From Nairobi To Shenzhen: Mark Obama Ndesandjo

Yet another of Barack Obama's half-brothers is alive and well in...Communist China. Mark Obama Ndesandjo has just unveiled a book in Shenzhen - From Nairobi To Shenzhen - based in part on his relationship with his often abusive father, Barack Obama Sr. Apparently, it's part fiction because Ndesandjo couldn't remember having any good experiences with him. As a result, he decided to add fictional details to make the character of Obama Sr. seem more authentic.

"My mother used to say of my father, 'He's a brilliant man, but a social failure' and I remember times in my house when I would hear screams, when I would hear my mother's pain. And I was a child, and I could not actually, I could not actually ... I could not protect her."

I haven't read the book, but Ndesandjo's journey sounds interesting. In 2002, he ended up in China after working in the US and earning degrees from Brown and Stanford. He's 46, married to a Chinese woman and has been teaching piano and English just over the border from Hong Kong in Shenzhen, and is involved in consulting. By all accounts he appears to be loving life. Here's a news report from Chinese TV last year:



The book is available online from Aventine Press, a self-publishing company less charitably known as a "vanity press" because it publishes works at the author's expense.

Back To Mono: It's The Beatles!

The Beatles were as much a part of my upbringing as toast and peanut butter or mum's roast on Sundays. In fact, I had the melody to "Let It Be" and George's solo down on air guitar before I could lickity my split...Phil Spector had it right...

...at least when it came to music...

...pre-Sgt. Pepper, that is...

...bring it all back to mono...

My Beatles in Mono box set just arrived from Amazon and I'm immersed in Beatles everything. The sound is awesome, especially on the early stuff...



The set includes all the albums up to The White Album complete with their original photos and album inserts like the cut out moustache that came with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band:

So may I introduce to you, the act you've known for all these years:

Iranian Halloween: A Monster Mash!

I knew it - the Ayatollahs have created a monster...a truly ghoulish Halloween!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Anne Carson: Autobiography Of Red

Anne Carson blends genres and styles to create fascinating works of literary prowess that manage to reveal hidden truths lying just beneath the surface of our collective unconsciousness. She's also a painter of volcanoes, those geological formations often appearing along faultlines that explode into life when new substances arise from the earth's core...

Carson's Autobiography of Red is a seductive and deceptively simple "novel in verse" about the Greek mythological figure, Geryon. It's a modern retelling of his story with Herakles acting as an older mentor and eventual boyfriend to this self-confessed "monster." This is how the brilliant French illustrator Gustav Doré imagined Geryon in Hell:

Lawless State: Uighur's "Disappeared" In China

It's happening again. The Chinese authorities are flouting their own laws in an effort to stamp out minority dissent. According to a brand new Human Rights Watch report, "'We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them': Enforced Disappearances in the Wake of Xinjiang's Protests," 43 Uighurs have disappeaed in the wake of last July's protests. China always seems to cut off its nose to spite its face and undermines any credibility by using such extreme and unlawful tactics against its own citizens. As Brad Adams, director of Asia Human Rights Watch said:

"The Chinese government says it respects the rule of law, but nothing could undermine this claim more than taking people from their homes or off the street and ‘disappearing' them - leaving their families unsure whether they are dead or alive."

The above graphic is from the New York Times and shows the areas in China where the minority population is at least half something other than Han. Roughly 8% of China's total population belongs to one of its 55 recognized ethnic groups.

Here's a cop enforcing the rule of law in Urumqi:

News Alert: Heil Hitler Gnome Innocent!

From Ottmar Hörl's website:

"The garden gnome whose arm is raised in a “Heil Hitler” salute has been found not guilty of being a Nazi. The gnome in question is one of about 700 that were featured last year in an exhibit entitled “Dancing With the Devil,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports. Found on display in a Nuremberg gallery, the gnome was being investigated by authorities after a viewer complained that it breaks German laws forbidding the use of Nazi symbolism."

"Hörl, a professor at Nuremberg’s Academy of Fine Arts who has created other, friendlier interpretations of the traditional German figure in the past, argued that the piece was clearly mocking the Nazis, who likely would not appreciate being depicted as an army of garden gnomes. Authorities agreed, and dropped the case."

Frank O'Hara: Grace To Live Variously

"Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies!
get them out of the house so they won't know what you're up to"

Frank O'Hara had his ear to the heart of Manhattan during its golden era of the 50s. From his post at the Museum of Modern Art's front desk he would watch the sparkle and twist of life's sweet parade, capturing the rhythms in his beatific verses.

"I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love."

That's not too much to ask, is it? Frank stood against the academy and was all for going "on your nerve." Listening to him read is a wonderful experience - he's got a swing-time exuberance to his tone and in fact was an accomplished piano player.

The Lunch Poems are brilliant little morsels, street eats caught on the run between the subway and desk or on the way to the library from the gallery's cafe. If they were an album it would be Richard Hell & The Voidoids' "Blank Generation."

"Now when I walk around at lunchtime
I have only two charms in my pocket
an old Roman coin Mike Kanemitsu gave me
and a bolt-head that broke off a packing case
when I was in Madrid the others never
brought me too much luck though they did
help keep me in New York against coercion
but now I'm happy for a time and interested"

- from Personal Poem