Jabari Asim

I recall Jabari more as a poet--I think he was in St. Louis at one time. But yes--a definite possibility.

Tyrone

possible contributor

Jabari Asim, an old friend and supporter especially of my writing. He might be a good contributor/ collaborator, especially as he has worked in the newspaper industry for years. Maybe he could contribute something on Jess Jackson recent use of the n-word.???

An accomplished poet, playwright and fiction writer, Jabari Asim has been described as one of the most influential African American literary critics of his generation. He is deputy editor of The Washington Post Book World and also writes a weekly syndicated column on everything from politics to pop culture. He's written for local theater companies and is the author of A Road to Freedom, a novel for young adults. Asim's latest work is The N Word, which traces the growth of the word in America.

Arnold wrote to tyrone later that afternoon

i made a small zine in 1994(?) called Spirit and Image (the annunciated version of "spittin' image" as in "spittin' image of his father."). It included a brief story by a young German philosophy student that I translated into english. His text was inspired by drawings of mine that were reprinted in the zine. Also there was an article cut and pasted from the new york times about the french artist Arman who cut up traditional African sculptures in order to make modernist assemblage art. And there was also an interview between myself and a writer named Michael who i knew, but I actually wrote the whole text and revealed that at the end of the interview in a footnote. and
finally at the very beginning was the reprint of a letter to Time magazine from Miriam Makeba concerning Time Magazine's miss handling of her name.

it may take me some time to put my hands on one but i will send you this zine as it seems very much in the spirit and image of what we are talking about.

have a great rest of the weekend and thanks for giving me a chance to work on this challenging project.


AJK

my initial comments/query to Arnold...

Arnold,

I saw Rob Halpern at the end of May in SF and he told me you were no longer at the gallery. I hope the employment situation has stabilized for you. I finished my Atelos book--at least a draft--and am starting to think again about our discussions regarding collaboration. I have an idea--I have had it for some time--of doing a newspaper art project in newspaper format--we might want to bring in someone else as I envision not only text in newspaper columns but photos, art and "ads" with different sections (news, leisure, sports, entertainment, etc.). Obviously this is a huge project--what do you think? Unfortunately i have no current plans to be in NYC anytime soon....

Tyrone

Arnold's ideas

1.) Real and fake advertisements. The real ones would be ads that we would sell to support the project. Fake ones could be art projects likes the want adds that Adrian Piper once did. Or i envisioned and ad for a cafe — LIBERATION CAFE: BLACK COFFEE FOR BLACK PEOPLE!2. Also I am excited by centerfolds. And I liked the idea of artist profiles that wouold only be photogrpahs of artist's profile. I thought profiles of David Hammons/ Paul Sepuya would be nice.Do you know Paul Mpagi Sepuya's work. He is a young photographer here in New York who I think would be great in this project.3. Also I see our role as creatives in the project but also as artistic directors or curators basically of a exhibition in print that includes text and images. and we would invite contributions for other artists as well as placing in our own projects.