Dear Reader
There is a book I just finished that just recently came out. It’s Valarie Kaur’s See No Stranger - and while reading it, I could not stop highlighting passages to come back to over and over again. It’s a loose memoir of Valarie's life as a Sikh woman who grew up in California, but it touches also on so many subjects that still remain relevant right now. Even more so, as we try to move through all this uncertainty.
She invites us to reimagine the world through a lens of what she calls ‘revolutionary love’ — love that labours and is rooted in action, but also in knowing how to be still and to breathe through the hardest of challenges. She charts her life as a civil rights activist, studying law, shaped by the hate crimes in the wake of 911 she filmed and recorded. Through being open and honest about her own personal struggles (an emotionally abusive relationship, endometriosis, clashing with her beloved grandfather over marrying a Hindu man), she elaborates more on how this idea of 'revolutionary love’ begins with oneself and extends outwards.
Her words have more resonance now, as we work to defend and uplift Black lives, how we try to support the most vulnerable, and urge for new leaders to be elected that represent communities across the country. See No Stranger is deeply anchored by the idea that a stranger is a part of me I just don’t know yet — building on the Zulu concept of ‘ubuntu’ (I am because you are) and the phrase ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’ (a person is a person through other people) — and seeks to try connect us through understanding and community, without ignoring the pain that has been inflicted, and acknowledging it for the damage it has done.
Through all this, Valarie advocates for finding joy in the labour. “When we create moments to breathe between labor pains and surrender our senses to the present moment, notice the colors and light and feeling of being alive, joy comes more easily.”
This book may be a memoir and manifesto, but I’m finding it to be a great manual for these times too.
Here, then, a list of hopefully joy-bringing activities and online entertainment events, selected by me for you:
1. Today, Friday August 21, as part of their Summerstage Anywhere programming, Central Park’s City Parks is hosting a virtual tour of the birthplace of hip hop, led by DJ Kool Herc and his sister Cindy Campbell. In case you didn’t know, the party he DJ’d in the rec room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue was put together as a birthday celebration by his sister Cindy, the self-proclaimed “First Lady of Hip-Hop” who was inadvertently the first-ever hip-hop promoter. Afterwards, there’ll be an encore of the culture talk featuring Herc, Cindy and hip hop historian, poet and writer Kevin Powell. That’s at 7pm EST on their SummerStage YouTube here.
2. A Song For Joe: Celebrating the Birthday of Joe Strummer also takes place today, August 21 at 8pm BST / 3pm EST / 12pm PST. The event will honor Joe's legacy and feature performances and testimonials by many of the former Clash front man’s friends and notable names like Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams and Bob Weir in the music & arts community, as well as never-before-seen Joe Strummer live footage.
3. Earlier this week, Madison Square Park hosted a virtual tour of Leonardo Drew’s City in the Grass, a public piece the conservancy commissioned, which was on view in the park in New York, up until December last year. It moved to the North Carolina Museum of Art, where it’s city-scape pieces have been integrating with the grass there, and taking on new shape. The artist himself joined in the tour, which you can take at your own leisure here.
4. Online @ The Space is an online festival created by theSpaceUK, which runs many of the venues that usually house shows at the Edinburg Fringe Festival. It’s a series of shows written that were all written during the lockdown. More than 80! Most have running times of under 45 minutes, and they’ve been playing out over the past couple of Saturdays. You can catch the last batch going up on Saturday, 10am BST / 3am PST / 5am EST and available through until August 30.
5. The New York festival Battery Dance is celebrating 45 years of Dance, and will trap up their festival From NYC to NYC with Love this weekend. The festival features both local and international dancers. Saturday’s event, at 4pm PST / 7pm EST, aims to end the fest on a hopeful note with a salute to the resilience of the New York City.
Thank you for reading. And for sticking around when I disappeared for two weeks!
Also, I’d like to share this story I recently wrote about Signs for BLM, a group I admire for the way that it’s helping those who aren’t able to go out and protest still have a voice.
Stay safe, stay sane!
Your neighbour
Nadia