In My Hair: entertainment

Showing posts with label entertainment. Show all posts

Stuff Your Kindle, Fantasy Book Sale

Visit amazon.com/author/moffat to get free short stories and huge discounts on fantasy books by Charles Moffat. Sale ends on October 20th.

Call for Fantasy Submissions

Peasant Magazine is seeking submissions for Issue #2. Specifically it is looking for fantasy, historical fantasy, historical fiction and magical realism stories that are between 1,000 and 8,000 words in length.

PM is a free nonprofit fantasy/historical fiction/magical realism literary magazine that focuses on stories set on earth prior to 1750 or set in a fantasy world.

Furthermore stories don't have to be 'first time publications'. They also accept reprints of previously published works.

Peasant Magazine is available in both 8x11 magazine format from Amazon, and as a free PDF for download.

Peasant Magazine Issue #1, 8x11

Peasant Magazine Issue #1, Free PDF

Fantasy Magazine releases its First Free Issue

Download a copy of the free PDF version by visiting the Peasant Magazine website, or order the 8x11 magazine of Peasant Magazine via Amazon for $4.99 USD.

Ballerina Dancing

I have no other reason to post this photo of a ballerina other than the fact I find it very beautiful to watch.

Tetris As A Treatment For PTSD

Tetris is not just for procrastination anymore. A new recent study from Oxford University shows playing Tetris a few hours after being exposed to trauma can help reduce symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Researchers found the block-dropping action-a visually oriented task will positively interfere with other visual (negative) memories. The research also shows the opposite is true—if you perform a verbal task such as playing a quiz game after a traumatic event, you'll likely experience more trauma flashbacks.

The study is based on two experiments with 60 participants.In the first experiment, participants watched a movie for 30 minutes that contained disturbing images such as scenes of injury and death. Then given a 10 minute break and split into three groups. 20 played Tetris, 20 played a game called Pub Quiz and the final 20 sat and did nothing.

The participants who played Tetris suffered from fewer flashbacks. The group who played Pub Quiz suffered from the worst flashbacks out of all the groups.

The second experiment extended the time spent watching the movie from 30 minutes to 4 hours. After watching the film, Tetris players were still found to experience fewer flashbacks than any other group.

Disney's first black princess

ENTERTAINMENT/POLITICS - Get in line, black women are apparently kewl in the United States of America. And around the world too, as I will demonstrate.

First there is Princess Tiana, the first black princess in a Disney film, which debuts in "The Princess and the Frog" on November 25th and in wider release on December 11th just in time for the Christmas rush.

The film is already getting lots of attention from children and parents, even though Tiana spends most of the film in frog shape (she kisses the Frog Prince and instead of transforming him back into a human, she tranforms into a frog).

Which begs the question, when will we get our first real Princess? Technically Tiana isn't a real princess. But then again neither was Belle, Cinderella, Mulan or Pocahontas. I suppose Pocahontas was at least a chieftain's daughter... And Belle and Cinderella only marry princes, starting off poor. Whatever, its really a moot issue.

Secondly there is Mattel's new "So In Style" line of black Barbie dolls which have various skin colour tints allowing little girls and collectors to choose between a dark chocolate to a light mocha. (The biggest complaint however is that the hair is too easy to come through.)

The hair issue is nothing new. That complaint has been around for decades.

Mattel first made a black Barbie in 1967. They also made black and Hispanic versions in the 1980s, a Kenyan Barbie in 1994, and so on. In 1992 they made a Teen Talk Barbie which would talk and say "Math class is tough." which sparked outrage.

According to designer Stacey McBride-Irby: "As far as the hair, I wanted to create dolls little girls would play with. They couldn't have as much fun playing with an Afro." A wardrobe of hair extensions might have been useful and more authentic.

There is a lot of politics around African hair and accepting the way it is. (You will note nobody is complaining that Princess Tiana's hair is mostly straight and only a wee bit curly.)

Thirdly there's what I'd call the "Michelle Obama" effect... black women, young and old, jockeying for position on how to best help humanity and other women. For example singer Rihanna says she wants to be a role model:

"I’ve always been a role model for young women so it’s only natural that I continue to set the right example and encourage them and give them insight," says Rihanna. "It doesn’t have to be a specific topic, but whatever it is I want to help young women."

Overseas there is also Senegalese-French novelist Marie NDiaye, who recently became the first black female to win the Prix Goncourt for her best-selling work Trois Femmes Puissantes (Three Powerful Women). She has been openly vocal and critical of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, sparking rumours she might run for the French presidency. MPs loyal to Sarkozy have been trying to muzzle her ever since.

And in Oklahoma Senator Connie Johnson and members of the Legislative Black Caucus are taking the Oklahoma Department of Transportation to federal court over discriminatory practices against both women and minorities.

The list goes on and on. It is as if collectively black women around the world suddenly all stood up and said "Yes, We Can." Maybe they were taking action before too, but the mass media just wasn't paying attention. Regardless, black women are now in vogue.

Kirikou and the Sorceress

ENTERTAINMENT - I came across this wonderful film called "Kirikou and the Sorceress" while browsing and decided to see if I could find a copy of it. Lo and behold, YouTube provided me the whole film.

And thus I am passing it onto friends. I think its an amazingly adorable, funny and witty film. I hope you enjoy it.

Kirikou and the Sorceress is the story about a newborn baby who saves his village from an evil sorceress. Despite his small size he manages to outwit her and save all the villagers. The story is based on a West African folk tale and was so popular in France it was made into a stage musical. I admit there is a lot of singing in the film, but it doesn't distract from my enjoyment of it (I normally hate musicals).

High-Tech Gyms=Better Workout?

Not even the gym’s multiple television screens could distract Arianne Thompson from the drudgery of her cardio workout.

Bored, the 35-year-old would trudge along until the cooking shows and courtroom dramas grew unbearable, then call it a day.

“The channels they show, and the time of day that I work out, made for a really boring workout,” Thompson, a member of Gold’s Gym, wrote in an email.

A gym renovation last year gave her a much-needed jolt of motivation.

The new addition, dubbed the “cardio theatre,” has a cinema-size screen and rows of elliptical trainers, stationary bikes, and treadmills. In the darkened room, members watch movies while they sweat.

“When the movie is good or even tolerable, I get into it and become so absorbed that I don't notice I'm exercising,” wrote Thompson, who lives near Salt Lake City, Utah. “I can work out twice as long with half the pain and boredom when I work out to a movie than I can to the TV or music.”

About two-thirds of Canadians say lack of motivation is a reason for not exercising, according to 2007 data from the nonprofit Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute.

As Nintendo’s Wii Fit got video game fans to move by turning exercise into play, more and more gyms are hoping gadgets and gizmos will lure less-than-enthusiastic exercisers.

In the U.S., where “exertainment” is firmly entrenched, gyms are racing to install the latest tech toys, which experts say it won’t be long before Canada follows suit.

“Customers want something that helps the time go by, that helps the mind escape the drudgery of exercise,” says fitness consultant Gregory Florez, head of FitAdvisor Health Coaching Services in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Nowadays, gyms “have to be in the tech game,” Florez says. “There’s this expectation from customers to have newer and cooler things.”

Cardio theatres, like the one Thompson uses, are multiplying. This spring, a new Gold’s Gym in London, Ont., opened one of the few cardio theatres this side of the border. The chain introduced similar facilities in the U.S. more than two years ago.

Meanwhile, the Ohio chain Fitworks launched Game On!, an arcade stocked with active video games that make kids break a sweat.

It takes from six to 18 months for American trends to move north, says Rod Macdonald, vice-president of Can-Fit-Pro, Canada’s largest certification body for fitness professionals. The latest technologies will be showcased in Toronto this month, at the International Fitness and Club Business Conference and Trade Show.

But while everyone loves a “shiny new toy,” gym owners and members shouldn’t expect miracles from technology, Macdonald warns.

“Typically, technology doesn’t attract people into clubs,” he says, because customers only see it once they’re already inside. And anything too complicated could turn people off, he adds, noting that many ignore the programmed functions on cardio machines.

Meanwhile, exercisers engrossed in technology could tune out important physical cues, such as breathing and heart rate – the best measures of exercise intensity.

Thompson is quick to point out the pitfalls of cardio theatres.

“When you jog in the dark, staring to the side rather than straight ahead, you can lose your footing,” she says.

And gym-goers should prepare to endure uninspiring movies, she says, or worse – scary ones.

But Thompson isn’t deterred.

“Mostly I just deal with the issues, because the cardio theatre is so much more to my liking than any other cardio workout.”

Of course if you want the best results then the obvious solution is to hire a personal trainer.

New In Town

A funny thing happened to the movie New in Town on the way to your local multiplex: Angela Bassett morphed into Gabrielle Union, who then became Renée Zellweger.

This is not entirely shocking. "Colorblind" casting has been around for a while. Remember that the drill sergeant in An Officer and a Gentleman was slated to go to a white actor, until Louis Gossett Jr. (who won an Academy Award for best supporting actor) read for the part. Sylvester Stallone was supposed to play the not-by-the-book fuzz in Beverly Hills Cop, a role that went to Eddie Murphy, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But with this romantic comedy, which opens today and stars Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr., the lead was supposed to be a black actress and the writer had someone in mind from the very beginning. "I initially wanted Angela Bassett," says Kenneth Rance, the screenwriter. "I’m a big fan of her work. And Gabrielle Union was initially cast."

Rance, 38, who graduated from Howard University with a degree in film, based the story on a woman he met in his native Minneapolis over 16 years ago. "I was at the Riverview Supper Club where I see this fine woman — I mean this girl is fine — dancing like there’s no tomorrow. I bought her a drink— I knew she wasn’t from there."

"She was a quality control engineer at Kraft. We talked, exchanged numbers, and she would come to the city. It started off kinda platonic. She was dating a guy she thought she would marry, then she got the opportunity to be promoted to New Ulm and took the position in haste."

I thought, "That’s a movie." I wanted to do a movie on loneliness. I didn’t quite know what the story was, but I was like, "That’s a movie." I was at CBS in 1995 and the whole time I was thinking about the idea of being 32 and single. I was thinking, "Can a sister have it all?" I also wanted to examine if a sister could date a blue-collar guy and how that would work out. Monica Tate was her name and she would not give a brother the time of day. Stripped of pretension, she falls in love with a highway patrolman with two kids — he was a widower.

Though his agent initially didn’t think anyone would buy it, the script was snapped up by Universal five years ago. The studio then promptly excused Rance and brought in another writer. Rance was later recalled by Gold Circle Films and Lionsgate to be his own script doctor. (The other writer, C. Jay Cox, also gets billing credit.)

But by then, the black woman from North Carolina was a white woman from Miami, and voila, Fargo meets Baby Boom. Rance admits some disappointment at the turn of events, but he's a practical man. "When you start looking at who can open a film, the marketing, worldwide distribution etc., it makes sense," he says. "That’s not how I felt personally about it, but it shouldn’t be called show business but ‘business show.’"

It has been repeatedly noted that outside of Will Smith and maybe Murphy, no black actor—no, not even Denzel or the ubiquitous Samuel L. Jackson, and certainly no female black actress, even the exquisite Halle Berry—can open a film with the big box office bang that Hollywood now demands, and none can be counted on for the huge sales overseas that are now critical to a movie's success. Sure, it happens in buddy films (see: Chris Tucker with Jackie Chan). But by their lonesome? Not a chance.

"It wasn’t until Halle won the Oscar for ‘Monster’s Ball’," says Rance, "that I thought people were ready for a black female lead." Obviously, they are not. Even as actresses such as Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Viola Davis (Doubt) prove their mettle with Oscar nominations, albeit for supporting roles, the movie terrain remains uneven for black talent, particularly black female talent. At least during the Blaxploitation heyday, Tamara Dobson and Pam Grier got top billing.

Still counting goose bumps in the wake of the film’s well-received premiere in his hometown, Rance is hopeful that other black filmmakers would get more opportunities, whether they were culturally specific or not. "It does give me hope that the industry is becoming more open-minded," he says. But on the other hand, in the age of Obama, "the world is browning. Yet the images that we see are more conservative."

Caesar and Cleopatra

ENTERTAINMENT - There's a new movie about "Caesar and Cleopatra" starring Christopher Plummer and Nikki M. James in the lead roles.

Its actually a Stratford play that has been adapted as a film for the theatres, but its getting rave reviews from many sources ranging from Four to Five stars out of Five.

In addition to being an interracial love story it is also an examination of power structures in a cross-generational romance between teenage sex kitten Cleopatra and the aging lion Caesar.

Christopher Plummer, like Sean Connery, just seems to get better with age and his co-star Nikki M. James is spectacular in the role of Cleopatra.

Brown is Beautiful

POLITICS - Excerpt from a Newsweek article by Allison Samuels about Michelle Obama:

“As my brunch friends and I continued talking about Michelle, our conversation wandered into one area we seldom discuss, even among our families and closest confidantes. Michelle is not only African-American, but brown. Real brown. In an era when beauty is often defined on television, in magazines and in movies as fair or white skin, long straight hair and keen features, Michelle looks nothing like the supermodels who rule the catwalks or the porcelain-faced actresses who hawk must-have cosmetics. Yet now she’s going to grace the March cover of Vogue magazine–the ultimate affirmation of beauty.

Who and what is beautiful has long been a source of pain, anger and frustration in the African-American community. In too many cases, beauty for black women (and even black men) has meant fair skin, “good hair” and dainty facial features. Over the years, African-American icons like Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Halle Berry and Beyoncé – while beautiful and talented – haven’t exactly represented the diversity of complexions and features of most black women in this country.

That limited scope has had a profound effect on the self-esteem of many African-American women, including me. “When I see Michelle Obama on the cover of magazines and on TV shows, I think, Wow, look at her and her brown skin,” said Charisse Hollands, a 30-year-old mail carrier from Inglewood, Calif., with flawless ebony skin. “And I don’t mean any disrespect to my sisters who aren’t dark brown, but gee, it’s nice to see a brown girl get some attention and be called beautiful by the world. That just doesn’t happen a lot, and our little girls need to see that–my little girl needs to see it.”

Looking for Mr. White

Dee Depass

Last fall Tara, a writer in Detroit, decided to try something new: dating a White guy. The attraction? "He was Jon Stewart-ish, had a sense of humor, was liberal and smart," explains the 39-year-old. More important, he seemed like a viable option. "The older you get, the more open you become to the possibility of love," says Tara. "I would like love to come in a certain form or color. But at the same time I realize that the population of eligible Black men is getting smaller. So I'm open."

And apparently so are many other sisters. We polled more than a thousand of you. Nearly half of those surveyed on essence.com (45 percent) say you've been involved in an interracial relationship. And for those of you who haven't, it's clearly not for lack of opportunities: Seventy percent of you say you've been asked out by a White guy. "One of my friends decided that Something New, that Sanaa Lathan movie in which her character falls for a White guy, was her signal to start pursuing White men and accepting their offers," says Aisha, 20, a junior at the University of Minnesota. "Now, instead of looking for an IBM-Ideal Black Man-she says she's looking for an IWM."

Cream in Your Coffee?

Your mom may prefer you to bring home a man who looks like your dad. But these days if you don't, she'll probably just smile and ask him his name (instead of calling him one). Interracial couples are far more common than they were a few decades ago; in fact, they've increased fourfold since the sixties. The U.S. census revealed that there were 116,000 marriages between Black women and White men and about 279,000 marriages between Black men and White women in 2002. Numbers for unmarried couples are hard to come by, but sociologists agree there's been a dramatic increase since 1980.

"I have White friends who date Black women, Black friends who date White women, Asian and Latino. You name it," says Aaron, 31, a brother from Eagan, Minnesota. "It's always been a multicultural experience between Blacks and Whites. It's what I grew up with."

In fact, a whopping 81 percent of readers say they aren't fazed at all when they see a Black woman with a White man. Flip the script, though, and it's a different story. Fifty-three percent of you disapprove when you see a Black man with a White woman. "Sisters looked like they wanted to beat me down," says Richard, 47, a financial marketing specialist in Pasadena, California. "When I'm with a sister, I'm ignored. But the second I get a White woman on my arm, I get ‘the look.' " Successful brothers like Richard who make the choice to "cross over" may draw additional ire because of the perceived notion among some sisters that Black men who have "made it" tend to prefer non-Black mates. High-profile couples could also influence sisters' feelings here. Yeah, we're cool with Halle switching from marrying Black men to dating Gabriel Aubry, a White model. But Kobe, Tiger, Terrence and Taye? Hmmm.

The last paragraph bugs me. It makes it seem as if black women are bitter about black men who date interracial, while black men don't care if we do. And I don't think that entirely true. Yes, there are some black women who do not like to see black men with white women, but there are also black men who don't like seeing a beautiful black sister on the arm of a white man. I am a black women who is in a relationship with a white man. I get quite a few disapproving looks/stares, and nasty comments from black men whenever I am out with my man.

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