April Joyner

A New Model for Civil Rights: Obama at Morehouse — American Dreamers

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:34:39 -0400

A New Model for Civil Rights: Obama at Morehouse — American Dreamers:

Check out my new post on Medium (the cool new writing platform by the folks that brought you Twitter) about why I think Obama’s Morehouse address—and his speeches emphasizing personal responsibility for black Americans—are more than just mere finger-wagging.

Exclamation: Tumblr. + Yahoo! = !!

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:50:49 -0400

Exclamation: Tumblr. + Yahoo! = !!:

This totally should’ve been the official press release. I haven’t decided whether I’m comforted by the fact that Mayer/Yahoo “promise[s] not to screw it up.”

In any case, Karp seems to have found a successul monetization strategy—at least for himself. The $1.1 billion deal is “substantially all” cash. (There’s a novel instance of business-speak for ya!)

Catalog of generalizations about black people

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:00:43 -0400

Yesterday evening, I came across a novel thing, indeed: a “Black people do X” statement I actually hadn’t heard before:

https://twitter.com/aprjoy/status/335165865223933952

Who knew we didn’t like cats? Well, anyway, I’d like to compile a list of what black folks (supposedly) do and don’t do. I see it as a service project: just so those of other hues will be aware.

"A mantra of CEOs throughout the media industry these days is more data about customers, more readily..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:58:05 -0400

“A mantra of CEOs throughout the media industry these days is more data about customers, more readily available throughout the company. They don’t add, like Bloomberg, out of pride or perhaps because it’s obvious.”

- From Zach Seward’s article on Bloomberg’s culture of omniscience

"It may seem odd to say we have arrived at a moment when data and creativity are bound together in..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 08:00:33 -0400

“It may seem odd to say we have arrived at a moment when data and creativity are bound together in the same vocation, not to mention the same person. Silver doesn’t have much of a problem with the idea, as incongruous as it might sound. ‘I think there are two types of creativity,’ he says. The first is what he calls ‘pure expression’—a phrase to describe the work of musicians, poets, actors, dancers, and the like. ‘The other kind,’ he says, ‘is finding different ways to approach and solve a problem. I’m not sure of the first kind, but I think I have a lot of the problem-solving type of creativity.’ Math, as he once put it, ‘is a different language you can use to think through problems.’”

- From Fast Company’s profile of Nate Silver, whom the magazine has named the most creative person in business

The OG: Jay-Z in Harlem, 1939. Well, not really, but this is...

Fri, 10 May 2013 18:31:08 -0400

The OG: Jay-Z in Harlem, 1939. Well, not really, but this is pretty funny. I would also like to know who it actually is.

nypl:

Was one of Brooklyn’s finest in Harlem in 1939? This Sid Grossman photo of “Harlem Loiterers” from the Prints Collection at NYPL’s Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture has created quite a stir since being posted to the Center’s Facebook page the other day. Why? Because the man on the right looks a heck of a lot like Jay-Z (for evidence, check out these photos of Jay-Z when he visited The New York Public Library in 2011). Cue Twilight Zone music, right? Schomburg’s Curator of Digital Collections Sylviane A. Diouf found the photo while researching an exhibition, and said, “I was immediately struck by the similarity to Jay-Z and actually laughed out loud … I still hope somebody will tell us who that you man really was.”

So is Jay-Z a time traveler? Is this someone else - anyone know who? What do you think?

"I'm an Ivy League thug": getting your foot in the door

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:23:00 -0400

An awesome audition tale from my friend Bryan, currently starring as Marvin Gaye in Motown: The Musical:

Every time I went in to play a thug, robber or general bad guy, I would be asked to read a good guy role instead. That was problematic because most of the guys reading the lawyers, cops and good guys were so much older than myself.

I realized it was because I would enter the casting office as my warm, nice, happy self, and then I would transform into the character. They didn’t want that. I had a theory that they just wanted to believe I was that person and not acting.

I had this great audition for a guest star on “CSI: NY” coming up and I wanted to test my theory, so when I got to the casting office I was already in character. Pants saggin’! Voice deep and raspy! Mean look in my eyes! Barely acknowledged anyone! After I read I slowly walked out of the room, gave the director a threatening glance, and slammed the door.

I booked it! The first day on set the director called me over and said, “Bryan, you fooled me! You are no thug! You went to Yale!” I laughed and said, “I’m an Ivy League thug.”

Source: Playbill

English PEN is partnering with Sotheby’s to auction off...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:03:25 -0400

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Small Island by Andrea Levy

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

English PEN is partnering with Sotheby’s to auction off first-edition copies of notable books annotated by their authors (or, in two cases, their illustrators). What a cool idea! I wish this could be in a museum somewhere.

Adventures with Google Glass

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:35:26 -0400

Adventures with Google Glass:

My first awkward moment with Glass came when I walked into the bathroom.

Paging Emily Post! We need an etiquette update, fast.

Also, I hear lots of white guys are into this.

https://twitter.com/aprjoy/status/329342792474169346

"I never completely understand a character until I know what kind of shoes they wear."

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:30:30 -0400

“I never completely understand a character until I know what kind of shoes they wear.”

- Kerry Washington, in a New York Times profile

Wikipedia's Sexism Toward Female Novelists

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:23:00 -0400

Wikipedia's Sexism Toward Female Novelists:

Is this another manifestation of sexism in tech?

(The community of Wikipedia editors and contributors skews heavily male, just as in tech at large.)

Stories on the Boston Marathon Bombings

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 19:21:58 -0400

Here are a few posts that I’ve found insightful (and, yes, an entry from The Onion is among them):

Why are police scanners open to the public? at The Verge

It Wasn’t Sunil Tripathi: The Anatomy of a Misinformation Disaster at The Atlantic

How Reddit Became a Hub of the Crowdsourced Boston Marathon Bombing Investigation at Fast Company

Study: Majority Of Americans Not Informed Enough To Stereotype Chechens at The Onion

So I came across this company, Bohemian Guitars, that makes...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:55:16 -0400

So I came across this company, Bohemian Guitars, that makes guitars from old oil cans. Apparently it’s inspired by the founders’ experience growing up in South Africa. Pretty cool stuff! I’d love to learn more about the South African music that inspired them.

jtotheizzoe: I’m sort of thrown off today. it’s hard to be...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:11:42 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

I’m sort of thrown off today. it’s hard to be motivated to bring you science when there’s Reality going on.

When something hits us upside the head like the Boston Marathon explosions, we can feel dizzy, disoriented … left swirling in a dust-storm of rapidly beating hearts, furrowed brows, held breath and shaking heads. That’s how I feel, anyway. I’ve been sitting here, repeatedly muttering statements that begin with “What the f…” and simultaneously cheering and cursing the power of social media to communicate painful news. I keep looking through Twitter and blogs, knowing exactly what I’ll see and don’t want to. So powerful, but so unfiltered.

It’s not the first time in the past year that this message from Fred Rogers has been appropriate, and that’s perhaps the ultimate tragedy. But he’s right. Every photo of violence and blood in the streets of Boston that we won’t unsee is full of people running in to help. And if we have to look, that’s what we should focus on.

My thoughts are with Boston.

Hip-hop, role models, and gender critique

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:37:17 -0400

Awesome post on hip-hop and gender by loveisthicker. Here’s an excerpt that got me thinking:

When I sit with young Black and Latino men in halfway homes, prisons, and high schools, I listen to them. I once critiqued one of my students for finding Lil Wayne to be his favorite rapper. I said, “But he’s not a very positive role model. He disrespects many women…” To which this young Black man began to express the relationship that felt he and Lil Wayne shared: to struggle, to defy all odds the system set for him to fail, and to financially attain a wealth that put him in the position to be heard. Though he could hear my frustration, he did not directly identify with it. I had to reach further. His conditioning as a young man was far more affected by the failing of a system than that of a Hip Hop artist. The artist was merely, a coping mechanism, a dream and a vision. This does not take responsibility away from the portrayals of artists but it also demands context in our critiques of artists.

If I am ever to reach these young men, how do I first, see where they are coming from? What is their story and how do they get to be who they are? What is invested in our lack of education? Have they ever been loved, truly? What is love to us and how does it differ? How do we hold our brothers accountable without demonizing them? As women, how do we hold ourselves accountable in our critiques of men?

"If you were to listen to today’s formats, especially in the hip-hop/pop category, every song..."

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:36:58 -0400

“If you were to listen to today’s formats, especially in the hip-hop/pop category, every song sounds like the same song, like it’s all one big remix. Artists are picking the same producers, and they program songs in the same tempo, and a lot of times in the same key. It’s supposed to grab your attention, but it’s doing the total opposite.”

- Jerome “J-Roc” Harmon, speaking about the trend of lengthened pop tracks in the Los Angeles Times

"While this seems like a strange but wonderfully symbiotic relationship that has developed between..."

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:54:33 -0400

“While this seems like a strange but wonderfully symbiotic relationship that has developed between the two artists, the end product is the greatest Chappelle’s Show skit that never happened. The problem is that they’re not joking.”

- Rembert Browne, on Brad Paisley and LL Cool J’s “Accidental Racist,” at Grantland

Tolerating intolerance? | Being Gay at Jerry Falwell's University

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:37:42 -0400

Tolerating intolerance? | Being Gay at Jerry Falwell's University:

This is an interesting but problematic essay. I don’t agree with this: “Not tolerating someone for his narrow-mindedness is perhaps the epitome of intolerance.” If someone asserts that black people are inherently criminal, for instance, I’m really not going to find common ground with that person. I can’t really fault people who identify as LGBTQ for being unwilling to compromise with people who see them as degenerate.

(As an aside, this line really isn’t helping me like Falwell: “When I think of Jerry Falwell, I don’t think about him the way Bill Maher does. I think about the man who would wear a huge Blue Afro wig to our school games….”)

Roger Ebert's love letter to his wife

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 18:47:41 -0400

Roger Ebert's love letter to his wife:

I’d read this last year, but upon Ebert’s death (RIP), it’s making the rounds again, and it’s still incredibly beautiful. Well worth the read.

"Illegal immigrant" no more

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:25:57 -0400

"Illegal immigrant" no more:

Big news on the copy/semantics front: the AP has updated its stylebook to discourage the use of the term “illegal immigrant.” Score one for Colorlines?