Jason Toney

This I Believe

"Like love lost, you've got to try even in vain." - Noisettes, Atticus

"She says she's athiest, Jason, but what religion are you," she asked.

"I'm a fan of all religions but I'm a member of none."

I had several interesting conversations with The Lady's mom about faith and religion from the spiritual to the metaphorical to the historical but it's this exchange that I've been thinking about since I left Greensboro. I had mentally prepared myself for the kinds of questions that parents who are surveying the man in their daughter's life ask but, for some reason, I hadn't thought about this one.

Religion hasn't played a part in our relationship beyond our lack of it and our mutual academic fascination with it. This query, however, begs for me to clarify—if not for mama and papa Brown then, at least, for myself—what I believe.

As I said, I'm a fan of many religions. I know the positive impact organized religion can have on someone's life. My grandmother is the epitome of christian virtue; my father is a better man with G-d in his life; the overwhelmingly positive experience of Jewish conversion on Michelle's life has been inspiring; I have cousins who would otherwise be dead if not for the church replacing their drug addiction with a fiendish attachment to salvation. And beyond, I know churches and synagogues and mosques and temples are often the only places that care for those of us with the least. I'm a fan of religion done right.

I'm just not a member.

Religion is ultimately about faith. About believing in something without any empirical evidence of its existence. The only thing I truly believe in without knowing it exists is the future. Is possibility. It's the idea that with every moment, we have the opportunity to be better than we were before. To do more. To change.

To win.

To be great.

To do great things.

To smile.

To laugh.

To dance.

To start all over again.

I cherish that opportunity. That thing just around the corner. The infinite unknown.

I celebrate it.

I have faith in it.

I live in the now but I believe in the next.

Amen.

Let's go!

The Never Fallin' Workout Playlist

Daylight by Aesop Rock  
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02 Daylight.mp3 (4197 KB)

1. Self Taught by Brother Ali
2. L.A. by Murs
3. Bird's Eye View by Zion I
4. Never Fallin' by Living Legends
5. Dirty Girl by Felt
6. Reality Check by Binary Star
7. Daylight by Aesop Rock
8. You Can't Hide, You Can't Run by Dilated Peoples
9. Moment of Truth by Gang Starr
10. Ms. Hill by Talib Kweli

Bonus: Victory (Come Forward) by Brother Ali

40 minutes of Tae Bo Advanced II and it felt good. It's amazing what a week away from work can do for perspective and focus. My re-entry back to work went well and I'm ready to tackle what comes. That doesn't mean I'm not daydreaming about my rapidly coming return to New Orleans.

Victory.

Brother Ali says, "I'm where the rubber meets the concrete."

Zemanta helped me add links & pictures to this email. It can do it for you too.

Posted via email from The Pensieve

In Case You Missed It...

The best stuff from wow & flutter last week...

• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
• "I pity the fool who don't like turkey..."
• Animated Map of US Unemployment
• A Special Kind of Happy
• Deadspin on the Tiger Woods "Accident"

And According to Friendfeed, the best of the rest of my online life...

• More Tiger and Elin
• The infamous Scrabble game
• My too full belly
• Artist of the decade: Beyonce
• Pictures from Greensboro

Thanksgiving and Tiger Woods dominate. Enjoy.

The Widening Path Workout Playlist

The Narrow Path by Blu & Exile  
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02 The Narrow Path.mp3 (6156 KB)

1. Be Alright by The Foreign Exchange
2. Nighttime Maneuvers by Little Brother
3. Can't Stop Us feat. Chaundon by Mick Boogie and Little Brother
4. I Love The Way You Love (featuring Darien Brockington) by Nicolay
5. You (The Only Ones) by Strange Fruit Project
6. Much More (feat. Yummy) by De La Soul
7. The Narrow Path by Blu & Exile
8. Love & Appreciate by Murs

Bonus: Thelonius by Common

The widening path is the one around my middle so we kicked it back into gear today with 30 minutes of Tae Bo Advanced II and a yoga session in the AM. And even though I still ended up at Umami Burger instead of at my stove cooking but there was a major increase in the veggies and such after a week and a half of serious eating and semi-serious weight gaining.

Slum Village says, "Niggas large like an 8X Avirex jacket."

Posted via email from The Pensieve

Lush Life (30)

Cover of Lush Life: A Novel

Lush Life by Richard Price (2008, Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Well, that certainly scratched an itch. Most of the reviews I've perused about this book make reference to The Wire. Price, one of the key writers of the series, creates a story that fits right alongside and next to that fictional version of Baltimore. The dialogue crackles. Worlds collide. What is known, unknown, and true differs depending on which part of the city you live in. And, as The Wire so consistently showed, institutions -- like our police departments -- are going to fuck up.

While The Wire's whole point, however, was this dismantling of our institutions and systems -- of the 20th Century American ideal -- Lush Life is more about collisions. New York's Lower East Village has become a mish-mash of people. Project kids, wannabe artists, immigrants, orthodox jews, and just a heartbeat away from (very white) nouveau riche neighborhoods. And when the murder of a charming white guy happens in the wee hours of the morning on a dark street in the heart of this salad bowl of multiculturalism -- the police are ill-equipped to figure out why.

My relationship with Price's work to this point has been a great hit and a miss. Clockers is spectacular. Freedomland, I've failed to finish twice. For whatever reason, I cared not about the story in the latter. The former, I could read over and over again. The problem, with Freedomland, I think, is because I didn't believe it. My love of The Wire is rooted in the "realness" of the characters and situations. While watching, I believed I could head to Baltimore and see Snoop or Prop Joe in the streets. That McNulty and The Bunk really were working murders when not drinking themselves into oblivion. It was real.

Price's worlds are just as real. From the moment he presents a scene, a location, or a turn of phrase, it feels authentic. Nothing is too big or too small unless it should be. Matters of race ripple throughout the lives this story touches, yet it's never the largest elephant in the room. It just is. Not as imagined. Not as we idealize or magnify or overlook.

Things just are. Lush Life is a reminder of this on every page.

Highly Recommended.

New Music Sunday

Today's haul is light on last.fm recommendations and high on amazon mp3 five dollar deals.

1. Did You Miss Me by Tortured Soul
2. The Sun Ain't Shining No More EP by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
3. Attention Deficit by Wale
4. The Fall (Amazon Exclusive Version) by Norah Jones
5. A Strange Arrangement by Mayer Hawthorne

I'm most curious about Norah Jones's new one but I've got a suspicion that Mayer Hawthorne will be my favorite of the bunch.

Song For Sunday: Wasted Time

Wasted Time by Jazzanova  
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17 Wasted Time.mp3 (4573 KB)

For the rest of my life/there will be/no wasted time.

Too much to do/too much to see/can't waste my time.

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Dreaming about Design

"Remember the time, on the phone, you and me. Till dawn. Two or three." - Michael Jackson, Remember the Time

Yesterday I resolved to commit to my vacation but I'm finding it difficult.

Last night I had dreams of being in college and learning about Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Design. I was in class with some of my favorite IAs arguing about patterns and simplicity and the like. I kept having to make presentations but every time I presented, I didn't show wireframes, I kept presenting scripts. Like movie and tv show scripts.

I'm not sure what that says about me.

Anyway, my interest in user experience has increased exponentially over the last six months (as my job has demanded it of me) and the root of this dream, I'm sure, came from me adding the following to my amazon wishlist yesterday:

• Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design by Bill Buxton
• Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge
• The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A Norman
• The Art of the Idea: And How It Can Change Your Life by John Hunt

In Case You Missed It...

The best stuff from wow & flutter last week...

• News of an Umami Truck
  
• Race, Criminal Background, and Unemployment
  
• Style in the Noughties
  
• Planetary/Batman
  
• Not Invented Here Celebrates Diversity
• Walt Disney vs. The News Industry
  

And According to Friendfeed, the best of the rest of my online life...

• My debate between parking or riding.
• My top 5 artists of the previous week.
• Last Sunday's movie watching sparked a convo about Medicine for Melancholy.
• A comment of mine on one of Tiffany's series of 00s posts.

Enjoy.

Meet The Browns

"You're brave, Jason, to spend a week with someone's family that you don't know that well."

I responded to Mrs. Brown, that, no, this is easy. Extended periods of time with your own family is what's hard. We fall into our given roles quickly. No matter your age, you revert to who you were the last time you lived in your parents' house. You worry about getting in trouble. About revisiting past transgressions. About old and lingering and lame dramas.

But this? This is easy. I sit in a chair and get served delicious food made by Tiffany's father and booze from her mom. I'm listening to old records (on vinyl! -- which reminds me, I need to pick up that Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band joint) and having enjoyable conversations about politics and religion and race and class. I'm seeing old photographs of The Lady and her family and learning more about how she came to be who she is and what her peoples are like.

Add to that, her dad has more wifi options than a San Francisco Coffee Shop and her mom has more couches and art than your favorite African Museum and, well, I'm predicting this is going to be a breeze.

Remind me I said this on Wednesday when I'm begging Tiffany to get me out of the house.