heating up
ONE
“Those are the places where you find the seven dollar lattes.”
This season of NPR’s podcast ‘There Goes the Neighborhood looks at Los Angeles as a city and focus of current development in the wave of a new NFL stadium in Inglewood, rising rents and a light rail. As the podcasters talk to developers and locals impacting the physical landscape of the neighborhood, the economic effect of these developments are discussed. With Inglewood being a seat of much of it, the working class black experience that’s nestled in this communit, as other cultures begin to move in and the eventual “7 dollar latte?” NPR
It will be interesting to see how many specialty coffee shops finally make their way to the neighborhood – the one my parents moved into when I, the founder of this zine was a teenager.
Tune into the season, it’s already off and running.
TWO
Whose pot? |
The word coffee followed by pot appeared in the first verse in a bar of a cypher on BET’s Hip Hop Awards by iconic Detroit rapper Eminem. Wearing all black, a gold chain, some kicks and a hoodie, Eminem takes center garage, while his rap brethren watch and hear him destroy a freestyle about president no.45 for one of the intermittent sessions during the show. The cypher – one among many, prerecorded annually featuring New and existing rappers – leaves no secret about how he feels about the current state of America under the region of no.45. This culture takes it that the object of coffee in the lyric is a sign.
Don’t touch hot pots kids.
THREE
Portrait of Presidents as People |
Amy Sherald, ‘Miss Everything (Unsupressed Deliverance)’
A woman with a red beret, dual patterned dress – one side black and the other polka dot – stands for a portrait against a teal background wearing white gloves which beautiful contrast her brown skin. She holds a large coffee mug poised to sip while look directionally ahead. This image painted by Amy Sherald – born in Georgia and now living in Baltimore – now belongs to the woman who will paint the official likeness of former First Lady Michelle Obama for the official collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Former President Barack Obama will be painted by Kehinde Wiley, a Los Angeles native and current Brooklyn resident. Both artists and this image led the front page of the Arts section in the New York Times, October 17, 2017.
Let us drink coffee.