Texas Democratic Party State Convention Tribute to Ann Richards

via Sivacracy

I looked at some of the images from this montage in this post here if you're interested. One of the things that seems pretty apparent across the US political landscape, is that Democrats are actively reclaiming historical and cultural narratives and effectively appropriating them into their political campaigns.

An Uncanny Convention(al) Photo

Yesterday John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama. I know, old news already. But if you haven't seen the video it's worth noting the overwhelming enthusiasm from the Michigan crowd when Obama introduced Edwards. Considering he received 7% of the vote in West Virginia and isn't even running I'd say he's still got some serious mojo with "the people".


Hat tip to the EENR blog for video. EENR is a progressive blog community which began as a partisan grassroots community for John Edwards and has since morphed into an independent progressive/populist advocacy site.

The thing that struck me immediately about the visual of Obama and Edwards together was how much they looked like running mates at a Democratic convention. No doubt many would have read the visual as such which was probably the point. The BAG has a few remarks on this worth checking out, "-- it's hard to believe the true blue O-team wasn't playing for this exact pose."

Bellow is Clinton and Gore at the 92 Democratic convention. The comparison is uncanny.
Even Edwards' and Obama's facial gestures mimic Gore and Clinton in these two photos.
Do you notice anything different between the two photos?


The title of this blog post is a direct play on the BAG's title linked above, "Obama-Edwards: Just A Convention(al) Photo"

Words, Jazz, and Spaces in Between… an introduction of sorts.

I’m a word freak – one of those teachers that can get excited about a single paragraph in Pym, or get tangled up in runon sentences when talking about the rhythm of Ralph Ellisons prose. And I will inflict spoken word versions of Whitman (or Kenneth Burke for that matter) to who ever gets in the firing line. All this because from the deeply personal level to the interpersonal and collective, the narratives we produce are all inter-connected and reproduced in an attempt to close the gap between experience and meaning – or to quote Burke, who put it more elegantly: Literature is equipment for living.

I’m also a jazz freak – if you’ve ever met one, you’ll know what that means… I will try to refrain from endless lists of personal favorites and jazz anecdotes. But I do use jazz as a way in to those narratives. As a model of epistemology, creating and disseminating knowledge through dialogue and appropriation. In my work I’m currently focusing on the way narratives are formed around jazz in the US and elsewhere, constructing national as well as transnational identitities. More will follow from me on this.

As for Spaces, I am intrigued by those in between – between the words, the notes, between the notes and the words, and just those between…

And to tie you all over, here’s the meister of spaces in between: Thelonious Monk, filmed in Copehagen in 1966…