Friday is Black Bird's 7th anniversary. I want to take this moment to say thank you for every minute of the last seven years that you have made Black Bird part of your life.
Gift shopping for a teen can often feel like you are just supporting a corporate coffee chain, a bubble tea franchise, or a questionable gaming interest rather than a lasting and meaningful loving act.
I am feeling those September giddy moments induced by extended exposure to blue skies and sunshine (which amounts to sunshine > 2 hours here in our fog-famous city).
I, like you, am exhausted by the media. The word choices skew just dramatic and doomsday enough to get your primal attention heightened and then... 'Weekend pants you don't have to take off on Monday'.Oh, what is that (click)? An escape hatch from (a dramatically exaggerated) reality through consuming.Yes, please!
As the granddaughter of the first microwave owners in a small town in Louisiana, I recently decided it was time to engage with this ChatGPT thing (despite my obvious luddite tendencies as a bookstore owner). I imagine most of you, like me, have read the film reviews in ‘Shakespearean style’ and love letters in ‘Dr. Seuss rhyme’ all written by this new author, ChatGPT, that are circulating in the fearosphere known as social media. With some asking the question, is this the beginning of the end of (human) writers?
I recently spent a late evening listening to ghost stories; the kind that make your skin crawl and the shadows morph into shapes around you. Being from New Orleans, it felt familiar and yet a new feeling came to me -- comfort.
Inviting wonderfully talented writers to share their work at Black Bird gives me almost as much pleasure as inviting you and our community to join the event. This is where the rubber meets the road in the bookstore world.
This weekend Black Bird is hosting Drag Queen Story Hour, a nationally beloved book-centered event for children modeling strength in diversity, self-love, and creative expression. Hosting this event feels for me as much an act of resistance as that morning on Fifth Ave...and so much more. Celebrating self-expression for children - and ourselves! - while having fun, acting silly, and being fabulous is a much needed reminder thatthere is joy in humanity.
On the evening of last week's horrific Tuesday, I went (along with what seemed to be most of San Francisco) to hear Angela Davis speak at City Arts and Lectures. It was a balm to be under the warm glow of an elder's wisdom-filled words at such a time. Towards the end of the evening, an audience member asked how to stay the course in times like these. In her response, she quoted activist Mariame Kaba saying 'hope is a discipline' not an emotion or even an optimism, but rather a practice to keep in motion the continued work we have toward all social justices. Since then, the words have become a mantra I have found myself repeating, perhaps too often. I hope you too can feel some solid ground beneath you from hearing them.
I grew up in the public schools of New Orleans in the 80s. MLK Day was, after Mardi Gras, the most memorable school event of the year. We would eat our hot lunches in the cafeteria while the teachers wheeled out a record player and played Dr. King's full 'I Have a Dream' speech. It was scratchy and loud, but we all sat silently listening to his words each day for a week. And in classes we sang songs, performed in plays and read books that wove the history, the stories and the activism behind King’s words. It made an impression....
