that but isn't this is a show dedicated to alchy teens and drugged out high schoolers? They characters are wicked to each other, too. I agree with America Ferrera: 'Shows Like 'Gossip Girl' Kind Of Condition Us To Be Mean'.

Lets also keep in mind that New York magazine is not affiliated with the New Yorker.

For further reading, enjoy these articles:
Why censorship isn't the answer to trashy T.V.
Trashy or Transgressive?

Today is unlike any other.

So much has happened in the last few weeks I haven't had the time or energy to write or blog - this is terrible because it leaves me feeling chocked and stifled.

Soon I will begin writing more short stories as I am really enjoying the freedom they allow me to simply create. It is actually freeing me from my poetry which in the last few years has become a burden. I've lost touch with words but short story writing allows me more space to retrieve those phrases and ideas.

I am very excited for the next chapter of my life: I will finish a proposal for a writing workshop for teen girls, find out if I was accepted to graduate school and my own writing group will reconvene in the fall. Next week I will visit another writing group (in which all participants must pay-unlike my group which is free). I hope to get some ideas from the group. Also, I leave my law job the end of june and I am applying for an arts education internship. Love has also found me and the past two years have been filled with joy. In fact, I am excited for the next few chapters.