(And they know the album cuts.) They tune into the SB knowing to expect something, well, racist. It's evidenced and encoded into every second of the NFL. They enjoy it all anyway. We might want to emulate that thinking and behavior. 4/4
His presence galvanizes meaning. It's not the meaning he maybe wants. Villains will villain.
I'm saying this to my white friends and allies. if I may be so bold, Black people donβt scratch their heads over what Kendrick was doing, either with his politics or with his personal/artistic beefs.
What else do we expect from him? (When has a SB halftime performed by a Black artist NOT been controversial? It's always too meaningful, too kneel-during-the-anthem, too challenging, or too...Black.) I felt it during the lead up New Orleans entertainment, but mostly because I knew 47 was there. 2/4
Yes people are going to criticize Kendrick.
C'mon, you don't have to "know" hiphop to read the effing room.
His work was way more meaningful - more "coded", more sophisticated - than people expect at a Super Bowl halftime, which is probably why it is now controversial. 1/4
Jane Wendy MacLaughlin, named for grandmother Wendy MacLaughlin, who was named for Wendy in Peter Pan - Jane went on, beautifully, as Wendy in Peter Pan at the Arden Theatre Co, the theatre she grew up with. I directed. Full circle X 10. I swell with admiration for Jane. Her grandmother smiled.
I am beginning work in Turkey very soon. There is an ancient City of Batman in SE Turkey along the Batman River, named long before the comic book character hit the scene. Now Kurdish. Learned this in Blue Sky. The migration from FB is already worth it.
Rare Book people know incredibly cool stuff. Now only about whatβs in the books, but their provenance and how they were used, by analyzing marks of use. Like a palm reader.
About to head out to Turkey to direct Sam Shepardβs final play, A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations) for the National Theatre of Turkey (Devlet TiyatrolarΔ±.)
Crowdsourced expertise.
No other person taught me so much about the pleasures and value of non-comprehension. Rest in βthis is gonna hurtβ, Richard.
Richard Foreman has passed. I wish I could have been on the other side, waiting with the angels, to see his first glimpse of the world beyond. Was he vindicated, having imagined the moment in every one of his pieces? Or was it more than even he could imagine, master as he was of lifeβs stagecraft?
