ME! ME! ME! European Dreaming ediccione

ME! ME! ME! The Cassendre Xavier Newsletter

The “European Dreaming” ediccione, if you will. (As it were.)

[Parental advisory units may be applicational a.k.a. “applicationary”.]

09 Oct 2008

Cassendre Xavier a.k.a. Amethyste Rah is a self-described “renaissance negresse” (musician/writer/actress/visual artist). Known mostly as a musician and a writer, she is the award-winning founder and former director of Philadelphia’s annual Black Women’s Arts Festival (est. 2003). Visit often at www.cassEndrExavier.com (Full bio at the end of this newsletter.)

A) GREETINGS

1) EUROPEAN DREAMING

2) ARTISTIC PROGRESS UPDATE

3) WHAT I’M READING, WHAT I’M LISTENING TO

4) WITH A LITTLE HELP FOR MEIN (AQUARIAN) FROINDS

Z) FAREWELL BLESSING

A) GREETINGS

Hi, there! It is good for me to be joining thyself again in this most particular way. I trust that you are feeling, whole, healthy, and truly sexified. Hope you’re having good days and great days and that the not-so-dreamy ones decrease as the super duper ones multiplificate (a.k.a. “multiplize”).

The most effective things I am doing these days are:

~Focusing my thoughts on past, present, or future circumstances that make me feel good to think about, remember, or visualize

~Continually increasing the possibilities of good things in my life, and

~Following those thoughts and affirmations with like action

I’m also recognizing the importance of flocking with birds of a like feather, not of where I am currently, but where I would like to be in a few years. I want to be in the winning circle.

Lastly, I am telling the truth, to myself and to the world about who I am, what I want, how I work. This can be pretty scary to do sometimes, being a person who is letting go of a lifetime need for others’ approval, and simultaneously says/does/writes/sings a lot of things that many would disapprove of. But I try to stay with it, using as my inspiraccione the image of myself totally in love and surrounded by people, projects, and circumstances which suit me perfectly as I am.

1) EUROPEAN DREAMING

So, with no job and just a little over $300 in my primary checking account, I arrived by ten dollar Chinatown bus ride to this grand ol’ city of New York in December 2007. I thought then that the goal was to work my *ass off to create a buzz in this place and snag myself an equally grand but not too “ol’” deal or “contract” if you will, of the recordational sort.

Soon, however, after booking and playing over a dozen mediocre to downright sucky giggational devices, I realized the goal was to actually almost start from the ground up and discover and redesign my whole act as a musician/recording artist altogether. I also started seriously wishing to tour Europe as a musician, in particular Scandinavia. I feel drawn to Europe for various creative and personal/cultural reasons and I feel strongly that this move, however short or long, will boost my presence in the music world.

However, I’m still here to make the most of my time in New York. I feel I was called here to use the power that is in this city to do what I need to do to make the most of my talent(s). Who knew that New York was calling me here to prepare Moi for Europe?!

Since I’ve told a few people about this, I’ve been often asked, “So, are you in Denmark yet? So, how are the plans to tour Europe coming along?” etc… And I have to remind them, “It took me TWO YEARS to get to NYC after I started seriously wanting to move there!” So even though I’m talking about it now, don’t expect the next ME! ME! ME! to be sent to you from Oslo! I don’t expect it to take as long as it did to get me to New York (in fact, I’m talking about it publicly to hopefully decrease the wait time) but it will take some time for me to go from the wishing stage to the airplane with everything necessary in place to securely make this temporary (or permanent?) relocation. For centuries, there have been American-born female and male artists of various genres and so-called “races” who have sought and found success in Europe. I look forward to becoming one of them – fully myself and fully appreciated as an artist (and with your ongoing interest of my work, which I very much appreciate, thank you!). I am beginning the process of doing so, now, here, in the Good Ol’ U.S. of A.

2) ARTISTIC PROGRESS UPDATE

Music:

One of the biggest, most important things I’ve done recently is decided to stop looking for musical models of what I want to be and do. I used to search through YouTube and the internet for black women lead electric guitarists who were musically a cross between Tania Maria, Sade, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Needless to say, I never found them, because I am that.

I recognize that, after countless hours watching:

~Lita Ford - Not really active on the scene anymore, isn’t black, doesn’t write her own songs, but does/did play electric lead guitar. Also is thin, white, and had big blonde hair, so I couldn’t really relate to, or identify with her.

~Chrissie Hynde - Plays electric guitar, writes her own songs which can be smooth and sexy, and leads a band, but she’s not black and she doesn’t play lead.

~Bonnie Raitt - Plays electric lead guitar and leads her band, but doesn’t doesn’t write her own songs, doesn’t have a smooth and sexy song style, and isn’t black.

~Deborah Coleman – Is black, does play lead electric guitar and lead her band, but writes very few of the songs on her albums, and usually plays the boppy type of blues that’s not really sexy to Moi.

~Tania Maria – Is black enough (to Moi), does play incredibly smooth and sexy music, leads her band in every way, but plays the piano. Man, if this chyk would put on a corset and play electric lead guitar, yowza!

~Sade – Is black, writes her own very smooth and sexy songs, leads her band, but plays no instrumentational devices. But that’s okay, bandmate Stuart Matthewman does all of the above and that’s why he’s my boyfriend, I mean “hero”. Heh-heh :-)

So after all this role-model-seekage (a.k.a. “seekery”), I finally realized, Hey! I AM the chyk I’m looking for!! So I am practicing to become a cross between a (very slow-playing!) Stevie Ray Vaughan, Sting, Tania Maria, Sade, Bonnie Raitt, and Chrissie Hynde for you. Just because you asked! Just kiddin’…just because I need to, just because it’s who I’m finally realizing I am.

a) I’ve posted several new songs on YouTube, and check out my “favorites” which include songs of mine that were filmed by Kim Boldrini at one of her art gatherings

b) I’ve been practicing and enjoying playing lead guitar. I found an electric guitar in my budget in a store a few doors from my job, played it and I love it. I am visualizing myself having that, or a similar guitar and amp, soon, and playing lead and having a really great time. I’ve been thinking about what kind of band I want to have.

c) I’ve been practicing following my heart artistically and only doing what I want to do. I’m convinced that this is one of the primary things that has served high level, longstanding artists like Barbra Streisand and Prince well: having and not letting go of their creative visions and preferences.

d) I am developing concepts and songs for future albums. I’m most excited about my two forthcoming Affirmation Song albums, of which I have already the album titles and 20 songs (10 songs each album). I am also very excited about the instrumental and worded songs that will have harmony chanting and lead electric guitar. And I am really very super excited about having more songs about my own very special love of the whole menstruational process. I am writing mostly parodies of hit songs, changing the words to match the “I Love My Period” sentiment (“On the Rag Again” being my first and hopefully shining example), but one or two originals also. And in living my life, I am creating the material for my next two spoken word guided meditation recordings from my Affirmations for Survivors series (recorded under my self-assigned soul name Amethyste Rah and featuring music of light by Thaddeus (Sanaya Roman). Hopefully in 2009 I hope to release “Life Skills” and “Sexuality” to join “Spirituality” and “Self-Love” which were released in August 2007. [My performances of “On the Rag Again”, “Money Comes To Me”, and “Absolutely Love My Life” can be heard and seentified at my official YouTube page: www.youtube.com/cassEndrExavier

Writing:

a) I am allowing and giving myself complete permission to write as I wish and dream. I am being as prolific as my thoughts and typing allow, not censoring myself with ego or criticism. I am thoroughly enjoying writing and releasing my Dreamlogue and Interpretaccione series through various free internet sources, including MySpace, LiveJournal, and Blogspot, being foremost concerned with keeping the flow of creative energy going from me to my readers, and secondmost being as bold and truthful as I can. To give you some idea of what the “Dreamlogues and Interpretacciones” are like, the most recent titles have been:

Yoko Ono & Brad Pitt’s Art Class

Crystal Underwear

Sex Addict/Food Addict

Murder of a Lady Doctor

The Competing Cyclist Brothers

Scene from 40 Year Old Virgin

Meeting Charles Aznavour

I’ve been writing these for years and all they are is my logging my dreams and then analyzing them for meaning. It is my intention that they be entertaining to read (remaining truthful), and of course I also want them to be of use in, and an improvement to, my waking life.

b) I am thinking of publishers and literary agents and imagining myself as a star in that whole big party. I’ve taken myself in my mind from the outside of this scene to not only the inside, but into the middle of it. I have made myself, in my own mind, literary siblings with **Dany Laferriere, Maya Angelou, Anais Nin in that I imagine big checks coming to me and direct deposits going electronically right into my various accounts seconds after posting my writing online. I imagine having a powerful and likeable legal team to protect my intellectual property, and I now allow myself to feel secure as if this were already the case. I imagine creating a large and vibrant fanbase of readers who await my next words, not because they are well-written or funny, but because they are extensions of me as an artist and of my own desire to be myself and have fun being creative, therefore encouraging my readers to do the same.

The fact that my writing this freely brings me so much joy (so much that a large amount of money coming to me regularly for it would only be a very small extra) confirms that my wish will happen and is on its way.

Also, I received my copy of The Butch Cookbook, to which I’d supplied a recipe, and the book is really great! For more, please visit www.butchcookbook.com.

Acting:

I’ve been running and doing yoga regularly – activities which pay attention to my body, which is my primary instrument as an actor. I also look at Mo’Nique and Queen Latifah – big Black girls who made it first in their primary artistic fields and then became actors in major film productions. I identify with them and see myself in the early stages of development of a future similar situation. I focus not on the kinds of films they’re doing, but the fact that they’re both black and non-thin. It’s much easier to identify with them for this reason than it is for me to do that with singer and actress Diana Ross, for example, who describes herself as “a featherweight” and who has been this way for her whole entire life, even after giving birth several times.

Becoming more conscious of my body, thinking about how I hold it when stressed (a la Alexander Technique, and imagining future collaborations and projects with actors and filmmakers, playwrights, etc. is very exciting. I really feel like I’m gestating some future good stuff here. Like I’m a totem pole of talent and creativity, beginning with music, then writing, and then down the line. What I recognize also is that it’s important to be a totem pole of action and self-marketing and self-promotion. Got to get in gear. Whenever I’m in gear, I feel most like an actress. I never “feel like a musician”, though. Feel like a writer ALL the time. Interesting. Oh, I also often daydream that I’m in an acting class or being coached by Larry Moss. Like, after I’ve made it as a singer, I have this opportunity to act, as this ex-football player wrote a play about this life and Larry helped him bring it to life on the stage. I fancy that I’ve become successful in music and writing and then have these opportunities to work in the field. I also am always fantasizing about the scenes from Tootsie where Dustan Hoffman’s character Michael Dorsey is teaching acting. Amazing. I LOVE those scenes! I am so dreaming of being in scenes like that, of being a total slave and surrendering to the process of being the character, as directed or coached. Amazing. Anyway. Acting!

I also for years have had a dream of creating a line of DVDs of stories I would like to see now and wish had existed for me in the past. Drama, spiritual cinema circle-esque inspiration, erotica, and the like are some genres I’ve considered. I got the idea from some DVDs I’ve seen advertised in black magazines which led me to believe that the mainstream movie market isn’t the only one that reaches people. I’m inspired also by filmmakers who started making their art on their own and then grew to make an impression on their respective communities: Tyler Perry, Candida Royale, Fatale Video, Poly Patao. I want to create movies that inspired me like Whoopi Goldberg’s “The Associate”, “Girlfriends” (a 70s flick about two roommates, a poet and a photographer, and their struggles to live as artists and friends in NYC), What the Bleep?! Chasing Amy, and Female Perversions are some movies which really excite me and make me think about what kind of movies I’d make or will make. One of my favorite books (because it shows how easily one can make a movie as a solo chyk which a very low budget) is “Girl Director”. Check it out!

Visual Art:

a) Just thinking about future projects and wondering whether to do them in a novel to bring them into being sooner. There are concepts I’ve had since the mid 1990s, and I wonder if it wouldn’t be more fun to produce them in the figurative, literal sense, than to wait until I have the time, energy, and financial resources to create and exhibit them in the physical.

I also think of bookstore owner and booklover Larry Robin author (and former Women’s Writing & Spoken Word Series feature) Leslie ____ who both told me that more truth could be told in fiction than in nonfiction, and I consider taking my ideas along with the inspiration of business artist and producer Andy Warhol to put my long-held and recently developing visual artistic projects into the hands of a fictional character who does have the means to create and exhibit them NOW.

I get goo-goo eyed when I think about the possibility of writing this type of novel. Basically it would be what I would like my life to be like as a multi-disciplinary visual artist – to be able to take my ideas and create campaigns and sculptures. To have the funding and the venues to display and sell them. To travel and have lovers all over the world – oh, actually the last part is going to happen anyway – albeit with my music, heh-heh!

Anyway, yeah, it was really exciting the other day to think about the research I would need to do. I’d be in touch with artists and art schools and studios and foundations. I might meet some really cool people. And, incidentally, interviewing people is a great way to invite romance. Jackie Kennedy, Isabelle Allende, and Matisyahu’s wife all “got” their husbands by interviewing them for a story about their work. Still, I wouldn’t be doing it for that. I’d be doing it to get a realistic feel for what it’s really like to put on an exhibit – where one buys the supplies to display one’s work… How one mounts the work on walls – and what type of drill bit does one need for marble, for example? How wide a chisel for this or for that type of stone? It might be just as much or even more fun to research and to write about it as it would be to actually execute such projects.

To other benefits would be that I would really enjoy writing about the kind of life I would like to be having right now, from how my bedroom would be decorated (satin EVERYTHING and pretty expensive bottles of perfume on my dresser, plants and candles galore, incense, you know – the usual)…I could create circumstances regarding fulfillment, love, and finance, that would become “real” either during the writing or after publication of the book, as happened with bestselling “Good in Bed” and “In Her Shoes” author Jennifer Weiner. She was a journalist for The Philadelphia Inquirer when she started writing “Good in Bed”. The character in one of Jennifer’s books meets a famous actress, and in real life, Jennifer’s book became a movie starring Cameron Diaz, whom she got to meet.

I firmly believe you can create your future through your present thoughts. Why not put those thoughts into writing, music, or some other art form? Melissa Etheridge did this with a song while recovering from cancer. She wrote a song with the lyrics “I want to hear on the radio that I am well”, and that’s what happened. So I am pretty goshdarned sure that if I write about a black chyk artist character lugging her bag of tricks, tools, and toys on a plane to exhibit in Finland, or Norway, or Amsterdam, where there are at least three sensual men preparing their bedrooms to receive her, during the writing of this, or shortly thereafter, that, or something similar, will be happening to Moi! [By the way, I seem to have a memory of African American writer Gayl Jones publishing a novel about just such a thing – black girl in Paris or something similar. Correctify a.k.a. “correctate” me if I’m wrong.]

And this is what I am thinking about – these are the ideas I am having about art (and, apparently, romance).

b) I braided my own hair extensions! You may not think of this as visual art, but I’ve always thought of my braids and locs (the total of about 13 or 14 times I’ve worn them, collectively, around 6 or 7 times each) as art. I used to wrap my braids and locs with string and sometimes even sew jewelery and super tiny filled, real perfume bottles in them… This time I am super proud because I wanted to take responsibility for my own hair. One, I needed a serious hair makeover, and two, in dreaming about going to, or living someday in Europe, I knew I might not always be living places with black women who could braid my hair. Since I can always find or have shipped in, synthetic hair, I knew that braiding it myself would be the answer. So, after several weeks of procrastinating in fear that I wouldn’t be able to do it, or that it would be difficult, I finally got through the process of buying the hair (three separate colors: dark brown, dark auburn, and bright *ass blue!). Two weeks after I brought the hair, I mustered up the gumption to try to braid one in. How difficult could it be, I thought? I know how to braid – you take three strands – that’s it. How about using my own hair as one of the three strands? That’s what I did and the tester braid was quick and easy and proved my theory right. (Although I have much to thank to YouTube because that’s where I found posts of black women demonstrating how to braid extensions.)

A week after that, I lay the six bags of hair on my bed, set up the scissors, a comb, and all natural aloe vera juice, one mirror, and proceeded in two days and just under 16 hours, to make my hair the prettiest it has been in at least a decade. Not that short fros can’t be gorgeous, just that I wasn’t feeling gorgeous at the most recent time I was wearing the short fro. (I have rocked such fro’s in the past, though, when I have felt prettier! So don’t think I don’t loves me some afrage. Never let it be said!) Anyway, I posted a ridiculous amount of pictures of My New Plastic Hair on MySpace, but since you have to have an account to view them, I thought I’d also shamelessly post them on my primary website. Enjoy (and never let it be said)!

3) WHAT I’M READING, WHAT I’M LISTENING TO

~ I’m reading a most exciting thriller, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin 0486290735. I’ve been an admirer and identified with him since I was a little girl and I kept getting stuck in my mind that I couldn’t do all the things he did because he was a white guy and I was a black girl. Still, I wanted to write and make things just like he did. Great book.

~After ravishing again and again the Alice B. Toklas Cook Book I started craving her autobiography, codependently written, of course, not by her, but by her companion of 25 years, Gertrude Stein 39470133x. Toklas’s picture is not on the cover of the book, either, but Stein’s (taken by their friend Carl Van Vechten). In the moments that I can get beyond some of that, I enjoy tremendously reading of their many times and conversations with famous artists (who were not famous at the time) such as Matisse and Stein’s very good friend Picasso.

~Conversations with Paul Bowles 0878056505 is a big and handsome book I bought on sale over a decade ago (originally a hefty $28, I copped it for a wee $6.95). This was when I was in my late twenties and collecting books of artists I wanted to be like someday. Now in my late 30s, I realize it’s time to be the artist I wanted to be like, so some time ago I gave away all my “model artist” books (so I could start being and writing about being one). Still, I kept this one, and am glad I did, as Bowles was a genius and a vessel, who also was part of the Paris salon scene enjoyed and contributed to by Toklas, Stein et al. The main thing I dig, admire about and identify with about Paul Bowles is that he was both and equally a composer/musician as well as a well-respected novelist and poet. He lived totally in the present and said some things about security (or lack thereof) that really helped me get over my fear of not having a day job when I dared at my first stint working full-time as musician and writer in 2002.

~In addition to my own released and unreleased recordings, I am also enjoying a range of personal growth guided meditations and affirmations created by Orin and performed by Sanaya Roman. These, presently in audiocassette format, are:

Creating Money: Keys to Abundance

Creating Money: Releasing Doubts and Fear

Self-Love

I Am Loved, I Am Lovable

Public Recognition

Creating Your Perfect Day

(The Creating Your Perfect Day one was really helpful earlier this week and boosted my productivity and cheer several-fold, I think. I will listen to it more often… You can find these and more at www.orindaben.com)

~I don’t have any more copies (I gave them all away in the Lansdale PA-to-NYC move) of Affirmations for Survivors: Self-Love CD (by Moi, Amethyste Rah) which I really really really wanted to listen to, because it’s in CD format and can play all night as I sleep… I will have to order a copy. Isn’t that silly?! At least I can get it wholesale! (And you can get ‘em retail at http://stores.lulu.com/cassEndrE !)

~Anything by Pastor Joel Osteen is incredibly inspiring. I ordered a series of CDs from his website and for a measly five bucks (they take whatever you want to donate), had some of the most motivational and fulfilling speeches mailed to Moi. Very highly recommended, regardless of your afiliaccione religiosancia.

*The number of times the word “ass” was used in this writing: 2.

**Dany Laferriere is the bestselling author of “How to Make Love to a Negro”, a hip smart novel about race relations, among other titles. He is Haitian and moved years ago to Canada. (To give you an idea of why I love being a Haitian artist and why I think I will be well received in Europe: in French, the original title was “How To Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired”. Right up Moi’s alley, non? Oui!

4) WITH A LITTLE HELP FOR MEIN (AQUARIAN) FROINDS

a) ON THE ROPES * Aerial Rope – October. To learn about this exciting exercise, dance, movement class by Kiebpoli Calnek, please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BWAFphilly/message/2523.

b) Photographic artist Corey Armpreister has a new show. Here’s the press release, which I wasn’t successful in uploading to the BWAF yahoo group: PRESS RELEASE- For immediate release. Exhibition preview. Smile Gallery, 105 South 22^nd Street Philadelphia PA 10103

215-564-2502 contact: Ken Titjamnong mattjr(at)fencobankeqipment.com

Pineal Gland

New photographs by Corey Armpriester

Friday reception December 12^th 5-8pm

Smile Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of the new works “Pineal Gland” by Philadelphia based artist Corey Armpriester. The show runs from December 1-December 31, 2008.Corey will be present at the opening reception on December 12^th from 5-8pm

Photographic alchemy is the only way to describe this new strange brew of an exhibition. The artist is addressing everything from religious symbolism to the Food and Drug Administration to the New World Order and its connections to the legends and myths of the illuminati , the boule and the oto and that’s only the beginning. The masked figure sprinkled everywhere and on everything, commenting on issues of private identity, imposed controls and mental/physical restrictions. The work invites the viewer to explore her or his shadow self, without apologies on a psychological landscape of what can only be explained as thoughtful snap shots from the astral plane. Along side, the shadow people are interior portraits of prison cells in Eastern State Penitentiary a manifestation of where our minds may live, in a constant state of imprisoned Liberty .

This exhibition challenges the notions of good and evil by exploring and then ultimately denying both as strange and unusual constructs created to suppress human potential. Corey Armpriester is working mainly with black and white prints, which further the exhibitions surreal and other worldly quality done with an insightful and undeniably creepy grace.

[CX note: Corey could do the coolest things in the world, but I’ll always say that my favorite was when he had a radio show called “Furniture.” And of course, it had nothing to do with furniture.]

Z) FAREWELL BLESSING

~May you stay healthy, well, and young forever.

~May you be renewed in spirit and positivity daily.

~May your friends always be true and faithful.

~May you experience exquisite pleasure on a regular basis.

~May your path be clear and steady.

~May all of your best dreams and wishes come true, surpassing all your expectations (or something better), and may it be for the good of all.

Sincerely,

Cassendre Xavier a.k.a. Amethyste Rah

renaissance negresse

www.cassEndrExavier.com

(c) Copyright 2008 by Cassendre Xavier a.k.a. Amethyste Rah. All rights reserved.

Cassendre Xavier is a self-described “renaissance negresse”. Although she also enjoys acting and making visual art, this first generation American-born citizen of Haitian and Chinese heritage is mainly a musician and a writer. As a singer-songwriter/guitarist, Cassendre has released 7 albums of music described as “a cross between Tracy Chapman, Sade, and Enya” (Borders Music Expert Steven M. Wilson). Her sound has also often been compared to that of Roberta Flack, Joan Armatrading, Joni Mitchell, Pheobe Snow, and India.Arie, among others. Her latest musical recording, “Live at Tin Angel” was honorably mentioned as #9 of “Top 21 Local LPs of 2007” (M.J. Fine, Philadelphia City Paper). Under her self-assigned soul name Amethyste Rah and featuring music of light by Thaddeus (Sanaya Roman), she has a growing line of spoken word guided meditation recordings called “Affirmations for Survivors”, the first two being “Spirituality” and “Self-Love”. Her “snappy and redeeming” (Karen Gross, Philadelphia City Paper) multi-genre writing has been published nationally in various literary anthologies and periodicals, as well as previously self-published chapbooks “secrets & lies: poetry and other words” and “Making of a Woman/Artist: a book for every black girl and every black woman who has ever wanted to be an artist”. She wrote, directed, and starred in a 5-actor play called “Sex for Survivors” which ran for three days in the Philly Fringe Festival 2003. An award-winning cultural arts advocate, Cassendre is the founder and former director of several arts initiatives in Philadelphia including the Women’s Writing & Spoken Word Series (Robin’s Bookstore, 2002-2006) and the Black Women’s Arts Festival (The Rotunda and other venues, 2003-present). She received a $15,000 Leeway Transformation Award in 2005 for her work in art and change. Now reinventing herself as a musician and writer in her native city of New York, Cassendre practices an active, raw vegan lifestyle, braiding her own hair extensions, and getting as many naps and hot dates in as possible. Visit often at www.cassEndrExavier.com.