The Marvin X theory of Writing as taught to his students at the Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland

 Aries Jordan and Prosperity, Academy of da Corner students, both have their own books of poetry; they perform with Marvin X and do their original works.

Berkeley High B-Tech Students at the home of Marvin X, checking out his archives that were acquired by the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Marvin X on Writing

Perhaps, one day I can present testimonies in the first person, especially since I am pushing the suffering oppressed to write their narratives of How I Survived, the essential theme in North American African literature, beginning with the so called Slave Narratives. We say Narratives of North American Africans caught in the American Slave System of pseudo democracy  and unfair free trade capitalism based on wage slavery and exploitation of the national resources of underdeveloped nations in Africa, Middle East, Asia and Indigenous America, i.e., USA, Latin America and the Caribbean (American Slave System is Ed Howard term). 

All those who come to me claiming they have a book in their heads, I tell them to write one page a day. They say, how can I do this? I say turn off the cell phone, get the lover off your shoulder, put them out the room for an hour or two; do not show them what you are writing, then write, write, write. Got blockage? Get some Henny, weed or Blizo! No writer's block up in here ! If you are serious about writing a book, don't call me until you have done one page per day, then call me. I don't have time for bullshit. I'm writing my own books, thank you very much! --Marvin X

The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience Tour 2015

 I am so thankful to have Sun Ra as my mentor and comrade in the Black Arts Movement. What a wonderful teacher!

May 21

University of Chicago Sun Ra Conference

Screening: Film Space in the Place

 May 22

Presentations, Symposium, Concert

Marivn X speaks on Sun Ra and Black Resistance  at University of Chicago.

Marvin X performs with Sun Ra musicians Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson, also, David Boykin and invited Chicago musicians.

May 23

African Liberation Day Chicago. Marvin X and David Boykin will perform together.

June 5-7, 2015

The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience at Sacramento Black Book Fair,

June 5,6,7, 2015

Sacramento Black Book Fair

Marvin X will perform with his Academy of da Corner students, Aries Jordan and Prosperity, both have their own books as students of Marvin X. Student Aries Jordan coined the term "Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience!" Aries and her sister Prosperity have endured Marvin X's well-known Ordeal by Fire! But when the dross is removed, only gold remains!

Juneteenth San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Fresno

Marvin X will autograph books and/or speak. Look for his booth.

African Liberation Day, 2015, Oakland

Marvin X featured author at Sacramento Black Book Fair, June 5,6,7, 2015

Featured Authors

Denise Nicholas Eugene B Redmond Dianne M. Pinderhughes Bill Strickland Sandy Holman Marvin X Terris McMahan Grimes Marion J Woods

Endorsed by:

• Mayor Kevin Johnson
• Women's Civic Improvement Club
• Oak Park United Methodist Church
• Guild Theater
• Sacramento City Unified School District
• Sacramento Public Library
• Drexel University Sacramento
• Assembly member Kevin McCarty
• California Legislative Black Caucus

Co-Sponsors:

• African Research Institute
• Black United Fund of Sacramento Valley
• The Black Group
• Brickhouse Art Gallery
• Blue Nile Press
• City of Sacramento – Neighborhood Services Department
• Friends of the Sacramento Public Library
• Jtenterprise
• Roberts Family Development Center
• Sacramento Area Black Caucus
• Sacramento City Councilmember Allen Warren
• The Sacramento City Teachers Association
• Sacramento City Councilmember Steve Hansen
• Teichert Foundation
• The Talking Drums News
• Colonial Heights Library Affiliated Friends
• Kakwasi Somadhi
• Underground Books
• Sacculturalhub.com
• Sacramento Juneteenth
• Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Eta Gamma Omega Chapter
• Sacramento Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated
• Fred and Ruth Foote
• ZICA Creative and Literary Guild
• Center for African Peace & Conflict Resolution
• Black Humanists and Non-Believers of Sacramento
• Sacramento Section- The National Council of Negro Women
• Mary McLeod Bethune Readers are Leaders Club
• Tracy & Symia Stigler
• Young Scholars–Calvary Christian Center
• Sacramento Poetry Center
• Sister to Sister Book Group
• 100 Black Men of Sacramento
• Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services
• Felicia Armelin
• Brenda’s Mane Event
• Black Parallel School Board
• The California Endowment
• The Office of Campus Community Relations,University of California, Davis
• Sacramento Public Library Foundation

Weather patterns on the Sun

The Sun's seasonal weather patterns

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Scott McIntosh details the Sun's seasonal weather patterns and demonstrates how understanding the formation, interaction and instability of the Sun's activity bands will considerably improve forecast capability in space weather and solar activity over a range of timescales.

Magnetic variability over the last three decades.

According to Scott McIntosh's recent article published in "Nature Communications," and in the "Daily Camera Boulder News," solar magnetism displays a host of variational timescales of which the enigmatic 11-year sunspot cycle is most prominent. This research demonstrates that Earth isn't the only planet that has a kind-of seasonal variability in its weather patterns. Bands of strong magnetic fields in the Sun's northern and southern hemispheres appear to drive variations in the Sun's solar cycle. Dr. McIntosh explains, "A good analogy for this phenomena is the Gulf Stream, these (magnetic fields) are like big, magnetized Gulf Streams that attract or repel one another." He believes that a more holistic approach to space weather can be gained by changing the focus from a singular sunspot cycle to the individual magnetic bands that comprise the cycle.
Daily Camera Boulder News: New study from Boulder's NCAR details Sun's seasonal weather patterns
Nature Communications Article: The solar magnetic activity band interaction and instabilities that shape quasi-periodic variability

What Is Solar Activity?

The Sun is always active. It has weather. It has storms. And its storms can affect Earth's weather.

• Sunspots are magnetic storms on the surface of the Sun.
• Solar flares are intense blooms of radiation that come from the release of the magnetic energy associated with sunspots. The NOAA ranks solar flares using five categories from weakest to stongest: A, B, C, M, and X. Each category is 10 times stronger than the one before it. Within each category, a flare is ranked from 1 to 9, according to strength, although X-class flares can go higher than 9. According to NASA, the most powerful solar flare recorded was an X28 (in 2003).
• Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are bursts of solar material (clouds of plasma and magnetic fields) that shoot off the sun's surface. Other solar events include solar wind streams that come from the coronal holes on the Sun and solar energetic particles that are primarily released by CMEs.

Solar Flare. Credit: jpl.nasa.gov

What is a Solar Cycle?

The number of sunspots increase and decrease over time in a regular, approximately 11-year cycle, called the solar or sunspot cycle. The exact length of the cycle can vary. More sunspots mean increased solar activity—flares and CMEs. The highest number of sun spots in any given cycle is designated "solar maximum," while the lowest number is designated "solar minimum."

Eleven years in the life of the Sun, spanning most of solar cycle 23, as it progressed from solar minimum (upper left) to maximum conditions and back to minimum (upper right) again, seen as a collage of ten full-disk images of the lower corona. Credit: NASA

How Does Solar Activity Affect Weather and Earth?

Solar activity affects the Earth in many ways, some which we are still coming to understand.

• Damage to 21st-century satellites and other high-tech systems in space can be caused by an active Sun which generates geomagnetic storms.
  Even in inactive solar cycles, the Sun emits large solar flares—which could cause billions of dollars in damage to the world's high-tech infrastructure—from GPS navigation to power grids to air travel to financial services.
• Radiation hazards for astronauts and satellites can be caused by a quiet Sun. Weak solar winds allow more galactic cosmic rays into the inner solar system. 
• Weather on Earth can also be affected. According to Bob Berman, astronomer for The Old Farmer's Almanac: Recently, NOAA scientists concluded that four factors determined global temperatures: carbon dioxide levels, volcanic eruptions, Pacific El Niño pattern, and the Sun's activity. 
• Global climate change including long-term periods of global cold, rainfall, drought, and other weather shifts may also be influenced by solar cycle activity, based on historical evidence:

Times of depressed solar activity seem to correspond with times of global cold. For example, during the 70-year period from 1645 to 1715, few, if any, sunspots were seen, even during expected sunspot maximums. Western Europe entered a climate period known as the "Maunder Minimum" or "Little Ice Age." Temperatures dropped by 1.8 to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

Conversely, times of increased solar activity have corresponded with global warning. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the Sun was active, and the European climate was quite mild.

Yearly-averaged sunspot numbers from 1610 to 2008. Researchers believe upcoming Solar Cycle 24 will be similar to the cycle that peaked in 1928, marked by a red arrow. Credit: NASA/MSFC

Solar Cycle 24

As of January 15, 2015, we are over six years into Cycle 24.

• The solar minimum occured in 2008 and 2009; during those two years, there were almost NO sunspots, a very unusual situation that had not happened for almost a century. Due to the weak solar activity, galactic cosmic rays were at record levels.
  
• Solar Maximum: The Sun's record-breaking sleep ended in 2010. In 2011, sunspot counts jumped up.  In February of 2012, the sunpot numbers reached a peak of 66.9.
  
  In late 2013, NASA reported, "The sun's global magnetic field is about to reverse polarity." The sunspot number climbed into the 70s. This is still very low. By February of 2014, sunspots averaged 102.8 spots a day, which is the first time the cycle broke 100. 
  
• In April, 2014, the sunspot number peaked a second time, reaching 81.9. This is likely the solar maximum.  Many cycles are double peaked, however, this is the first time the second peak was larger than the first peak (in February, 2012).
  

• Cycle 24 has been a weak solar cycle—the smallest since Cycle 14 (which had a maximum of 64.2 in February of 1906). What will happen next?  Stay tuned!
  

What does all this mean?

• Quiet-to-average cycles mean a cooling pattern over the next few decades. Temperatures have been colder than it would have been otherwise. Sunspots are similar to a bathtub of lukewarm water; if you trickle in cold or hot water, it may take a while to notice the difference. If this cooling phase on Earth, however, is offset by any warming caused by increasing greenhouse gases, they also raise the question of whether an eventual warming cycle could lead to more rapid warming on Earth than expected.

Would you like a call the next time the Sun erupts? X-flare alerts are available from http://spaceweathertext.com (text) and http://spaceweatherphone.com (voice).
 

Chinese build ghost town in Angola, Africa

The ghost towns of China, Ireland and Spain - full of large empty house estates - may be a phenomenon that is on its way to Africa.

Built for people who never move in, they leave those who did with a worthless property they cannot sell.
Perched in an isolated spot some 30km (18 miles) outside Angola's capital, Luanda, Nova Cidade de Kilamba is a brand-new mixed residential development of 750 eight-storey apartment buildings, a dozen schools and more than 100 retail units.
Designed to house up to half a million people when complete, Kilamba has been built by the state-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) in under three years at a reported cost of $3.5bn (£2.2bn).
Spanning 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres), the development is the largest of several new "satellite cities" being constructed by Chinese firms around Angola, and it is believed to be one of the largest new-build projects on the continent.

It's very quiet, much calmer than the other city, there's no criminality

Sebastiao Antonio , Kilamba student

The jewel in Angola's post-war reconstruction crown, Kilamba is the star of glossy government promotional videos which show smiling families enjoying a new style of living away from the dust and confusion of central Luanda where millions live in sprawling slums.
But the people in these films are only actors, and despite all the hype, nearly a year since the first batch of 2,800 apartments went on sale, only 220 have been sold.

Eerily quiet

When you visit Kilamba, you cannot help but wonder if even a third of those buyers have moved in yet.
The place is eerily quiet, voices bouncing off all the fresh concrete and wide-open tarred roads.
There are hardly any cars and even fewer people, just dozens of repetitive rows of multi-coloured apartment buildings, their shutters sealed and their balconies empty.
Only a handful of the commercial units are occupied, mostly by utility companies, but there are no actual shops on site, and so - with the exception of a new hypermarket located at one entrance - there is nowhere to buy food.
After driving around for nearly 15 minutes and seeing no-one apart from Chinese labourers, many of whom appear to live in containers next to the site, I came across a tiny pocket of life at a school.

The people looking after the lawns cannot afford to stay here

It opened six months ago, bussing in its pupils in from outlying areas because there are no children living on site to attend.
One student, a 17-year-old called Sebastiao Antonio - who spends nearly three hours a day in traffic getting to and from classes from his home 15km away - told me how much he liked the city.
"I really like this place - it's got car parking, places for us to have games like football, basketball and handball," he said.
"It's very quiet, much calmer than the other city, there's no criminality."
But when I asked if he and his family would move there, he just laughed.
"No way, we can't afford this. It's impossible. And there is no work for my parents here," he said.
His sentiments were echoed by Jack Franciso, 32, who started work at Kilamba as a street sweeper four months ago.
"Yes, it's a nice place for sure," he said.
But then he sighed: "To live here, you need a lot of money. People like us don't have money like that to be able to live here."

No mortgages

And therein lies the problem.
Apartments at Kilamba are being advertised online costing between $120,000 and $200,000 - well out of reach of the estimated two-thirds of Angolans who live on less than $2 a day.
However, Paulo Cascao, general Manager at Delta Imobiliaria, the real estate agency handling the sales, told the BBC that the problem was not the price, but difficulty in accessing bank credit.
"The prices are correct for the quality of the apartments and for all the conditions that the city can offer," he said.

There is no middle class in Angola, just the very poor and the very rich, and so there is no-one to buy these sorts of houses

Elias Isaac, OSISA

"The sales are going slowly due to the difficulty in obtaining mortgages."
A new legal frame work has recently been introduced to allow local banks to give mortgages, but for the majority of Angolans, even the few with well-paid office jobs, just finding enough cash for a deposit would be a struggle.
"The government needs to start giving priority to building low-cost housing because great majority of the population live in shacks with no water, electricity or sanitation," Elias Isaac, country director at the Angolan Office of the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA), told the BBC.
"There is no middle class in Angola, just the very poor and the very rich, and so there is no-one to buy these sorts of houses."
According to Mr Cascao, the government has recently announced a portion of the apartments at Kilamba will be designated social housing, which people on low incomes can rent long-term at low prices.
No-one is quite sure how that scheme will work or who will be eligible, and cynics have dismissed it as a vote-winning stunt ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled to take place on 31 August.
There is also the issue of what will happen to all the full-cost apartments if they do not sell.
Kilamba was financed by a Chinese credit line - which Angola is repaying with oil - so it has technically been paid for.
But if the houses go unsold, then the Angolan government will be left with stock on their hands and a potentially wasted investment.

Election pledge

Manuel Clemente Junior, Angola's deputy construction minister, staunchly defended the scheme and said it would definitely be a success - although he seemed convinced it was possible to purchase a flat for $80,000, much cheaper than is advertised.
"It is with absolute certainty, an excellent project," he told the BBC.
Responding to the complaints about Kilamba's isolated location, he said: "There are always people who criticise but thanks to the new highways which are being built, as a location it is only going to be about 15 to 20 minutes from the city centre."
The city of Kilamba is a government flagship project that goes some way to helping President Jose Eduardo dos Santos fulfil his famous 2008 election pledge to build one million homes in four years.
Allan Cain, head of Angolan non-government organisation Development Workshop that specialises in urban poverty alleviation, has welcomed the investment, but has some reservations.
"What we have been advocating for is a programme of upgrading in situ where people are living now, something which is considered to be international best practice," he said.
"I don't think many places in the world can afford actually to displace and re-house whole populations of cities."

APA Psychologists complicit in CIA torture program

Study accuses psychologists group of complicity in CIA torture program

April 30, 2015 

Washington, DC, American Psychological Association (Image from wikipedia.org)

The American Psychologists Association, the largest professional scientific organization of its kind, was secretly complicit in the adoption of torturous interrogation tactics used by the United States against detainees, a new report suggests.
A study released this week by noteable anti-torture critics reveals that an analysis of emails from the inbox of a deceased US government contractor demonstrates compliance on behalf of the APA with regards to the drafting of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs, developed under President George W. Bush.

APA officials was in cahoots with members of the Bush administration, including Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors, when the government struggled to codify policies for its torture program following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 200, according to the report – an effort led by psychoanalyst and anti-war activist Stephen Soldz as well as Nathaniel Raymond and Steven Reisner – two members of the group Physicians for Human Rights.

“The APA secretly coordinated with officials from the CIA, White House and the Department of Defense to create an APA ethics policy on national security interrogations which comported with then-classified legal guidance authorizing the CIA torture program,” the authors say.

Marvin X on the teachings of Black Arts Movement Master Sun Ra

Friday, July 15, 2011

What did Sun Ra teach?

He taught me the need for discipline in the artistic life, not freedom. He told me to stop teaching my actors freedom when discipline was needed. He demonstrated discipline by keeping his band together for over twenty years. When I got him to take a young actor of mine on European tour, he sent the very talented singer/musician home because he lacked discipline. He taught me not to be so moral, especially when I took a scene out of my musical with a sex scene. He was horrified that I had done so. He said, "Marvin you so right you wrong. That scene was the best one in the play. That's what people want, a little dirt. They don't want to truth, they want the low down dirty truth."

Most importantly, he taught the importance of mythology and ritual theatre, breaking down that fourth wall and merging with the audience, becoming one and indivisible, thus reaching the level of African communal theatre wherein there is no audience, only the community. His Arkestra, including poets, singers, dancers, and mixed media, expanded the potential of black theatre. It was a great experience performing with an Arkestra as opposed to simply reading solo or even with a small band. This is no doubt why I can only conceive of theatre as extravaganza in terms of performance, space and time.

Imagine being able to work with some of the greatest musicians in the world, aside from Sun Ra himself, there was John Gilmore, Danny Thompson, June Tyson, and Marshall Allen. See my DVD Live in Philly at Warmdaddy's, which I call 39 minutes of Jazz history. The set included Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson, along with bagpipe legend Rufus Harley and myself reading poetry. Also Elliott Bey, Ancestor Goldsky and Alexander El.

We can say that Sun Ra had a profound influence on the Black Arts Movement coast to coast. He was a founding member of Amiri Baraka's Black Arts Theatre in Harlem as well as a worker at my Black Educational Theatre in the Fillmore.
--Marvin X

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Marvin X and his Chief Mentor, Sun Ra, 1972

Those who have a problem understanding the complexity of Marvin X need only understand he was a student and colleague of Sun Ra, the bandleader of the Arkestra that Marvin X performed with on the east coast and west coast. Sun Ra worked with Marvin X at his Black Educational Thearte in the Fillmore, 1972. Sun Ra did the musical version of his play Flowers for the Trashaman, retitled Take Care of Business.

Sun Ra and Marvin X did a five hour production of Take Care of Business at the Harding Theatre on Divisadero Street in San Francisco, 1972. Sun Ra also told Marvin X he would be hired to lecture in the Black Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Marvin X doubted Sun Ra since Gov. Ronald Reagan had banned him from teaching at Fresno State College in 1969, the same year he banned Angela Davis from teaching at UCLA. Marvin X did indeed teach at UCB and his off campus class was at his Black Educational Theatre in the Fillmore. Sun Rn worked with him and the Harding Theatre concert was a five hour show without intermission, that consisted of a fifty member cast, including the Sun Ra Arkestra, the Ellendar Barnes dancers, along with the Raymond Saywer dancers and the Marvin X actors.

Academy of Da Corner Episode #2: Broken Systems, Broken Minds

Broken Systems, Broken Minds

by Marvin X


What we perceive as reality is most often a reflection of imagination, of mythology and ritual, or simply the mind of man is the macrocosm, reality the microcosm. Systems thus reflect the mind of man--did not someone say creations only reflect the mind of the creator. Broken systems, therefore, originate in broken minds. Yet we wonder why systems are broken, e.g., school system, political system, economic system, religious and moral systems.

But systems are not the problem, rather it is the minds of men that are broken irreparably, suffering a mental atrophy, an anorexia, a paralysis of imagination. The causation is simple greed, selfishness and lust for power. It is augmented by the quest for the acquisition of things, the wanton addiction to materialism or the world of make believe, the illusion that the microcosm can satisfy the macrocosm, when the real deal holyfield is the inner rather than the outer. Yet men fear to go there, deep down into the metaphysical realm where the darkest mysteries lie seeking edification and recognition. Thus, we find ourselves at the precipice, about to be consumed by the wonder of life.

Elijah told us, "The wisdom of this world is exhausted." And so it is--spent, obsolete, retarded, and yet we wonder why we are immobile, transfixed--stuck on stupid! Why no systems work.
How is it possible for the great Toyota to need recalling, a consummate machine suddenly dysfunctional. What caused this sudden breakdown-- some internal defect in the machine or in the mind of man?

Look at the educational system, confounded by the ideological foundation of white supremacy capitalism that continues to prepare students for a world of work when there is none, especially with living wages in an economic system that demands cheap labor and resources, a socalled free market system that will transcend the national needs for the wants and desires of global finance gangs, connected with, supported and defended by the military, i.e., the Christian Crusaders, soon to be supplanted by Communists from China, India and Russia.

The teachers were long ago taught to teach a new way--back in Egypt they were told to teach with compassion and love. Yet what we see today is the pedagogy of hate. It is a system that rewards ignorance and punishes wisdom and creativity, especially of the thinking variety. Any original thought is suppressed or deemed antisocial thought and behavior, often resulting in the student diagnosed to require psycho drugs that turn him into the zombie required by the society of the walking dead.

The religious system is the same. It is in full blown denial about the meaning of the cross and the lynching tree, about the mission of the prince of peace. For the most part, the religious community is Silent Night about the trillion dollar military budget that allows mass murder to take place across the planet. Along with Silent Night, it sings Onward Christian Soldiers as its sons and daughters crisscross the planet to secure labor and natural resources for the pleasure of the walking dead, and most especially the miserable few who enjoy the high life.

It is all about the glorification of Pharaoh and his magicians. God, in the minds of men, is a business, big business. There is no desire for spirituality, only prosperity, minus compassion for the poor, homeless, jobless and broken hearted, crushed to earth like the pot in the hands of Jeremiah at the gates of his city.

In the minds of politicians, there is no compromise, only preparation for the next election, or the assumption or resumption of power at any and all costs, no lie is exempt, "Vote for me, I'll set you free!" All bribes are acceptable--politicians are thus loyal to lobbyists, not the people who are expendable.

The lips of politicians do not say let us reason together for the sake of the people, for the love of the people, for the consent of the governed. These men and women of the political realm only know the language of no, no, no. As the people starve, become homeless, jobless, we yet hear the mantra of no, no, no, late into the night. No compromise, no reconciliation, only recalcitrance and niggardliness. They are fast to reward the robber barons, the blood suckers of the poor. Eventually, a few crumbs, kibble and bits reach the poor, if ever, unless there is revolt. And then Pharaoh sees the light, suddenly, but he will send his magicians to placate the poor with more crumbs, kibbles and bits.

Between good and evil, evil is the choice, with greed the foundation stone in the minds of men. Amazingly, the people see clearly. They feel change in the wind, not the change in the educational system or the political or religious, but in the wind. They smell the rotten hearts of men who lead into nothingness and dread, with their pitiful strut of the peacock, the one legged dance of the flamingo.

Pharaoh magicians gather in dens of iniquity to share blood money. Teachers, preachers, politicians, all there to party on the backs of the poor. The military stand post at the door of the den, ready to club the wretched into submission, even death, if they dare enter the den of thieves, robbers, murderers, and those who perpetuate the world of make believe.

Inside the den we hear a symphony of sick sounds, giggles, wails, grunts emanating from putrid minds exhausted from wickedness. The result is systematic gridlock--it is 5pm and the freeway is jammed with drivers full of road rage, ready to kill in an instant. It is thus a destruction of self by self, internal combustion.

Unlike the car, there is no forward motion or backward, or perhaps it goes both ways simultaneously, if such is possible in the world of physics, but after all, the minds of men defy all laws, except the law of the jungle and the devil.

But there shall be no forward motion with the present mind-set. Jack must jump out the box of his own making. He must take wings and fly away into a world beyond his imagination.
This is the only way out the morass of his mind. All the technology is to no avail, for he talks, but more often says nothing, he listens but hears nothing, deaf, dumb and blind.
--Marvin X
2/17/10

Poet/playwright/educator/philosopher/planner Marvin X travels to Chicago on May 22 to participate in the Sun Ra Conference at the University of Chicago. He will perform with Sun Ra musicians Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson, also with David Boykin, conference  planner.

Black Bird Press News & Review: Don't Say Pussy or the Psycholingustic Crisis of North American Africans

Black Bird Press News & Review: Don't Say Pussy or the Psycholingustic Crisis of North American Africans: arvin X. Jackmon at 2:52 PM

Inmates oMembers of the Sun Ra Jail will be in the University of Chicago Sun Ra celebration: Marshall Alen, Danny Thompson, Marvin X, et al.

 

www. blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

Marvin X and son of Chicago's BPP Chairman, Fred Hampton, murdered in a police shootout.
Black Panther Cub will host a reception for Black Liberation/Black Arts Movement Elder Marvin X in Chicago while he attends the University of Chicago celebration of Black Arts Movement Master Sun Ra. Marvin X had a long artistic association with Sun Ra and his Myth-Science Arkestra and will perform with surviving Arkestra members Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson, along with David Boykin and other Chicago musicians and poets.

Notes on Slave Narratives from Marvin X's Academy of da Corner

 Young brothers at Marvin X's Academy of da Corner, reading the Oakland Post Newspaper

photo by Gene Hazzard

 Marvin X and son of Chicago's BPP Chairman, Fred Hampton, murdered in a police shootout.
Black Panther Cub will host a reception for Black Liberation/Black Arts Movement Elder Marvin X in Chicago while he attends the University of Chicago celebration of Black Arts Movement Master Sun Ra. Marvin X had a long artistic association with Sun Ra and his Myth-Science Arkestra and will perform with surviving Arkestra members Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson, along with David Boykin and other Chicago musicians and poets.

Black Arts Movement's poets/mythologists/philosophers Marvin X and Sun Ra

 Rev. Blandon Reemes, Academy of da Corner students/authors Aries Jordan, Latoya Carter and Master Teacher Marvin X, on a visit to Alameda County Juvenile Hall to give out books from North American African authors, donated by the Post Newsgroup, published by Paul Cobb.

 Linda Johnson, dancer, choreographer, dancer Raynetta Rayzetta, Val Serrant, Tumani, drummers

at the 75th birthday celebration of Amiri Baraka at the Lush Live Gallery, San Francisco, produced by Marvin X.

Aries Jordan, one of the students at Academy of Da Corner that Marvin X has mentored.
She survived the Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience to publish two books and have a male child, Legend Muhammad.

 Marvin X and Academy of da Corner students Toya Prosperity and Aries Jordan, reading poetry at the Memorial for Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt, Los Angeles Black Panther Party Leader, at Oakland's Bobby Hutton Park, aka Defermery Park.

Bay Area Black Authors, Artists, Activists celebrate the life of slain journalist Chauncey Bailey at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 14th and Franklin, Oakland.
photo Gene Hazzard and Adam Turner

 Comrade George Jackson, Messiah of the American Prison Movement

 

Dr. Mohja Khaf, Syrian Poet/Professor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteeville

 Marvin X as bandleader with the Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra

performing at the Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland, May, 2014

Cornel West's first cousin Kwame Satterfield is Marvin X's stepson. Ase!

I am so horrified at the tales people tell me at Academy of da Corner, whether at Oakland's 14th and Broadway, the upscale Lakeshore Academy or in Berkeley at the ASHBY BART STATION. We are at all locations when we feel like it (prerogative of the Senior Citizen).

The unresolved grief and traumatic stress narratives presented to me in the various locations of Academy of da Corner, are overwhelming to say the least. Yes, some of the tales and stores are beyond tragedy, yet Cheikh Anta Diop taught us there is no African tragedy, only tragi-comedy, for the Southern Cradle believes in tragi-comedy. Tragedy is a concept from the Northern Cradle, Europe, thus it has no place in African mythology.

Perhaps, one day I can present testimonies in the first person, especially since I am pushing the suffering oppressed to write their narratives of how I survived, the essential theme in North Amrican literature, beginning with the socalled Slave Narratives, we say the Narratives of North American Africans caught in the American Slave System (Ed Howard term). I tell them to write one page a day. They said, how can I do this? I say turn off the phone, get the lover off your shoulder, put them out the room for an hour or two, do not show them what you are writing, write, write, write. Got blockage? Get some Henny, weed or Blizo! No writer's block up in here!

Marvin X's Ten Points for Survival in the Streets of Babylon, USA

Ten Points for Youth Survival in the Street

Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner,
14th and Broadway, Oakland, with one of his top students,
brother Jermaine Cash. Author Ishmael Reed says, " Don't spend all that money attending seminars and workshops, if you want motivation and inspiration, just go stand at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland." Bob Holman calls him, "The USA's Rumi, Saadi and Hafiz...." Rudolph Lewis says, "I would put him ahead of Mark Twain, even, as a story teller."






Ten Points for Youth Survival
1. Before going into the street, put on the amour of God or Spiritual consciousness,i.e., yea thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. The Lord is my rod and staff.

2. Be aware of your surroundings. Two are better than one, for if you stumble and fall, who shall lift you up? Do not stay long in unfamiliar places with strange people.

3. Be conscious of the tone test with the police, e.g., if they stop you for any reason, one of three things can happen depending on your tone of voice: they can kill you, arrest you or release you.

4. Be conscious of the tone test with another brother or sister: they can kill you, bum rush you or greet you in peace.

5. Do not wear sagging pants that prevent you from running or fighting. The ghetto, sad to say, is a war zone or hostile environment. Do not pretend you are in La La Land. There are mind fields everywhere, so try not to be in a mind altered state. It is best to be cold sober on the street.

6. Respect elders and do not take liberties with women.

7. Help the poor, say a kind word to the broken hearted.

8. At all times, be a soldier in the army of the Lord.

9. Pray going out and coming in. Be thankful you made it back home safely.

10. Make your home the No Stress Zone.

--Marvin X, Prime Minister, First Poet's Church of the Latter Day Egyptian Revisionists
4/17/11

Marvin X at University of Chicago Conference on Black Arts Movement Master Sun Ra 101st Earthday

Marvin X and Sun Ra at Marvin's Black Educational Theatre, San Francisco, CA 1972. Sun Ra arranged the musical version of Marvin's Flowers for the Trashman, retitled Take Care of Business. Both also lectured at the University of California, Berkeley in Black Studies, 1971-72.

 BAM poet Marvin X with his Poet's Choir and Arkestra, featuring David Murray and Earle Davis, all three were associated with San Ra. This performance is from Oakland's Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, 2014

David Boykin, Sun Ra Conference project director

Draft: Notes on Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters, and Stanley Nelson's documentary Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution

Black Panther Party Minister of Culture, Emory Douglas, and Black Arts Movement co-founder Marvin X at screening of Stanley Nelson's Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,

at the San Francisco International Film Festival. photo Aries Jordan

Marvin X Notes on Slave Catchers/Slave Resisters, Part Two: Black Panthers/Vanguard of the Revolution, directed by Stanley Nelson

In consideration of the request from director Stanley Nelson, i.e., I should delay the release of a review until September, 2015, 

when the film is released to general audiences, and in consideration that I have requested the outtake footage of myself in the film, 

I will not attempt a review  but submit some notes or impressions of the film.

Firstly, I refer the reader to that excellent documentary on the History Channel “Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters” (on Youtube). 

A viewing of this film will give the viewer the roots of the police in the form of the slave catcher. Of course the response to 

the Slave Catcher was the Slave Resister. The film noted the significance of the literary document David Walker’s Appeal, 1829, 

in building the resistance. We know Brother David Walker had a bounty on his head for writing his Appeal. He was found murdered 

in Boston a year after the publication of the Appeal. This reveals the power of the word, the power of art and propaganda. 

Mao taught us all art is propaganda of one class or another. Walker’s literary art was for the liberation of his people, enslaved 

North American Africans. 

We must note Nelson’s film is an inflammatory document. It will either advance the revolution or render us deeper down into the 

dungeon of Americana. Although it is refreshing to see a new generation on the road to carrying out their destiny: the liberation 

of our people, North American Africans, we only ask this generation to study the past carefully before proceeding down the road to 

freedom in a serious manner. Yes, liberty or death should be our mantra, for why should we permit ourselves to continue being 

relegated to the lowest rung on the societal ladder?

Just as Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters, offered us a model from the American slave system, Black Panther/Vanguard of the Revolution 

presents a model from the past, a radical  model for sure, but a model from our most recent experience, i.e.,the 1960s. 

We must study carefully the positive and negative points presented. We should note our internal flaws and the vile nature of external 

forces, not only the awesome fire power of the military/corporate complex, but the additional bags of tricks that were almost insurmountable 

to the 60s revolutionaries, especially in the Black Panther Party, but the Nation of Islam as well, along with all the civil rights groups 

and radical organizations, including the Christian liberation movement lead by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and those who came after his 

transition to the ancestors. 
 

 L to R: Director Stanley Nelson, Black Arts Movement co-founder Marvin X, Black Panther Party Cub, Fred Hampton, Jr. 

photo Aries Jordan

Disinformation, defamation, infiltration, surveillance and other tactics were in the bag of tricks administered by the military/corporate state. 

What methods will be employed by the present generation to resist? It is for them to decide. Will they be able to fight by not fighting? 

Or will the 60s model be unavoidable. Ultimately, we must come to terms with death and transcend it or there can be no bold forward motion. 

Arrest, jail and prison is the natural and normal response from the Slave catcher state, now modern America in 2015. So the revolutionary 

must transcend death, imprisonment, exile and other consequences of striking down the freedom road. 

But, for sure, revolution is a family affair. When all forces unite, all classes that are progressive, the deal is done. We saw this in the 

Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters as well as in Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution. In 2015, half a centuray later, The Black Panthers 

Ten Points what we want and need are the same: decent housing, education, release from the jails and prisons, recovery from drug addiction 

and addiction to white supremacy mythology; economic independence to transcend the mythical job for life syndrome that is suicide and partly 

responsible for the high incarceration rate as a result of joblessness and the resultant criminal route as a survival technique.

In conversation with the producers Stanley Nelson and Laruens Grant, I wanted them to stress the dynamic connection between the Black Arts

 Movement and the Black Liberation Movement. I am happy to say the art of Black Panther Minister of Culture, Emory Douglass, satisfied by 

thirst for BAM inclusion. It was of even more significance to hear Emory explain his functional art that focused on the common people in 

their daily round and new found radical persona, especially in harmony with the Black is Beautiful theme.

We were seated behind Fredericka Newton, Huey’s widow, so we saw her reaction to the film that ended with Huey depicted as a madman. 

But we can say that was his essential personality, for sure revolution made his condition more pervasive, but all of us have been forced 

to don the mask of psychopath. But Dr. Franz Fanon and Dr. Nathan Hare tell us revolution is the only way to regain our sanity or mental 

equilibrium.

Again, these are just some notes on the connection between Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters and the film Black Panther/Vanguard of the Revolution. 

At this present moment, the brothers and sisters in Baltimore are in the resistance mode to the present day slave catchers, i.e. police, aka pigs.. 

As Rev. James Cone would say, little brother Freddie Gray (RIP) was crucified on the cross and the lynching tree!(See Rev. Cone's interview with 

Bill Moyer's, PBS archives).

—Marvin X

Tour Update: The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience National Tour:

 Tommy Smith Track Meet, Edwards Stadium, UC Berkleley

May 3, Saturday, 2015, 7:30AM

Tommy Smith and John Carlos giving Black Power Salute, Mexico City Olympics, 1968.

Marvin X was  invited to participate in the opening ceremonies of the Tommy Smith Track this Sunday, Edwards Stadium, University of California, Berkeley. Tommy Smith and Marvin X grew up in the Central Valley of California; Marvin X in Fresno and Tommy Smith in Lemoore. They played against each other in high school basketball. Marvin and The Edison Tigers beat Tommy's team--he was the only North American African on his team from Lemoore High School.