God is in a good story

What if I found more "God" in watching Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame last night than in attending church service today?

One almost takes for granted the magic of animation, and of a good story loved and retold over the decades.  My now 20-year-old brother really loved it when you read his Quasimodos and Esmeraldas to him from his Hunchback picture book.  After Curious George, that must have been his favourite.

Now I'm watching The Hunchback Part II.  This long Easter weekend, I've also seen Pocahontas and the sequel.  12 movies for 200 Naira - I'll never get over that magic!

Meanwhile, it's Easter Sunday 2013 and I've finally visited one of the megachurches in my neighbourhood. Here's the report:

Big place, shiny and organized, good choir.  

People dancing so it's better than the night-club where sometimes folks just spend money hanging out and don't really dance.  

Outing got me thinking about the black church (USA) and in particular Howard University's Rankin Chapel and the Gospel Choir.  

Howard chapel - elevating. This church - uninteresting.  My mind wasn't there. 

The Colours of Arabia, Gold

Two of my poems have joined the gorgeous selection at Cyclamens and Swords. I think they have great taste over at C&S, so I am in celebratory mode.

If you haven't the time for poetry, please visit the selected artwork on their site.
You really must.  See Current, and Previous issues.

Hilarious video: Hello professor

There's more...Now I know how I'm going to burn the rest of my internet allocation for the month.

Top movies and cutest actors

I'll try to name my best films.  In categories of course. 

Best Action 

Inception (winner) 

Alexander

Best Romance

Becoming Jane (winner)

Leap Year

Best Drama
Arven (winner)
The Devil Wears Prada

Cutest women in film 

Genevieve Nnaji (winner) 

Catherine Zeta-Jones 

Julianne Moore

Most adorable screen actors
Eric Bana (winner)
Wentworth Miller
Adrienne Grenier

So many other cool romances I can think of...Sense and Sensibility, A Single Man, The Breakup...  Like I said, love is sorta sad. 

Let's all go to the movies!

and then I decided to find my top 10 ever but that was so hard that I tried top 50 and got stuck because memory can't be so trusted until great idea to use categories - like the Oscars - which really helped.

Best Soundtrack: 

Dharam Veer (winner)

De-Lovely

Kissing Jessica Stein

Best Visual Presentation

Avatar (winner)

Bend it like Beckham

Best Storyline

Ratatouille (winner)

Saworoide

Surf's Up

Best Actress

Joke Silva (winner)

Rihanna

Best Actor
Leonardo di Caprio (winner)
Eddie Murphy

Tomorrow, I'll tell you my favourite movies and which actors I find most adorable. 

Iram's TEDxYouth@Caltech talk

By Iram Parveen Bilal, the director of Josh (Against the Grain).

She says:
0. Critics call me confused, I call myself well-rounded.
1. Find out who you are internally - the unique you.
2. Figure out the external world.
3. Putting yourself in "uncomfortable" situations helps you do these things: new experiences help you discover you, and travelling helps you know the world.
4. All this makes you a happier person that is more fitted to creating a happier world.  

I acted in her first demo/assignment of film school.  We really have to do something together again. 

L'amour

Love is tragic -
you don't know this, you're not ready. 
Love is comic too -
remember to laugh. 

Make fun of love,
loathe, fear,
embrace it. 

Love is
physics. 

Force.

I just watched W.E., a film by Madonna.  Good film.  Guess which other film was good?  In the Land of Blood and Honey, directed by Angelina Jolie.  I really should do a film ;)  In other news, I just watched four-and-a-half seasons of Entourage. 

That's All - the original

The best song by Le'mmon in my opinion is this one.
It used to be called Fucking That's All, then just That's All, then the chorus and title were changed to Lovin' That's All (because you don't want to anger delicate ladies) then the song was retired completely and some crap compromise song given the same title.
So, yeah, as K'Naan said, it's not easy to want to get airplay and yet want to sing from the heart.  But many times, the songs that are true are the ones that will "connect" and become unforgettable. 

Pre-Lengoma Songlist: 
1- The Original, Uncut, That's All
2- People Change
3- Radio
4- Have You Seen Her
5- Celebrate
6- Sweat
7- Unbelievable (vid)
The first four or so are really nice songs, even if nobody cares about them.

Vincent Le'mmon Osuagwu

Thank God, he also has a booty-shake video and stuff too, so he can pay the bills, lol.

Rejected by All (Mixtape) songlist:
1 – F***ing Thats All
2 – Sounds Right
3- Lengoma (video)
4 – Pimp Blues
5 – Lust
6 – Sweet Dreams
7 – Immortality
8 – She Wants Ft Phenom

I mentioned Le'mmon before, here.

I'm stealing this

Opinion: Censoring Myself for Success 
By K’NAAN
Published: December 8, 2012

HERE is a story about fame. I heard it first as a fable in Somalia, before living it out in America.

The fox, they say, once had an elegant walk, for which the other animals loved him. One day, he saw a prophet striding along and decided to improve on what was already beautiful. He set out walking but could not match the prophet’s gait. Worse, he forgot his own. So he was left with the unremarkable way the fox walks today. 

K'Naan

Right now, the pressures of the music industry encourage me to change the walk of my songs. When I write from the deepest part of my heart, my advisers say, I remind people too much of Somalia, which I escaped as a boy. My audience is in America, so my songs should reflect the land where I have chosen to live and work.

They have a point. A musician’s songs are not just his own; he shares them with an audience. Still, Somalia is where my life and poetry began. It is my walk. And I don’t want to lose it. Or stifle it. Or censor it in the name of marketing.

I first saw censorship as a child in Mogadishu, walking into my home’s courtyard one day and hearing a radio hushed nearly to silence. The adults hovered around, listening to a song. And I asked why one song had to be played at a whisper while another could blast through the house.

A war was going on, I was told, and some songs had meanings the government did not want deciphered. Those “anti songs” were different from love songs, or folk songs. You had to take care in dressing the words. In love songs, words could preen in bright colors; in anti songs, they attacked in camouflage. 

Food right now

I'm hungry so I think it'll be crackers and nutella right now. 
Yum.  

No light since yesterday, but NEPA was so good last week.  I recognize this stunt, there may be no light for a while.  And to think I just bought a kilo of chicken yesterday - gotta do something about the chicken before it spoils.  Eat it?  Well, at least cook. 

Rhythm and Dunes

Some more music I like:
Aboki
Ice Prince is a leading Naijapop / hip-hop artiste.
Best known for Oleku (2010), but I like Aboki better. 

Bad Girls

M.I.A. is a world-music / pop diva of Sri-Lankan heritage. 
Best known for the song from the Slumdog Millionaire film.

On twitter feeling happy like I discovered hydroxyurea therapy or something

I decided to devote some time to thinking about malaria and sickle cell anaemia this month. 
Started by checking out the origins of quinine and artemisinin online.  Both were 'discovered' by local folk using them naturally hundreds of years ago, then rediscovered and sold in more deliberate forms. 

Moved on to sickle cell where as one would expect, people have tried going into the stem cells for red-blood cell production and switching the one mutated point in patient's DNA right back. 

Read from bottom to top

Read about the wide variation in how rough people with this genetic disease have it: from not-so-bad in many of the Arabian occurrences to regular killer in Africa. 

I don't really like twitter but yeah I'm @tosinbird

And of course, there is a treatment based on that: hydroxyurea is said to be so effective that it's a surprise not more people are using it. 

Treatment, yay!

Maybe I'll stop there for now. 
But lots of questions still - remember the prophylactic 'Sunday-Sunday medicine' we used to take for malaria in boarding school - what was that about?  
What other cool manipulations can prevent the occurrence of sickle-cell and its related suffering?  Nowadays we tell people that 'AS shouldn't marry AS, only marry AA' but how easy is that to understand?  And for those who understand it, I've seen how painful it can be for a young couple to have to break off their engagement after a drug test says they're both AS.  More than 20% of Nigerians are either AS or SS according to this paper.

M.I.

Been soaking up M.I's incredible brand of mad music all day.  Not sure why I love it - nostalgia, naija pride, or just the abundance of great lines.  It's just soooo...artistic.  I don't think most rap or hip hop is this good. 

Click on each album cover to listen.

MI2 : The Movie (2010)

M.I. : Talk About It (2008)

I'm feeling it. 
And I like his new blog / entertainment site too: miabaga.com
Where do you learn to be so cool?  Art school?

Should I read The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling?

Yes, you should.

JK Rowling author of Harry Potter series

 I am enjoying the novel right now.  It may not be earth-shattering literature, technically speaking, but it's very competently done.  That's also what I thought about the Harry Potter(s) I read, but I care more about the themes in The Causal Vacancy: harmony, or disharmony, in society.
It is intelligent and heartfelt and like I wrote before, will likely change the world.  This novel enlightens on local governance systems too - not common in the US or in Nigeria, but apparently the practice in the UK. That's another topic that interests me greatly. 

A few weeks ago, I watched again my favourite movie in the whole world: Arven (The Inheritance), a Danish film by Per Fly.  Then I watched the other two films in his trilogy: Baenken (The Bench) and Drabet (Manslaughter).

Arven is about the upper class in their society.  It's stern, with stern colours - or lack of colour I should say.  Saturnine; Capricorn; suits, bare walls, sharp angles, winter.  The rich own winter, I guess. I like everything about this film.

Ulrich Thomsen leads the cast of Arven

Baenken is a film of their lower class.  They live in the projects, sort of like "The Fields" in J.K. Rowling's novel.  Let's just say they didn't try to make this guy go to rehab because he didn't have Amy Winehouse's money.  It's a lovely film.  In terms of matter and language, the poor have so much more stuff, junk, in their sorroundings and in their language.  By contrast, the people in Arven have so much more brutal silence.  

The Bench features alcoholic Jesper Christensen

Drabet is the middle-class film in the trilogy.  There's a professor, there's divorce, there's terrorism...oh, there are ideas.  Bigger than survival is the abstract principle in one's mind.  It strikes me as the film version of JM Coetzee's acclaimed novel: Disgrace.  I like the film better.  Drabet won the Nordic Film Council Prize in 2005, a year before Zozo, the gorgeous immigrant film from the 2006 Arab Film Festival. 

Early next year, I plan to release my poems of the upper class in our low-latitude society.  I know you can't wait ;) 

They're still single?

The Venus and Serena show has come and gone.  Lagos, Nigeria enjoyed their visit (pics), which included a glam gala (which I ALMOST attended) and an exhibition match (couldn't make that one, either.)

  

Well, a few years ago, I had nothing better to do, so I sat around matching people - celebs, friends, celebs with friends, etc.  It must have been early 2009.  I made 48 pairings.
Many of them are married now, not to each other.  Some of those would mind if I wrote out their matches, so I'll keep them safely in my diary.

But Venus, well, she should hook up with Leonardo DiCaprio.  Both are single, right?
I have Serena Williams with Mark Cuban.  Not sure what I was thinking.  She should just get back with musician Common. 
Matched Dinara Safina with a friend of mine named Ali.
Matched Martina Hingis (oops, she's married) with Jonathan Rhys-Myers.

Justin Timberlake just got married, but not to my pick Chelsea Clinton.  Lol.

Maria Sharapova just got un-engaged, so now she has another chance to grab her true soulmate Mario Ancic.

Ok, this one is weird, Chris Brown + Svetlana Kuznetsova.
Kirsten Dunst + Feliciano Lopez is not so bad.
Ivanka Trump + Novak Djokovic, though neither is on the market.

I found Xisca (Rafa Nadal's long-term girlfriend) a great alternative match, so, you know, tell her ;)

Matched my friend Lisa T. with David Ferrer.  Another friend Lisa T. with James Blake.  And a third Lisa with my high-school sweetheart K.  Too much fun.

At least musically, Jennifer Hudson needs Babyface, Kenneth Edmonds.
I liked Marion Jones + Eddie Murphy, Jessica Simpson + Cristiano Ronaldo, Ana Ivanovic + Clive Owen, Lisa Ling + Jamie Foxx, ...

Malia (l) and Sasha (r) Obama do tennis

 I'm going to match Malia (the legs) Obama with a new sport.  Two words: cross country.

Ebedi International Writers' Residency

...is housed in the semi-rural, somewhat Muslim, Yoruba town of Iseyin, an hour outside Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.  
The founder-patron is Dr. Wale Okediran, a soft-spoken medical doctor who is also a prolific and award-winning writer. With at least ten novels/memoirs to his credit, the man also runs a medical column in the Nigerian Tribune.  Note: By all means read his Tenants of The House, 2010 winner of the Lumina (Wole Soyinka) prize for African Literature, and definitely one of the ten coolest novels Nigeria has produced in the past ten years.

Interestingly, Dr. Okediran is also a politician. He was the Secretary, then the President of ANA, the Association of Nigerian Authors. From 2003-2007, he was a legislator, representing Iseyin / Kajola / Iwujola / Itesiwaju area of Oyo State in the Nigerian National Assembly.  He was the ACN candidate for Senate (Oyo North Senatorial District) in the 2011 election.

I would like to read his other (harder-to-find) works, which include (primary source) and a handful of others:
Call to Worship, 1990 - won American Poetry Association Book Prize 
The Boys At The Border, 1991 - Commonwealth Literature Prize Shortlist
Rainbows are for Lovers, 2nd edition published by Spectrum Books 1993
The Rescue of Uncle Babs, 1998 - won ANA Prize for Children’s Literature  
Dreams Die at Twilight, 2004 - NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature Shortlist
Strange Encounters, 2004 - published by Heinemann, won ANA Best Fiction Prize 
The Weaving Loom, 2008 - shortlist Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa
Tenants of The House, 2010, cowinner with Coconuts (South Africa) is a captivating tale of politricks inspired by his tenure in the National Assembly.
Fearless, 2012, is a memoir of his House of Reps colleague, Femi Gbajabiamilla.

The Ebedi Residency is one of very few in Africa, and the only writers' residency I know of in Nigeria, so far.
It began humbly via blog/newsletter announcements in 2010.
Lola Okusami and Abiodun Adebiyi became the first residents in September 2010.  After reading about it in NEXT, I thought: wow, I really really want to do this, and after the boys had had their run, I was  in the fourth pair one year later.  Yess!

In its second year, our little residency became more international with writers from West and East Africa, and bigger - with an intake class size of three, up from two at a time.

What will year three and beyond bring?

Writers at Ebedi, Biodun and Lola

Why did Wale Okediran found the Ebedi Residency?  Read an interview here.

Who can apply?  How to apply?  I believe a website is in the works.  Otherwise, all I can say is that it is open to authors of fiction, poetry, or drama, and it is intended to develop the local community as well as enrich the larger world.  Your best bet is either follow a writerly newsletter or blog for upcoming announcements or email ebediwriters@yahoo.com with enquiries about latest application requirements (usually a writing sample and bio/CV).

Cast and News for Ebedi International Writers' Residency

September/October 2010: Announcement, Press, Lola Olusami, Abiodun Adebiyi
November/December 2010: Interviews, Charles Oluyori, Kenechukwu Obi
January/February 2011:  Press, NEXT, Trust, A. Igoni Barrett and Emmanuel Ugokwe (Igbo language)

August/September 2011: Story, Press, Guardian, Nation, Spencer Okoroafor, Anaele Ihuoma
October/November 2011: Press, Story, Reactions, Interview, , Ladi Opaluwa, Tosin Otitoju (me)

January/February 2012 : Forum, NSnews, Punch, Doreen Baingana (Uganda, Commonwealth Prize 2009), Dr. Dul Johnson, Nehru Odey
March/April 2012 class: Announcement, Tribune, Interviews, Temitayo Olofinlua,  Barbara Oketta (Kenya/Uganda)

June/July 2012 class: Biographies, Press, Malawi's Stanley Kenani?, Press, Interview, Richard Ali, Niyi Fasanmi, Awwal Sakiwa (an illustrator)
September/October 2012 class: Interviews, Onyebuchi Nwosu, Macdell Joshua Sackey (from Ghana), Samuel Kolawole

November/December 2012 - three girls?

Recurring roles: Press, Salvation Otubu and the lovely secondary school students of Iseyin, Alhazan Abiodun, Aunty and Uncle Okediran, The Board (Alkasim Abdulkadir, Akintayo Abodunrin, Maryam Ali Ali, Uche Peter Umez, ...)

Dr. Wale Okediran, initiator of Ebedi Writers Residency Programme

2013 updates:
Nov/Dec 2012: Interviews, Blessing Mba, Lillian Christopher, and Salamatu Sule
Jan/Feb 2013: Story, Punch, Elnathan John, Musa Idris Okpanachi, John Kofi Asiedu Sarpong
Mar/Apr 2013: Four Women: Ayodele Olofintuade , Agiresaasi Apophia, Yewande Omotosho, Rukayat Olaleye
NEW Official blog: EbediResidency.blogspot.com 

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Divine and divalicious

Found Two Against One on a Best (Under-rated) Songs of 2011 list.  Perfect music+video.

I've also derived great pleasure recently from my Carla Bruni, Rufus Wainwright, and Miloš Karadaglić.  Yep, just like I planned, been playing Quelqu'un m'a dit (Carla), Out of the Game, Songs for Lulu (Rufus's last two albums), and Mediterraneo (Miloš) over and over.
The best things in life are free. 

50 odd weeks ago, besides cheesy telenovellas, this was the other cheesy viewing that helped me recuperate: Kathryn and Jakob on Season Six of So You Think You Can Dance.  Divine.

Yep, happy one year anniversary of being very sick to me.
November 2011 (recuperation season) was horrid, with all the medicine and feeling strange and nauseous and feverish and all.  But that was also when I first heard Miloš.  Boy did I play this one over and over. 

Impressions, August 2001

What I thought grad school would be - Tosin Otitoju

The sketch shows my impressions six weeks before starting at Caltech in September '01, having visited in March/April: 
Lower left:
the professors in my department - Richard Murray, Jerry Marsden, and John Doyle.
Panning right: 
some quantum spin thingie.
The new kids - me, Shawn (the Texan) Shadden, Lun Li, and Lijun Chen.
The letters CDS.
A DNA double helix.
Me and some hottie.  A 20-year old girl could dream.
Above: 
I'd heard grad school was all about pizza (but I got to 'Caltech and changed that culture, so we started getting healthy and quality free food).
Money - I was going to get some.
A ducted fan I had seen in a basement lab.
A differential equation.
A computer.
The Saguaros and breathtaking landscape I had seen out West.
Twin single cells (amoeba?) eating. A book. 

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Events at Lagos Lawn Tennis Club this month

One, Venus and Serena are scheduled to tour Nigeria, giving tennis clinics, an exhibition match, and such, from October 30.
Two, Nigeria is hosting a few low-level international tennis tournaments. 

No Top Nigerian Tennis Pros
Currently, all Africa has in the top 100 ATP/WTA rankings are 1 South African man (Kevin Anderson) and 1 South African woman.
All the Africans in the top 1000 (13 men / 6 women) are from South Africa (and Zimbabwe) or North Africa (Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco).   There are however many unranked Nigerian players on the pro-circuit.  I'll make an excuse for them: tennis is expensive.

Few Top Nigerian Juniors
The Africans have a bigger and more diverse presence on the JUNIOR rankings table of the International Tennis Federation(ITF).  First of all, there are 3 boys and 4 girls from Africa in their top 100, with 53 boys and 42 girls in the top 1000.

Nigerian boys Emmanuel Udoko and Umaru Balami, and a girl Sarah Adegoke are in the respective top 1000 rankings for juniors.

Umaru Balami of Nigeria

Emmanuel Idoko of Nigeria

I used to read about them in NEXT, and became colleagues and friends with Tolu Asaolu and the other sports reporters - Jide Alaka, Tunde Eludini, Ifeanyi Ibeh, Nnamdi Okosieme.  Few paid attention to the junior sports stories, being so carried away with millionaire football stars.

Sarah Adegoke, click for photo source

Sarah Adegoke, Governors Cup Lagos Tennis

  But surely with good exposure and match play, some Nigerian players may break into the top 1,000 and even the top ranks of tennis.

Cool tourneys in Lagos
I can't wait to finally watch some live, courtside tennis, my first time ever.

Tafawa Balewa Square and Lagos Lawn Tennis Club (photo:ITF)

Besides the Chevron Junior Masters tennis championships currently on at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, there is the Lagos Governor's Cup coming up in the second half of October.
Follow the tournaments
web: governorscuplagostennis.com  fb: GovernorsCupLagosTennis , twitter @governorscuplag

Lagos Nigeria aerial view (photo: ITF)

Winning

It's time to slow down once again, even if I live in Nigeria not the harried CalSci USA.

Sad fact of "producing" work is that one becomes so eager to get one's own stuff out there, up front, and winning, that there is little time to consume the work of others.
Imagine how filmmakers feel about watching films - ah well, I can borrow this and this from Scorsese; or don't have time to read/travel/dance I have films to make.
Reasonable to think this way sometimes, then sometimes of course you want to broaden your experience, so that what you create might actually be new and dee-lightful. 

Well, I am going to read.  The winners of this year's Commonwealth Short Story prize, starting with the overall winner, from New Zealand.  I really hope they're good.  Then I'm going to read some essays from Foundational Questions in Physics.

NUMB3RS - Math + Film

 I hear JK Rowling, who is loved for having made a fortune as the writer of Harry Potter, has a new novel out.  I am very interested in reading it, having read a scathingly negative review that compared it to Barbara Pym (who wrote one of the best novels EVER.)  I expect to find it very intelligent, with heartfelt insights about class.  I expect it to change the world, actually, especially since so many are going to read it.
But why does Rowling's book have to go over 500 pages?  One should rarely do that, but nowadays everybody seems to be going for the painfully long page count.  Short and sweet, people, short and sweet. 

Sometimes I can't believe how lovely it is to be in Nigeria. 
Hahaha, super-serious people make me laugh.  Why do "white people" like to make the most exciting things so serious?