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NEXT UPDATE SCHEDULED MONDAY, 24 DECEMBER, 2001
We are surrounded by madonnas, if we just open our eyes and look around.
Some are fierce madonnas, others are sad and hoping for a better life.
And with the madonna comes the child. This is the season in which the child is celebrated, for Christians at Christmas, for Moslems at Bairam. Every child SHOULD be considered a Blessed Child, we believe here at The World's Magazine, but many of you are too hard-hearted for that; instead you focus on a child to deify, your own, or one from a "sacred" book. So much's the pity. Your compassion should be as boundless as the hurt in this world, we believe...
So our third Holy Days Event focuses on The Child...
MESSAGE To Those Committed to Death & Repression: You are a wave, but WE are the ocean...
Mary J. Blige said it on her latest CD: "Don't need no hateration.../...DANCE for me!"
TODAY'S RDR: FAYCAL FALAKY on "The World as Theatre." More provocative thinking from your World's Magazine -- PLUS our Web Site Pick of the Week and the Readership Poll: ("2002! Oh Baby! I'm going to....?") RESULTS OF LAST POLL: ("During this Holy Season my focus will be....?") "Staying as far away from malls as I can" - 30% -- Now go rock the vote. ABOUT US** TABLE OF CONTENTS **
OAKLAND, CA, USA - I watch the kids around here on their way to school in the morning as I'm on my way to the job. I get wistful, like a lot of folks, looking at these serious little people trudging down the streets with their big packbacks on, swimming through the world we have created for them, like fish through dangerous rapids. I try to remember how I felt going through that same walk everyday when I was a kid. A lot of what I remember about my thoughts back then isn't good and the world was scarey in a less chilling way back then, as far as I'm concerned now. One thing I do remember was that I couldn't wait to grow up so that I could make all the decisions about my life and what I could and could not do, watch on TV, when I went to sleep, and so on.
I remember my Moms saying: "Boy, when you're grown you'll be sorry you was in such a hurry to grow up." I'm not, though.... More
MARIETTA, OH, USA - The publisher having decided that we are to observe Child Week in this issue; it's another almost impossible task. While I'd be happy to talk about my family (seven children, scads of grandchildren and even four handfuls of great-grandchildren) that would hardly fit in with the focus of "Powerssound," which does the service of listening to new albums and offers a veteran's opinion of same.
The music lovers in this family are mostly men, which is not to say that the ladies aren't interested in music. They love music, but don't care much about who the artists are and how a particular effect might be achieved. The grandchildren vary greatly in age and what they listen to depend greatly on how old they might be. A couple of years ago, granddaughters were excited about N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys. One grandson, being biracial, was thought to be interested in rap and hip-hop. He may be later, but right now he's still enthralled with songs from "The Wizard of Oz," "The Music Man," and other Broadway golden oldies. When one of his grandfathers gave him a CD starring Li'l Bow Wow, Isaac listened to one track without comment, then left the CD at great grandpa's house and never inquired about it again... More
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PARIS, FRANCE - Unlike the boulevard, the subway moves
The world is a theater. There is the play with its actors and actresses and then there are the spectators. The scene shifts from one region to another. Today it's in the Middle East and in Afghanistan, but before it was in Vietnam, Chile, Indonesia, or more recently in Iraq or Kosovo. The spectators, however, come from every country around the world equipped with a cultural and social baggage that varies widely. Each person understands the play differently, in fact so differently that someone could view the scene as being comic or simply boring while another could interpret it as being utterly and shockingly tragic.
This discordance is a result of the difference that characterizes each spectator's disposition to relate or to react to the scene. Thus the same play can be viewed differently, not because of the vagueness of the actors' or actresses' acting, but rather because of the acting's equivocal perceptibility.... More
Recent RDR Essays
RDR 12.10.01: MATTIE LENNON offers "A Kingdom of Song" from Dublin
RDR 12.03.01: One of our favorite writers, MAX ADAMS, shares her impression of "Seattle Men."
RDR 11.26.01: RADIO RAHEEM got the assignment of beginning our Christmas contemplations. He decided on speaking to "The Season of Family"
NEW ORLEANS, 16 December, 2001 - Much of the French Quarter and the adjacent Fauberg Marigny, where I now reside, when we except the tourists and their offspring, could be viewed as an almost childless world. Yes, there is the Lutheran school around the corner from my place -- but many of the children who attend are driven over by their parents who live in quieter, less commercial neighborhoods. What obtains in this part of town are houses of young transplants, enterprising and childless couples attempting to build nest-eggs of one sort or another (mostly in real estate) and those who sneer at the nearby suburban sprawls of Metairie and Gretna. Many work in the service industries that support the French Quarter ("the Quarter," for short) and Central Business District ("the CBD') where the tourist-hungry hotels and the SuperDome rise...
I see children more in the Midcity area, where I worked over the last six - seven weeks, but only one household on my block has children -- that of a Salvadoran couple who have emigrated here. All the other houses, collections of couples and singles, gays and hets, marrieds and unmarried, are childless. This produces an ambience which I find a bit depressing at this time of year. I miss the laughter and wonder of children.
As you can see on this week's cover, I also espouse the philosophy of the Universal Madonna...More
We are surrounded by madonnas, if we just open our eyes and look around.
