iamjournalism-blog

[iamjournalism-blog]

i'm not even gonna say rest in peace because it’s bigger than death. i never met the man (i was too nervous the one time i saw him) and i never saw him play live, regrettably. i only know the legends I’ve heard from folks and what i’ve heard and seen from his deep catalog of propellant, fearless, virtuosic work. my assessment is that he learned early on how little value to assign to someone else’s opinion of you.. an infectious sentiment that seemed soaked into his clothes, his hair, his walk, his guitar and his primal scream. he wrote my favorite song of all time, ‘when you were mine’. it’s a simple song with a simple melody that makes you wish you thought of it first, even though you never would have - a flirtatious brand of genius that feels approachable.  he was a straight black man who played his first televised set in bikini bottoms and knee high heeled boots, epic. he made me feel more comfortable with how i identify sexually simply by his display of freedom from and irreverence for obviously archaic ideas like gender conformity etc. he moved me to be more daring and intuitive with my own work by his demonstration - his denial of the prevailing model...his fight for his intellectual property - ‘slave’ written across the forehead, name changed to a symbol... an all out rebellion against exploitation. A vanguard and genius by every metric I know of who affected many in a way that will outrun oblivion for a long while. I’m proud to be a Prince fan(stan) for life.

[iamjournalism-blog]

Great sentences

“Then I reply to a youngish writer who just moved to LA and hates her job and hates LA and is panicking. “Remember you’re having an adventure!” I tell her, because she’s young and she probably doesn’t have dogs with health problems yet.”

[iamjournalism-blog]

The reason why the Oscars are so important is because it is the zenith, it is the epitome, it is the height of celebration of artistic endeavor within the filmmaking community. We grow up aspiring, dreaming, longing to be accepted into that august establishment because it is the height of excellence. I would like to walk away and say it doesn’t matter, but it does, because that acknowledgement changes the trajectory of your life, your career, and the culture of the world we live in.

Actor David Oyelowo — who was famously overlooked for playing Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma when the Oscar nominations were announced last year — broke off his prepared remarks to blast the Academy at a gala honoring Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs Monday night via The Hollywood Reporter

[iamjournalism-blog]

You can't outsmart life.

Marie Brown, a legendary literary agent

[iamjournalism-blog]

They’re fascinatingly wackadoo figures, larger-than-life, often borderline sociopathic individuals who are capable of enormous, ridiculous crimes. They are messy, operatic sinners. They are hypocrites and murderers. Yet we feel for them anyway.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/olivia-pope-need

[iamjournalism-blog]

The future. #girls (at Fayette Mall)

[iamjournalism-blog]

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though. ― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

[iamjournalism-blog]

#quote #rmdrake

[iamjournalism-blog]

"Charlie Brown, Linus, Snoopy and Lucy all felt like real people to me. I even felt so sorry for Charlie Brown at one point that I wrote him a valentine and sent it to the newspaper, hoping he'd get it."---Chris Ware, in an interview with the Paris Review #NYTimes #quotes

[iamjournalism-blog]

A great article on @lenadunham in New York Times magazine's latest issue. "So I started saying insane stuff to my parents like, 'I'm a basket of oranges being thrown over a wall!' And my dad was like, 'Oh, my God, this is the moment when her neuroses have turned into full-blown mental illness.' #readingmaterial Cc: @saidlonna

[iamjournalism-blog]

People assume that writers are terribly insightful and good at being with or reading other people.... Our research into humanity may make us smart about certain things, but if you get us on a bad day we may not notice if you're on fire.

A.L. Kennedy, in an interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books (pulled from the New York Times Books Review)

[iamjournalism-blog]

#serenawilliams "Her 18th major title puts her in an elite trio."

[iamjournalism-blog]

Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.

#JoanDidion

[iamjournalism-blog]

Breakfast with #NYTimes best selling author @janetmock & #Biggie "I was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine." #redefiningrealness

[iamjournalism-blog]

And summer is over. #madeinamerica (at Budweiser Made In America Concert)

[iamjournalism-blog]

#MikeBrown #rip "Now here I am and there I am and all am---Free to be anywhere in the universe." (Toni Cade Bambara)

[iamjournalism-blog]

My Saturday night read. "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years Of Pilgrimage" by #HarukiMurakami #books (there is nothing like a great novel. Thanks, Max @maxavize for telling me about #Murakami.) "Jenisha, go underground and just read a bunch of great novels."--@maxavize