Announcing BLERD CITY Con

Via Black Girl Nerds, the following awesome announcement:

WHAT:
The first annual BLERD CITY Con will hit New York City’s historic neighborhood and Silicon Valley East, DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.) Saturday, July 29 and Sunday, July 30, 2017.

BLERD CITY’s mission is to provide the Black community with substantial connections to talented and cutting-edge professionals in the craft of positive image making. BLERD CITY comes from Black + Nerd = Blerd, a conference dedicated to showcasing the complexity and multi-dimension of NERDiness through Art, Science, Film, Literature, and Technology.  The conference includes panels, workshops, film screenings, and a marketplace. The BLERD CITY marketplace will feature a mixture of curated gaming and comic books, and a children’s area for science and technology exploration.

BLERD CITY panels and workshops announced so far include: Women In Comics, Martial Arts and the Urban Landscape, Afropast and Afrofuture, Cosplay Interaction, SciFi/Fantasy/Horror Film Screenings, an L.A. Banks Tribute and more. Guests announced include:Tim Fielder, graphic artist, cartoonist, and animator, Afrofuturism The Next Generation; Nicole Franklin, CBS Sunday Morning Daytime Entertainment Emmy® Award winning editor, filmmaker, and co-producer and co-moderator of the weekly Monday night Twitter series #BlerdDating, Warrington Hudlin, and Regine Sawyer.

WHERE:

The Dumbo Spot, 160 Water Street​
Green Desk, 155 Water Street
Creative Chaos, 28 Jay Street
Automatic Studios, 52 Bridge Street
Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Empire Fulton Ferry (Near Main Street)

Visit the official website for more information about BLERD CITY or to register for the convention.

"So Goth, I Was Born Black": Screamin' Jay Hawkins & Goth Music

Musician Jay Hawkins originally had the idea to record "I Put A Spell On You" as a slow, mournful blues ballad. The original, un-issued version recently surfaced on YouTube:

 If the above version was what had been originally issued, the world would have missed out on a song that laid the foundation for Shock Rock and Goth music. Without "Screamin'" Jay Hawkins' raw power, deep-throated growls and groans and powerful operatic delivery, it would have flown under the radar. It certainly would never have been picked as The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll and not been covered by artists ranging from Nina Simone to Credence Clearwater Revival to Nick Cave. It turns out, however, that Hawkins' recording session of "I Put A Spell On You" that influenced rockers from Alice Cooper to Rob Zombie ended up happening completely by accident. As the book "All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide to the Blues" recounts in Hawkins' own words, it all happened because the producer for Okeh Records brought along a bunch of food and alcohol for the band and Hawkins gave the recording session a go when he was three sheets to the wind:

"[The producer] got everybody drunk, and we came out with this weird version … I don’t even remember making the record. Before, I was just a normal blues singer. I was just Jay Hawkins. It all sort of just fell in place. I found out I could do more destroying a song and screaming it to death.”

Serene Pristine has a great essay on how when Hawkins went from just plain ol' Jay Hawkins to "Screaming" Jay Hawkins, kicked off the Shock Rock aesthetic and can truly be called the Grandfather of Goth Music.

For a song that's been so influential and had dozens of covers, debates over which version is best still rage on today. Do you have a favorite, or can nothing stack up to the original? Sound off in the comments and share your favorite!

Responsible Fans & Thinking Critically

Image from Battle ROyale courtesy of J-Flim Pow-wow

In light of the recent discussions on entertainment's approach to the militarization of the police in the wake of Ferguson, Anita Sarkeesian getting a death threat today that involved law enforcement and having to leave her house, I wanted to revisit (friend of the blog's) Jenn Frank and her essay entitled "On Consuming Media Responsibly". In it, she delves deep into how one can still enjoy both an entire genre and specific works that also have problematic parts:

In the right context I’m not even slightly offended by gross-out stuff, tits-and-ass, or sexualized violence. I tend to accept these things as classic horror staples, staples that—especially in the case of the best North American slasher ever made, Black Christmas (1974)—can be used to chilling, humorous, and otherwise surprising effect... it’s less important what a movie says and more important that you, the viewer, understand why you’re enjoying it. I believe in judicious self-awareness; a director like Nicolas Winding Refn knows exactly why he makes the directorial choices he makes, and he works those kinks right out onscreen. Or, if you aren’t enjoying a piece of work—if ultraviolence isn’t your thing, or if you’re suffering a visceral reaction—it’s every bit as important that you identify what about the piece is making you uncomfortable.

This also applies to video games as well, as she points out:

But for better or worse, video games and their themes consistently alienate broad swathes of game players—and often for the very reasons other demographics of player enjoy them. As critics, players, and creators, it becomes important to identify and acknowledge both what is happening and why...

Feminist Frequency videos aren’t fearful or phobic; instead, they extend hope that video games and other media live up to their promise. But that hasn’t stopped some video game fans and men’s rights advocacy collectives from repeatedly decrying (and possibly even sabotaging) Sarkeesian’s work. Tellingly, Sarkeesian’s game videos themselves go into little depth at all. Their arguments are radically nonconfrontational, and also limited by time constraints. They’re basically “supercuts” themselves, demonstrating a medium’s laziest trait—this is the humor and value in any good supercut, really—so there is barely anything about Sarkeesian’s takeaway message to cause real affront to anybody. The disproportionately angry reaction to the Feminist Frequency videos, however, is due cause for alarm. If people, especially female people, can literally say nothing in criticism of lazy game narratives, what hope do we have? Nobody should become absolute arbiter of what we consume; that’s a private responsibility for adults or parents. We ourselves are our own gatekeepers.

Seriously, just liking something with problems in it doesn't make you a bad person. Similarly, someone pointing out why something is harmful or problematic isn't an attack on you. If we are to be responsible fans, let alone responsible people, it's important to think about what we like and why. We don't all have to agree, but there's a galaxy-wide gulf between disagreeing with someone's interpretation and declaring that they want to destroy something you love-- and by extension, you.