Obama. White Sox. Enough Said.

Obama Day

I will not be the only person blogging today. And I probably don't have the best perspective, or location, as I'm not in Washington D.C. like many of my friends, but I do have something to say. It's funny because you would think that as an African-American, I would have understood what this whole thing means. And, I understood it, but the gravity of the inauguration of our nations first African-American president.

No, it was not the "flub" of the oath, it was not the speech as amazing as it was, it was not the poem, which was also great. It was at the end, the benediction, when the Reverend Dr. Joseph Lowery stood at one of the largest pulpits in the world. When he began his speech by quoting something that we all know well, "Lift Every Voice and Sing," The Negro National Anthem.

As a child you learn the words to this anthem:

Lift every voice and sing,

'Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,

Bitter the chast'ning rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

Yet with a steady beat,

Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

Out from the gloomy past,

'Til now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by Thy might

Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,

May we forever stand,

True to our God,

True to our native land.

And before it was just words. The beginnings of the song are true, we came from such a hard path, a path of stones, and blood, and tears, and dirt. And I know that I can thank GOD for what we have, and if none of this ever happened I would still be thankful and feel blessed because my people could be extinct like dinosaurs but he brought us through. But I found it so hard to imagine not being stagnant, I couldn't find that "rising sun." Not until Reverend Lowery spoke to me today.

Today was the first day that I cried during the course of President Obama's run to the White House. Not when he was elected and I hugged my Step-Mother as tears streamed down her face. Not on MLK day when it was stated by Jesse Jackson Sr. that we are now "in the final lap" of realizing his Martin's dream. But when the reverend, who co-founded the Southern Leadership Conference with Martin L. King spoke those words that we had reached our sun, that the new day had begun, the tears started streaming.

And as I sit here now reliving that feeling, that unmistakable feeling that that someday is here. When I can walk down the street and be seen as a stranger, and not a black girl. I can't wait to be inconspicuous, I can't wait to be just plain me... and for the first time in my life, in my mom's life, in my grandmother's life, I can say... realistically... that day could be tomorrow.

Whitman

I'm on this kick where I'm tired of reading "new" books, or should I say there are no new books worth reading, and unless I'm gonna start getting into biographies, which isn't exactly improbable, I decided to read books that everyone has read, or at least those that are part of the "Cannon" of American and British Literature. These include re-reading favorites like To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Great Gatsby, and reading things that I should have read long ago for the first time like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

So I started my literary journey by reading Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, and I can tell you that I'm impressed. Now I know from personal knowledge that Whitman was a very avid supporter of Abolition as well as Native American rights, so as a person I like him. And his ideas of the poet are amazing. I mean it really makes me feel like I'm just calling myself a word, not living up to the expectations that he has laid out for future generation of poet.

Now Whitman starts his book off with a long essay (meaning I haven't actually gotten to the poem yet). This essay is his feelings on the American Bard or poet. Now we must remember the importance of the poet to early America, the poet was the mouth piece of the New World (and the old for that matter). The poet was the press, the voice, the life line, the entertainment, the poet was IT.

According to Whitman the poet...

"He is no arguer... he is judgment."

"In the need of poems... he is the greatest forever and forever who contributes the greatest original practical examples. The cleanest expression is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself and makes one."

the poetry...

"The best singer is not the one who has the most lithe and powerful organ... the pleasure of poems is not in them that take the handsomest measure and smiles and sound."

"To speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the flawless triumph of the art."

Now these are not only keys to good poetry, but keys to good living. According to Whitman, to live a good life is to be a poet. Purely a poet, you are then in touch with your emotions and those of your fellow man, and no poet is above another, because ever pure man or woman is poet, lives poet, and understands poetry.

After all, "it is also not consistent with the reality of the soul to admit that there is anything in the known universe more divine than men and women."

Powerful. I admit that I am only about halfway through this essay and I'm taking my time, trying to pick my way through it, gather meaning, learn. After completion I plan on re-reading of course, and finding some more Whitman, as this is my first pilgrimage into the "classic poets." But his hope and optimism for society is something that definitely uplifts the spirit. Now do I think that his ideas of the poet as the savior of man are grand and over the top? At times yes, but I love them because it gives me something to strive for as the poet, Ving Rhames once said something like "it is not the person in the art, but the art in the person that makes acting powerful." I think this is the same for Whitman and his poet.

Amish

So, I'm watching TV and this commercial comes on where they are showing these guys with beards and overalls cutting wood. Then this guy comes on TV, talking about these wooden cabinets and Amish craftsmanship, and says that if you pay the low low price of 129.99 you can get a roll away fire place that your room is missing. And just to sweeten the deal the heater is free!

Please tell me why the Amish are advertising on TV... they don't have electricity... oh and did I mention that the heater is ELECTRIC!!! How you gonna make a product that you can't use, like people pushing drugs. But what really angers me is the fact that "due to high demand" they are limiting it to two heaters per household. Seriously Amish, who are you to tell me what the hell I can do with my electricity or the "crafty" wooden cabnitted heater that I purchase for your low low price. And my Grandpa Le Roy got one... those Amish convinced the 70-something to get a heater, and it doesn't even heat well! I guess you can just leave it to the Amish to create an electrical item that doesn't work well. I just have one question... where are the Quakers when you need em'? Now those are some religious fanatics you can depend on! Well except for that whole Nixon thing.

JustListen...

What happened to that music that made you groove... you know when you could sit back in your car and ride; those summertime songs that you listen to on Lake Shore Drive, or on your way to the Circle. I want those songs, I want that feeling, I want to not have a care in the world, or for the music to make me think I don't have a care in the world. I miss Smokey Robinson and Bill Withers... well maybe I don't miss them, cause I never had them, I just wish our generation had an alternative to T Pain, and Usher sometimes. The radio tires me out now, I'm tired of thump-thump music as my Grandfather called it. I want to sit and cruse, live in the music, have it take me somewhere, not think about it, just get lost in the lyrics. It makes me think of that question that Barry Gordy asked his focus group in the Temptations TV movie. He said "if you were down to your last dollar, would you buy this record or a sandwich?" I wish music made me hungry again.