Albert Camus graphic with quote by Aberjhani provided by Postered Poetics . After kicking off the Text and Meaning Series with an article on Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech in August, the latest installment is on Albert Camus’ classic book, The Myth of Sisyphus. The Text and Meaning Series is one reminder that some of the battles we’ve found ourselves struggling through in 2013–– as if thrashing while asleep and trying to wake from nightmares–– have been fought before. In many cases it was believed victory had already been won. I started the Text and Meaning Series largely as a way of introducing classic works into conversations on current topics and events. It presently consists of the following: 1) Text and Meaning in Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream Speech 2) Text and Meaning in Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance 3) Text and Meaning in Langston Hughes The Negro Artis...

                      Author Albert Camus (photography by Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004 ) "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” –– Albert Camus , The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus may have died tragically when the car in which he was a passenger crashed on January 4, 1960, but the novels, plays, essays, articles and notebooks he left behind continue to help lend clarity to individual and collective conflicts within the world in 2013. November 7 marks the 100th anniversary of the author’s birth and even though his works are already taught in high schools and universities around the world, the occasion of his centennial has prompted numerous events that have been taking place throughout the year. On November 7 and 8, the Albert Camus Society will host a Centennial Conference from 9:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. on both days at the Swedenborg Society Buil...

Portrait of Jalal al-Din Rumi by Haydar Hatemi . “We are the mirror as well as the face in it. We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity. We are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.” --Jalal al-Din Rumi as interpreted by Coleman Barks in The Essential Rumi War is an addiction to chaos that shreds human souls into tattered rags of trauma.   In acknowledgement of Rumi’s 806th birthday, I’m all for Syria, Al Qaeda, Al Shabaab, and all other countries and organizations at war with each other to exchange their guns and bombs for poems by Mevlana. Replace tanks and drones with open mics and let everyone brave enough go at it. Whoever spits the most verses, quatrains, long poems, or quotes by Rumi wins the right to proclaim peace and throw a feast in honor of sanity, brotherhood, sisterhood, and childhood. Is that likely to happen? No, not very, but the ecstatic beauty and soulful grace of Rumi’s poetry inspires human hea...

Classic portrait of Langston Hughes by the German artist Winold Reiss (Credit: Smithsonian Magazine) “We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs.”––Langston Hughes Among the superstars who recently joined late-night television talk show host Arsenio Hall on the set of his newly-revived program was hip-hop pioneer and mogul Russell Simmons. In addition to expressing enthusiasm over sharing meditation with his children and exploring new film opportunities in Hollywood, Simmons spoke briefly and somewhat reservedly about a recent controversy involving artistic freedom versus social responsibility. Without going into details about the scandal-plagued “Harriet Tubman Sex Tape” video that he posted on, and then quickly removed from, his All Def Digital YouTube channel, Simmons admitted the backlash it created prompted the only instance where he felt compelled––after being pressured by different civil rights organizations––to withdraw artis...