Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Revolution on the Rocks Tour Schedule


Schedule for Dr. M's Revolution on the Rocks Tour




November 1, Thursday, 7pm, Sankofa Books, Wash. DC
November 2-4
Black Power to Hip Hop Conference, Howard University
Contact Brother Salim, National Black United Front, 202-525-3449
Hip Hop diva Muhammida El Muhajir will also participate with her dad, Dr. M
Accompanied by Elliot Bey on keyboards

Nov. 4, Sunday, 7:30 Book Party for Dr. M/Marvin X

Umoja House, 2015 Bunker Hill Rd., NE, Washington DC
For more information, call Baba Lumumba @ 202-526-4039


Nov 9, Friday, 7:00pm

Reading and book signing at Moonstone Art Center
Accompanied by Elliot Bey on keyboards
110A S. 13th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Phone: 215-735-9600, 215-735-9598

Nov 10, Sat., 4-7pm, Black and Noble Book Store
Reading and book signing
Accompanied byElliot Bey on keyboards



1409 W. Erie Ave, Philadelphia PA 19140

Nov. 12, Monday, 2pm, Yorkhouse Senior Center, Reading and book signing

Call Bnita @ 215-329-3595


Temple University, Philadelphia
Dr. Joyce Joyce/Sonia Sanchez hosts
Date and time to be arranged
Accompanied by Elliot Savoy Bey on keyboards

Nov. 16-18

State of the Black World Conf., Howard University, Wash. DC

For Booking Dr. M, contact: Sun in Leo PR | 718 496 2305 | prgirl@suninleo.com






Marvin X has been ignored and silenced, like Malcolm X would be ignored and silenced if he had lived on into the Now. He's one of the most extraordinary, exciting black intellectuals living today --Rudolph Lewis, Chickenbones. 

At his best, Marvin X is clarity of perception.--Gerald Ali, United Kingdom

If you want to learn about motivation and inspiration, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland.--Ishmael Reed, novelist, essayist, publisher, Oakland


Why invite the same old suspects to your events? If you want someone inspiring, motivational, provocative, radical and raw, someone who will knock the socks off old ladies and the pants off young men, book Dr. M to speak, read, perform, dialogue. He will participate in the intergenerational discussion Black Power to Hip Hop at Howard University, Nov. 2-4, 2012. Hip Hop filmmaker and event planner, Muhammida El Muhajir will attend to dialogue with the elders from the Black Power Movement, including her father, Dr. M.

Black Arts West Founding Father 
Dr. M/aka Marvin X 
East Coast Book Tour

Marvin X’s has been a published writer for over 40 years and has a storied past as a writer, teacher, community activist, journalist, entrepreneur, husband, father, and recovered addict.  He has befriended, offended and crossed paths with the likes of Huey Newton, president Ronald Reagan, Amiri Baraka, the Republicans, the Democrats, Donald Rumsfeld, Eldridge Cleaver, and Jim & Tammy Faye Baker just to name a few!

He chronicles the Black experience, the American experience in language that is raw, gritty and brutally honest.  Highly informed, Marvin X speaks to many societal levels and to both genders—to the intellectual as well as to the man/woman on the street or the unfortunate in prison—to the mind as well as the heart.

He shuns political correctness for the truth of life and common sense dominates his thought.  Marvin X’ work in advocating racial cohesion and religious dedication as an antidote to the legacy of racism he saw around him in the 1960s and 1970s has made him an important voice of his generation.

He has lectured at California College of the Arts and taught at Fresno State University; San Francisco State University; UC-Berkeley and San Diego; University of Nevada, Reno; Mills College, Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland.
Dr. M/Marvin X,  teacher, community activist, published author for over 40 years, and one of the founding fathers of the Black Arts Movement, hits the east coast to celebrate the release of his latest title, The Wisdom of Plato Negro.

The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables is a post-modern version of the ancient tradition of story telling. Says Rudolph Lewis, "Marvin X has expanded contemporary literature. I suspect there is nothing like them in post-modern American literature." Ishmael Reed declares, "...If I had to pin down the influence upon Marvin X...I would cite the Yoruba texts: texts in the Yoruba language reveal that didacticism is a key component of the Yoruba story telling style.... Marvin X imparts wisdom by employing cautionary tales and uses his own life and mistakes to consul the young to avoid mistakes."

His recent stop in Houston included appearances at SHAPE Community Center, Khepera Books, University of Houston, Africana Studies Department, and Texas Southern University School of Business.

The tour will continue with dates in Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, Washington DC at the Black Power Hip Hop Conference, November 2-4.

Marvin X is available for lectures, speaking engagements, and book signings.

For Booking, contact: Sun in Leo PR | 718 496 2305 | prgirl@suninleo.com


Marvin X and mentor, the incomparable Sun Ra
The Wisdom of Plato Negro, cover of latest release




Muhammida El Muhajir and father, Dr. M
photo Gene Hazzard, 2012



It was at the suggestion of international event planner, Muhammida El Muhajir, coordinator of the east coast leg of Marvin X's national book tour, that this phase is entitled Revolution on the Rocks, with the focus on night clubs as well as colleges and universities. He is not excluding addressing youth in academia as he was at University of Houston and Texas Southern, and will participate at Howard University's Black Power to Hip Hop Conference, November 2-4, and may speak at Morgan State University, Baltimore, late October.

Marvin X says the college and university venues are fine, but he prefers nightclubs and other venues where he can have complete freedom of speech and not forced to talk academic gobblely gook.

"I don't like talking in a language our people can't understand. As we decolonize the English language for our needs, we must speak very straight and plain so we can be clearly understood. I am speaking about the psycholinguistic crisis of the North American. This is a very serious matter because we have no linguistic consensus. Attend any conference and see what happens when the resolutions are discussed. No one can agree on terms. Sometimes the meeting or conference cannot conclude because persons cannot agree on language. This happens in personal relations as well: partners cannot agree and sometimes violence occurs because of different interpretations of words said, even words of love.

At least in a club, and the comic shows are the best example, there is a consensus on terms said, even if the audience might be slightly mind altered with alcohol. Alcohol can be a dangerous mix when one is talking truth but I can accept alcohol above the academic setting and uttering academic abstractions. One example of this was a National Conference of Black Psychologists conference I attended in Oakland. A young Turk raised a copy of their Journal of Black Psychology to say, "Imagine, we are trying to heal our people but we publish a journal in language they cannot understand!"

My elder, friend, comrade, psychologist Dr. Nathan Hare says we must argue in male/female relations, though he warns in argument there must be a winner, thus the object is often lost in the desire to win, the result the partners never reach higher ground. And yet how can we argue without agreed upon language? I therefore slightly disagree, or maybe it is not slightly but a major point of departure between Dr. Hare and myself because he says silence is the enemy of healthy relationships while I say sometimes silence is glory. Yes, just shut up rather than fan the flames of a burning fire. When it is clear one partner is speaking "Russian" and another "Chinese" there is no point in continuing the conversation, just chill, shut up and cool off.

Aside from the above, among other topics to be discussed on my Revolution on the Rocks Tour include 
the highly requested How To Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, a Pan African 12-step Model for a Peer Group. We have held peer group meetings coast to coast so we know it works if you work it! The immediate discovery is to realize ourselves in a safe space, sacred space, where we can bear our souls unashamed. For where does such space exist in Babylon? Of course the first step is to conquer fear, the great monster that devours us at every turn, fear of success, fear to love, fear of another brother or sister, fear of the white man and his myriad institutions that impact our lives.

We fear to love our families while claiming to love the community, yet families make community, alas, revolution is first for the salvation and reconstruction of the family. Life itself is for the perpetuation of family.

Schedule of Dr. M's Revolution on the Rocks Tour, 2012

November

November 1, Thursday, 7:00, Sankofa Books, Wash DC
Nov. 2-4, Black Power to Hip Hop, Howard University, DC
Nov. 4, 7:pm Book party for Dr. M at Umoja House, Wash. DC
Nov. 9, Reading and Book signing at Moonstone Art Center, Philadelphia PA
Nov. 10 Reading and Book signing at Black and Nobel Books, Philly, 4-6pm
Nov. 12. 2pm, Yorkhouse Senior Center, Philly, reading/book signing
TBA Temple Univ., Dr. Joyce Joyce/Sonia Sanchez hosts
Nov. 16-18, State of the Black World, Howard University, Wash. DC

Nov. 20 Newark, NJ

Nov. 25 Brooklyn, Harlem

Nov. 29 Boston MA

Louis Reyes Rivera Memorial Play


We remember Louis Reyes Rivera as a great poet and teacher who influenced many.



We last appeared on his WBAI poetry program and were interviewed for two hours.



It was a great interview on my poetry and poetics. 

For many years Louis held his writing 
workshop and poetry venues at Sistas Place in Brooklyn. We love you and miss you, Louis Reyes Rivera, RIP!--Dr. M




A Crowe Flyz Productions present a dramatic staged reading of a new full-length play The Workshop written and produced by Alice T. Crowe, October 26, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. and October 28, 2012 at 5:00 p.m. at the Great Room South Oxford Space, 138 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn New York. Arthur W. French III is the director.   Mr. French is the facilitator of Fusion Gumbo Writer’s Workshop.
The Sunday show is a Tribute to the Late Louis Reyes Rivera. Before his death, Rivera had just finalized a 150-page epic poem Jazz in Jail. A portion of the proceeds of the event will go toward assisting in publishing Jazz in Jail.
The Workshop is a moving play about a frustrated raging poet who struggles to discover his voice among a group of wanna be writers in a writer's workshop. He meets his political opposite and struggles to win her over and stay true to his muse while making his art relevant in the Age of Obama.
The Workshop is a hilariously, satirical commentary about the African American experience. Set in an artsy artist's café for the urban literati, the Workshop participants challenge the notion that black culture is monolithic and explores how the contradictions of politics, race and gender impact romantic relationships. The artists struggle with the challenges of making their art relevant in the age of a black president. Should black art change now that we have a black president?
Suggested donation is $15 adults at the door, $12 seniors/students. For more information call (845) 358-7617.Brownpapertickets.com. There will be a wine and jazz reception before the shows.
   

The author writes:

I have been greatly moved by the pearls of wisdom and guidance I received as a member of the Louis Reyes Rivera Writer’s Workshop. Louis’s passing had an enormous impact on me and my desire to bring to life some of my writing that has been tucked away in three red milk crates in my home. Louis is gone much too soon. Having struggled with a way to grieve and honor Louis’s memory, I can only come to one conclusion. I must write and move forward on some of the work that best reflects what I’ve learned while a student in his workshop. 
I am producing a play that I wrote called “The Workshop.” I wrote the play as a student in several writing workshops, but I feel that this play captures the essence of my experience as a writer and social commentator.

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