Blog Posts for Aberjhani

National Bookstore Day: A Great Day for a Signing

* Aberjhani — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:52:53 -0800

National Bookstore Day, November 7, 2009, has to be one of the best ideas anybody has come up with to help celebrate and preserve literary culture in our digitally-revolutionized age in a very long time. It gives me a perfect excuse to scrape up a few bucks and splurge on books other than those needed for research. But now that I think about it a bit more, it also should have been a good excuse ...

Three Great Movies to Tag for Holiday Viewing

* Aberjhani — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:01:39 -0800

What movies are you watching for the holidays? Most people are more likely to think along the lines of movie classics like It's a Wonderful Life (1947) or the more modern The Preacher's Wife (1996) and megastar Jim Carrey's forthcoming Walt Disney blockbuster, A Christmas Carol when it comes to considering films to enjoy with one's family during the holidays. However, a number of films do a ...

Savannah State Continues Fine Art Series with Phil Starks' "Gaia Earth Goddess" Exhibit

* Aberjhani — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:04:32 -0700

The ancient stories told through the work of Savannah, Georgia, artist Phil Starks unfolded in a very modern setting with the opening of his Gaia Earth Goddess and Her 7 Matriarchal Daughters exhibition, scheduled to run from October 23 to November 19, 2009, at the Savannah State University (SSU) Art Gallery. Starks has participated in a number of group shows over the past few years, including ...

A Hostess and Haven Named Paris

* Aberjhani — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:10:48 -0700

For years I have been telling myself and my friends that my favorite city is Paris, France, but the fact is I have never been there. Yet I have this strange memory--as false as a five-dollar bill with a grinning jack-o-lantern where Abraham Lincoln's noble beard should be--that likes to surface every now and then and insist it is real. The memory is of a cool day early in May 1946. ...

Two Literary Laureates Celebrated: Herta Mϋller and Amiri Baraka

* Aberjhani — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:12:40 -0700

The celebration of one literary laureate kicked off when the Swedish Academy in Stockholm awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature to German-Romanian Herta Mϋller October 8, 2009. The celebration of another literary laureate got underway October 7, when Amiri Baraka, one of African America's greatest statesmen of letters, turned 75, and plans were announced to honor the venerable author ...

The Last of the Seven

* Aberjhani — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:19:11 -0700

On the same day that Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died, my Uncle Lendward Griffin, Sr., also left this world for greener spiritual pastures. Once the news of his death sunk all the way in, I thought to myself, Wow, he left this world in some really fantastic company. Uncle Len was not a public megastar like Fawcett and Jackson but in his own way he was as unique and worthy of ...

Forgiveness off the Top of My Head

* Aberjhani — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:46:05 -0700

I have watched a number of friends, family members, and public officials over the past few years argue with themselves about how much they do or do not believe in love because they, in some terrified hour, had reached the conclusion that without forgiveness there can be no love and forgiveness is not always an easy thing to give. What, after all, does one do with the pain as yet lingering ...

Musician-Artist Don Dean's Eclectic Human Condition

* Aberjhani — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:17:59 -0700

Popular media references to the 1960s musical British Invasion headed by history-changing acts like the Beatles and Rolling Stones are far more common--at least on the U.S. side of the planet--than references to the corresponding African America's Rhythm and Blues invasion of the United Kingdom that took place during the same period. That was when classic giants of the genre--think Otis ...

Reading Rumi after 9/11

* Aberjhani — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:08:20 -0700

"The lovers crawl in and out of your alley,They bathe in drips of blood; and not finding you, they give up and leave.I am forever stationed at your door like the earth,While others come and go like the wind."--Jelaluddin Rumi Many Americans first fell in love with the poetry of the thirteenth century teacher and spiritual Jelaluddin Rumi during the early ...

The Unique Genius of Gullah Artist Allen Fireall

* Aberjhani — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:57:23 -0700

When considering that an artist for the past twenty years has been producing and selling more than 100 original paintings per year, it becomes difficult to think of the individual as one of the South's best kept brilliant secrets. Yet, despite the fact that he was selected one of the "top five collectible artists in the region" by Coastal Arts and Antiques Magazine and that ...