Here's a partial list of shit to do between now and January 22nd (the first day of the next semester):
1) Read/write/edit my ass off. Think about new genres.
2) Put together my syllabus for Comp II. Not hard, but still time-consuming.
3) Plan out a series of interviews for my Spring Historiography thesis.
4) Put together materials for AWP/Acentos panel. Write stirring yet relevant speech for said panel.
5) Planning with Con Tinta for the joint Acentos/Con Tinta table at the AWP bookfair.
6) Book Acentos for at least the first half of 2008 (not nearly as crazy as it sounds).
Added to this, I'm waiting on news about a job for next year that would be monumental if it were to happen. Keeping my fingers crossed for that one.
No, we don't always get time off between semesters, and, it's shaping up to be a full and meaningful month for yours truly. For the next couple of days, however, I plan to enjoy crossing the finish line with my family, my new apartment, my lovely girlfriend, and our lovely new furniture. (Yes, the living room is actually liveable!)
And because for the moment I'm tired of discussing poetry and all its related nonsense, I also plan to check Youtube with some regularity for music like the video posted below. The other day I was talking to Pat Rosal, a fellow Jersey boy who shares my abiding love for 80's freestyle and club music...get with it, y'all! Turns out, Youtube has a virtual treasure trove of stuff along the lines of Stevie B, TKA, George Lamond, Lil Suzy, The Cover Girls, Safire, and Lisa Lisa. Seeing all these hairsprayed, suited-up, polished, brightly clothed, doorknocker-wearing young Latinos parading around in the videos got me all kinds of nostalgic for the days when my siblings were still Northern New Jersey club-goers, and I was still a baby pissant nerdboy too young to join them.
I know my brothers and sister will probably see this post, so I'm putting up the ORIGINAL freestyle classic from 1983, in honor of Club Elegante, Seaside Heights, Eddie and Martita, Highland Park, and that fly-ass New Year's basement jam (which of course I didn't realize was fly at the time). And of course, for Miriam, who loved this stuff too.
Merry merries and happy happies to everybody celebrating the next couple of weeks.
"Let the Music Play," Shannon:
A, E. A, E, I, O, U. U. And sometimes, why--
Rich.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Work, Contentment, Freestyle, and Something for the Fam
Rich Villar is the author of the poetry collection Comprehending Forever (Willow Books, 2014). He directs Acentos, an organization fostering audiences and community around Latino/a literature, and he has been quoted on Latino literature and culture by The New York Times and the Daily News.
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1 comment:
Call me the weeper. Thanks, Rich. All kinds of trivia is flying through my head. Two vocalists who had great singles in that same era are Jenny Burton ("Remember What You Like") and Loleatta Holloway ("Crash Goes Love", but more famously "Love Sensation", the latter wasn't really freestyle; Holloway could do it all, coming, evidently from the Northern Soul Music scene.) Jenny Burton was the lead singer for C-Bank ("One More Shot"). I think a lot of even OG Freestyle heads forget these artists/tracks. Thank you, Youtube.
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