An anticlimactic Oscars; a leap year anticlimactic Black History Month. As they say, if you live long enough you will see just about everything happen...at least once.
Recycling is good. Watching the above interview reminded me of one of my favorite posts here on We Are Respectable Negroes where I tried to reconcile Barack Obama with the science fiction imagination, and the idea that he is a "space coon." He ought not to exist; yet he does. Aliens may not have landed in Washington D.C. (or Beijing given how things are going), but for so many Americans of a particular conservative political stripe, an African American president is the functional equivalent.
On a related note, I have been invited to speak at the Worldcon Science Fiction convention here in Chicago. I may or may not attend--on principle I reject the requirement of some conferences for presenters to pay an exorbitant fee in order to give a talk. My reasoning has always been that I am giving a chat or a paper. Why can't you give a brother a discount or a pass? Either way, I am flattered to be on the invite list. Who knows? I may pass the begging bowl around We Are Respectable Negroes. If each visitor gives 10 cents I should get there in short order.
Moving forward, Walter Mosley is a national treasure. He drops some real knowledge in this interview on Democracy Now, and it is worth viewing in its entirety. Mosley is also a great supporter of Barack Obama. To be honest, that fact surprised me. Speculative fiction is driven by radical critique. However, Mosley is also part of a generation which never could have imagined that a man who happens to be black would be President of the United States of America. Therefore, I can understand Walter Mosley's Left realpolitik mixed with love, some of it tough, for Barack Obama.
What is your take on Brother Mosley's support of Barack Obama? Surprising? Disappointing? And for those of you who are fans, which of Walter Mosley's many works is your favorite?
7 comments:
Yawn...both Walter and Amy are tiresome neither have progressed in years
White Liberals continue to amuse me they are as lethal as White Conservatives at end of the day for Black Folks
I am so happy we have platforms like the www so alternative views of politics, opinions, ideas, etc don't have to be concerned about the tired paradigms of liberalism, conservatism , liberterians, etc..
So liberating being whatever you are in this moment in time..
Yikes,
Both are tiresome? Where do you suggest they "progress" to?
That is something both need to figure out of course...
I hate to plan another's agenda nevertheless if I could get with them both I would change them ..
Right now they bore me and more importantly nothing they do now inspirs or enhances my perspective on anything....They simply have not evolve in years...
I like Walter and Amy both very much.
Unfortunately, I was a late comer to Mosley's work and only discovered him a couple of years ago after reading a short bio of his that appeared in the (Jimmy) Carter Center upcoming events newsletter promoting the author's book signing and lecture for 'Killing Johnny Fry: A Sexistential Novel'. I regret that I didn't go, but at the time I hadn't read him yet. However, it was a short description of his character Leonid McGill that really hooked me into checking his books out...
I read the three Leonid books first. By the end of the month, I had finished reading all of the Easy Rawlins books too. I was an instant fan and I wished there were twenty more books of each character's adventures.
Hard to say which books I liked better, but Mouse and Hush we're both supporting characters that I could never get enough of. Don Cheadle was excellent along with Denzel in the film version of 'Devil in a Blue Dress.'
Somewhat surprised that Mosley believes we can still change the system at this point, though.
Holmes, I'd be happy to chip in a few shekels for your travel expenses.
@Cbid. Check out the movie with Lawrence Fishburne...so bad it is good.
@Comrade. I am still trying to see if my dept. will come up with something or I can negotiate a deal with the sponsors. Thanks though. The begging bowl may come around in a few months.
The only Mosley book i didn't like was Blue Wave...everything else is golden.
My personal favorite is Futureland, tho. I love easy and leonid and socrates, but futureland satisfied the "sci-fi noir with real black people" dream that i've had ever since i started reading sci-fi. I sometimes think that Obama is our Ptolemy Bent...
(yes, i've read delaney and minister faust and charles saunders and colson whitehead and steven barnes - none of them pull it together as well as Mosley did in futureland)
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