A Wonderful World.
The executive producers of “The Great Gatsby,” Jay-Z and Baz Luhrmann were charged with recreating the momentous era of the Jazz Age for the score. I can hear the snickering and lip smacking in the background at the idea of a rapper creating a score for a flick with so many obviously white characters. I commend Luhrmann for acknowledging that jazz is a musical genre with origins in the African American community.
It took roughly 80 years before Jazz or blues were considered American music, other than just jungle music. From the hard streets of New Orleans, an art form was birthed. On September 23, 1987, introduced by the honorable John Conyers, Jr. a house resolution was passed by the 100th Congress of the United States of America. The resolution “proclaimed that jazz “is a unifying force, bridging cultural, religious, ethnic and age difference in our diverse society.” Interesting, right? Right!
“100$ Bill” by Jay-Z sets the stage. Yes, we know he’s pushing 50—nonetheless his eloquence perdures. You start seeing green, purple and gold: envy, hope and wealth. Mr. Carter’s braggadocio embodies the sumptuousness of the Jazz Age; he utters the women, the lack of morality as well as the obscure upward mobility.
It was ingenious of Jay and Baz to meticulously have contemporary classics that have already graciously captured the spirit of jazz to be covered by other talented artist. Andre 3000 and Beyoncé’s duet of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” immediately transports you front row at the juke joint. “Crazy in Love” is already a brickhouse record; Emeli Sandé coupled with The Bryan Ferry Orchestra gives the song certain versatility that easily makes it a signature tune, sort of like “R.E.S.P.E.C.T.” If you are to infuse Jazz and Hip Hop and make the correlation that these musical genres are twisted sisters; of course, Q the Abstract makes the cut. Lana Del Rey hypnotizes you with her boisterous pipes on “Young and Beautiful,” which suits her and her forte for bad boys and their short attention spans. Sia (“Kill and Run”) and Florence’s voices are like the ocean. Their unique, hold no bars range allows them to depict blue emotions and love succinctly. “Over the Love” has blasted from my speakers ad infinitum consecutively since the very moment the credits ran down the screen. AIN’T no party like a will.i.am party! Other notables are Jack White, Gotye, Coco O. of Quadron, The xx, Nero and Fergie.
Unfortunately for the naysayers, the execution is immaculate.
A Man Scorned: Fitzgerald is the great Gatsby
Photo Courtesy of The Great Gatsby 2013
The green light is significant. Its location is intelligent. It begs you to realize, life is not about reaching the green light. As long as you can see the light, life is definitely about the journey—the forks in the road.
Such a phrase is most likely attractive to those who have both ambition and determination, which yields you the opportunity to not only succeed but also garner the lessons from failures.
There are many life lessons you can learn from Fitzgerald, as you read/watch “The Great Gatsby.” It can be said that these particularly lessons became the motifs to his writing, subsequently, his life, to no avail.
It’s more important to know that the forks may lead you beyond the green light, and mostly likely nowhere near that “destined” destination and to be content with this.
“I felt married to her.”
This retrospection is erotic and intoxicating. As a reader, as a film aficionado you begin to reflect and connect with Gatsby’s propensity to please Daisy Buchanan and his desire for splendor. You intrinsically understand that his heart will be broken, simply because he changed himself for someone else.
“My life has got to be like this. It has to keep going on.”
Love is drug and if taken on an empty stomach, you can end up dead at the bottom of a fancy pool.
What was it about the mind of an author in 1925 that could describe love so quaintly? Fitzgerald aroused the senses. You could feel, taste and fantasize about the era’s decadence and destitution; love and lust; hope and despair.
This evening I watched “The Great Gatsby,” I read the actual novel years, maybe a decade ago. Upon learning that the score would be created by Jay-Z, I was instantly intrigued. I needed to hear him musically not just in prose per se. Carey Mulligan is dope. After watching “An Education,” I just knew she was an actress whose body of work would be something to pay attention to. I find myself rooting for her incessantly, without thought; no matter the role. No matter the character.
Director, Baz Luhrmann, manages to capture Fitzgerald’s classic novel in 3D. The thought of Luhrmann using this type of photography instead of sepia or black and white shots, could be compared to someone adding shiny rims to a Rolls-Royce Corniche. However, it brought to life the roaring twenties, the new lifestyles of flappers and the black market wealth of Gatsby. Like Kanye says “I rather buy 80 gold chains and go ign’ant,” Gatsby was not born rich; something Tom Buchanan does not allow him to forget.
There are so many layers to “The Great Gatsby” as well as ample space for interpretation. For whatever reason, the movie conjured the love legend of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” I’ve only seen the movie with Winona Ryder. So this explication may seem shallow and inaccurate. But apparently, love dies. The Count dies. Gatsby dies. A flame can be rekindled yet sometimes the wick is too short to light a flame once more.
Dracula zaps Mina back into recalling his love, their love, the love between Elizabeta and Dracula. After five years, when Daisy hears just the name of Gatsby her heartbeat quickens. If you’ve never read the book you wonder does she still love him? Did she ever love Tom? Although, I’ve read “Gatsby,” I fell in love decades after seeing Stoker’s “Dracula” and then later seeing Fitzgerald’s words come to life in film again; I thought, does Gatsby really know Daisy? A lot can happen in five years, and an affluent first eighteen years of life affords you a certain mentality.
If you’re a purist, the 3D imagery and music (it was the Jazz Age) is without a doubt sacrilegious, but watching this rendition was like reading the book all over again. This time I felt as if I was Fitzgerald’s friend. I was no longer engulfed in literature; I became a resident of West Egg and maybe a fly on the wall in Gatsby’s great castle. It’s as if you wanted something else to happen. You didn’t want George to shoot Gatsby, especially since Tom was the adulterer. You hoped that the image of Myrtle dying was some sort of reverse love potion number nine, Gatsby remains blissful because Carraway is a man of few words.
I am a hopeless romantic. Daisy Buchannan in panoramic view halted all of my usual hopeful ideals to even begin to whisper. You hate to see a man or woman fight tooth and nail to win over someone who is not worthy of such persistence. You love to see the on screen chemistry of Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in “The Notebook.” The movie allowed Daisy’s childish, gullible nature and lack of morality to shine true.
Nick learns that there’s a particular, if not peculiar heighten level of humanity that can develop in the mist of dearth. The understanding that opulence corrodes decency; creates class division; and prompts corruption is embedded deep into his psyche. He discovers that the pursuit of the American dream coerces you to run faster and stretch your arms farther” and with orgastic vehemence the ebb and flow pulls you backwards. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
It’s like that first sniff (that I know nothing about), you chase it forever in spite of potential death.
“Look Who’s Talking Now!”
Why is change so radical?
I suppose the pursuit of positivity and progress can appear to be significantly remote. Change is inevitable, right, or is that something that just sounds encouragingly good?
It’s instantaneous. And revolution has many degrees. It’s just a matter of which or whose direction you choose to follow.
How do you define school and what is its function? Your answer dictates what you deem as plausible solutions to a largely, failing national education system.
One or many need the aptitude to discern the point of no return or when it’s time to turn around. Such is cued, when complexity becomes too complex. There’s this notion that if it’s significant, luxurious, and glossy; the product created from this thing, this idea will be equally productive, life altering—if not sustaining.
Strangely enough, many “thinkers” forget that what it takes to break ground and plant a seed is elementary—nature completes the hard parts.
Everything is trendy.
These Warholesque concepts creep up the ladder to places of elected importance; with the hopes of acquiring enough capital to have the means to brainwash people. The façade is that they will fix things because they can afford to.
The craze of the times is technology. Technology’s durability is arguably supplied by its innovative exigency.
It has become the great Messiah that will save education.
The presence of electronic components will baptize America’s schools; wash them clean of their problems.
There were no silver spoons or golden toilets present during my childhood, but there was definitely peace. My innocence was not only protected, it was cherished. I think back to hours spent in my room imagining, thinking, creating and playing. In grade school, my mother expected my projects to consist of necessary experiments with real resolutions. My teachers were onions of knowledge. My fifth grade science teacher was a dead ringer for “Valerie Felicity Frizzle.”
I’m searching for something outside of myself and the persons who orchestrated inspirations that afforded me my personal ambition for wanting to know things. I am coming up short. Unless we nominate things to have value; they are lifeless, idle, and stoic.
In February 1996, Gary Wolf for “Wired” Magazine interviewed Steve Jobs to learn what the “the next insanely great thing” was. “This stuff doesn’t change the world. It really doesn’t,” Jobs said when Wolf asked him about the big surprise that technology would deliver.
Technology is just something else thrown into the shredder to appease those who actually create the problems. Education has become a business sullied by non-educators and socio-politics. The bottom line is no longer to construct an environment that garners self thinkers that will discover new and better inventions. Beyond things, schools need people that are invested in tilling and planting. Naturally, antagonists oppose accepting blame. Greed has stripped teachers of their freedoms to ingeniously share their wells of scholarship. Thus, students must now learn according to scripted curriculums in order to pass standardized tests. In an ocean of statistics, adjectives like single, most, rich and poor have smeared the roads to success. Prejudices have doomed students before books are even cracked open. Shortcuts have eliminated countless essential procedures and resources.
I am not choking on old-fashioned ways or afraid of new strategies but I am very concerned with the sufficiency of any ideas that are being debated or readied as the savior of our educational communities. Technology can not be handed off as some golden key, if the very edifice or door it intends to open is not secure.
Machines are not suitable replacements for humans. We were the machines before the machines. Think about it!
“We live in an information economy, but I don’t believe we live in an information society. People are thinking less than they used to.” — STEVE JOBS
“If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” — Audre Lorde
Sister, Sister
Gurl, I loovvve that dress! I didn’t, don’t know her. Her outfit was a flowing, floral maxi dress, the perfect pair of corked wedges, her hair was pinned up and her skin was glowing. I was at the gas station on Jefferson Avenue, downtown. We were both pumping our own gas. She was stunning, I could not help but to pay her a compliment.
Instead of responding with just a flicker of gratitude; a simple thank you or a smile. She twisted up her nose and lifted her eyebrow to the heavens, slammed her car door and drove off.
What was that about? I thought to myself. Maybe she thought I was a lesbian and being flirtatious. I don’t get it. The truth is I’m a heterosexual woman and I am comfortable with my sexuality; feminine enough to give another woman a compliment.
What is this newer, old dynamic with women, where we can’t gracefully accept compliments or give one another respect? My perception is not to declare that all women cannot or have not developed loving relationships with other women but rather to acknowledge that there is a growing lack of reverence amongst us. So, who is the culprit or what is the reason for the animosity and/or feeling of being attacked?
By no means should you cue the kumbaya music. We are not all meant to be best friends or even associates but certainly we can manage being cordial. There will definitely be moments within our lives respectively when two energies do not match. Most recently, Jada Pinkett-Smith made a post discussing that sometimes walking way is the best type of friendship you can give a person.
Why did I feel I offended her with my compliment? I didn’t say anything belligerent like sweetheart or honey. I genuinely liked her dress. I wasn’t sizing her up or judging her. Why wouldn’t I go out of my way to bestow such pleasantries on her?
Have our own personal insecurities caused us to be each other’s innate arch-nemesis without proper cause? Have our respective childhoods or society made us uncomfortable with being comfortable in our own skins?
I often look to old adages to gain some sort of clarity on the present as well foresight for the future. The African proverb “women hold up half of the sky” comes to mind. The incident makes me think about learned behaviors and vicious cycles. A girl not only learns from her guardians biologically but also from other women and girls alike. What are we doing with one another to make sure the models and examples we are presenting are altering future relationships between women for the better?
I definitely could speak on the reality TV adlibs and scripted nonsense, but we already know how damaging those shows are and can be. We already know that image is everything, but I am more concerned with what we are doing and can do in the real world.
Could it be that we should be the best friends in the history of being friends. Truly, deeply and hard as hell, love the women that are in our circles. If we stopped and analyzed our friends, we would fine that there is the nurturing spirit of Oprah, the solution seeking nature of Iyanla Vanzant, the hold you down-lift you up courage of Tyra Banks. If we hone our skills of femininity, that raw, unadulterated strength—watch the world change.
The Karamoko Way 