2.  Essential Rumi

    by Coleman Barks (Paperback - 1997)

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    A zena moon Essential Book

From Amazon.com: No translator could do greater justice to the gorgeous simplicity of Rumi's poetry than Coleman Barks has done here. These exquisite renderings of the 13th-century Persian mystic's words into American free verse capture all the "inner searching, the delicacy, and simple groundedness" that characterize Rumi's poetry while remaining faithful to the images, tone, and spiritual message of the originals. Barks's introductions to each of the 27 sections (described as "playful palimpsests spread over Rumi's imagination," and "meant to confuse scholars who would divide Rumi's poetry into the accepted categories") are themselves wonderful achievements of a poetic imagination; searching explanations of unfamiliar concepts and funny stories provide colorful background and frame the selections as no dry historical exegesis could.

While Barks's stamp on this collection is clear, it in no way interferes with the poems themselves; Rumi's voice leaps off these pages with an ecstatic energy that leaves readers breathless. There are poems of love, rage, sadness, pleading, and longing; passionate outbursts about the torture of longing for his beloved and the sweet pleasure that comes from their union; amusing stories of sexual exploits or human weakness; and quiet truths about the beauty and variety of human emotion. More than anything, Rumi makes plain the unbridled joy that comes from living life fully, urging us always to put aside our fears and take the risk to do so. As he says: "The way of love is not / a subtle argument. / The door there is devastation. / Birds make great sky-circles / of their freedom. / How do they learn it? / They fall, and falling, / they're given wings."

3.   Living Your Joy: A Practical Guide to Happiness

    by Suzanne Falter-Barns (Hardcover - 2003)

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    A zena moon Essential Book

From Amazon.com: Falter-Burns strikes an encouraging but realistic tone in this down-to-earth self-help manual aimed at people struggling with doubts about pursuing their dream, whether it's writing a screenplay or creating kiln-fired glass jewelry. Instead of new-agey cheerleading, the author, who lived "the hand-to-mouth existence of a happy, impoverished artist" until her late 30s, offers instructive tools for dealing with the time, money and energy deficits that interfere with achieving big goals. She insists that people have more time than they think they do, and provides advice on structuring and protecting that time as well as ways to avoid wasting precious minutes that can otherwise be devoted to working towards the dream. Her list of "Thirty Guaranteed Time-savers," for example, includes tips like primping less, screening calls and holding breakfast instead of lunch meetings. She advises on how to create a workspace, choose the right "day gig" and avoid habits that suck energy (e.g. compulsive shopping, drinking and even perfectionism). In chapters entitled "When to Leap...and When Not to Leap," "How to Keep Your Job and Live Your Dream at the Same Time" and "How to Live with Financial Insecurity," Falter-Burns weighs the pros and cons of the slow, safe transition towards a dream versus a more impetuous plunge into the freelance life. Aspiring artists, writers and entrepreneurs will find basic and creative tips in this succinct motivational guide.
 

  Music

1.   The Women Gather

    ~ Sweet Honey in the Rock (Audio CD)

    Original Release Date: 2003

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From Amazon.com: Celebrating 30 years as an unparalleled music group with this release, Sweet Honey in the Rock demonstrate again that they are an American treasure. While technically proficient a cappella singers, Sweet Honey are so much more than a study in vocal pizzazz. The women do indeed gather and tell stories for the generations, chronicling modern life and its struggles and victories. Sweet Honey mask nothing emotionally and draw the listener into each saga, whether they're lamenting violence in the title track, detailing the history of voting rights (or lack thereof) in Washington, D.C., in "Give the People Their Right to Vote," or sharing the tragic tale of a civil rights activist in "Ballad of Harry T. Moore." Founder Bernie Johnson Reagon leads her group through a diversity of styles, ranging from the '70s soul sound of "Solid Gold" to the gospel of "Come unto Me." After three decades, Sweet Honey are as relevant and fresh as ever.

2.   The Very Best of Cher

   ~ Cher (Audio CD)

    Original Release Date: 2003

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From Amazon.com: Given a five-decade career that's been one long series of critical write-offs and subsequent comeback triumphs, it's tempting to argue that the natural elements are actually earth, wind, fire, water--and Cher. Anchored by her 1998 international mega-success "Believe" (the song that made Cher the oldest woman to score a chart topper) and its equally club-savvy contemporary collaborations with producers Mark Taylor and Brian Rawlings, "Song for the Lonely" and "A Different Kind of Love Song," this 21-track anthology is indeed the first to contain all her No. 1 hits, stretching back to her epochal 1965 duet with Sonny Bono on the faux-Dylan "I Got You Babe." And if it shortchanges her Phil Spector-rooted origins and a true perspective on her '60s and '70s career (though kitsch classic chart toppers "Dark Lady," "Half-Breed," and "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" are all here) to focus on her string of '80s and '90s pop successes in service of writers like Diane Warren ("If I Could Turn Back Time") and Desmond Child ("Just Like Jesse James"), it's good to remember that, according to the pop soothsayers, none of them were even supposed to happen, let alone make her an icon for a whole new generation. It's a tribute to sheer, fashion-defying willpower--and as unlikely an argument for the notion of "the singer, not the song" as one is likely to find.

3.   Hot Cool & Vicious

   ~ Salt-N-Pepa (Audio CD)

    Original Release Date: 1992

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From Amazon.com: One of the first albums to challenge hip-hop's machocratic sovereignty, Salt-N-Pepa's Hot Cool & Vicious takes as its musical model Run-D.M.C.'s potent distillation of streetwise repartee, hard-ass bluster and beatbox rhythms. Determined to say it loud and say it proud, r-r-r-rappers Cheryl "Salt" James and Sandy "Pepa" Denton wield their womanhood like an urban-jungle machete, busting unfaithful lovers in "Chick on the Side," threatening female competitors "just for spite" in "I'll Take Your Man," dishing distaff disses at Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick in "The Showstopper," and condemning mindless male promiscuity in "Tramp." With its aerobic BPMs and synth-pop hook, the Top 20 hit "Push It" is the album's most obvious--and most effective--bid for dancefloor immortality.

  Movies

1.   The Color Purple

    Starring: Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg

    (1985) ~ DVD

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A zena moon Essential Movie

From Amazon.com: Steven Spielberg, proving he's one of the few modern filmmakers who has the visual fluency to be capable of making a great silent film, took a melodramatic, D.W. Griffith-inspired approach to filming Alice Walker's novel. His tactics made the film controversial, but also a popular hit. You can argue with the appropriateness of Spielberg's decision, but his astonishing facility with images is undeniable--from the exhilarating and eye-popping opening shots of children playing in paradisiacal purple fields to the way he conveys the brutality of a rape by showing hanging leather belts banging against the head of the shaking bed. In a way it's a shame that Whoopi Goldberg, a stage monologist who made her screen debut in this movie, went on to become so famous, because it was, in part, her unfamiliarity that made her understated performance as Celie so effective. (This may be the first and last time that the adjective "understated" can be applied to Goldberg.) Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including best picture and actress (supporting players Oprah Winfrey and Margaret Avery were also nominated), it was quite a scandal--and a crushing blow to Spielberg--when it won none.

2.   Out of Africa

     Starring: Meryl Streep, Robert Redford

     (1985) ~ DVD

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From Amazon.com: Sydney Pollack's 1985 multiple-Oscar winner is a sumptuous and emotionally satisfying film about the life of Danish writer Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep), better known as Isak Dinesen, who travels to Kenya to be with her German husband (Klaus Maria Brandauer) but falls for an English adventurer (Robert Redford). The film is slow in developing the relationship, but it is rich in beautiful images of Africa and in the romantic tone surrounding Blixen's gradual discovery of her life and voice.

3.   Flashdance

    Starring: Jennifer Beals

    (1983) ~ DVD

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From Amazon.com: That Oscar-winning title song buzzes in your ears long after the movie has stopped. The attraction here is youthful spirit and a pulsating score, because the weak story is merely a conduit for the song-and-dance numbers. The plot is every young woman's daydream come true. Jennifer Beals holds down a macho job as a welder by day, but performs erotic dance numbers in a club at night. It's not a strip club, so her morality remains intact. She dates her wealthy boss (Michael Nouri) and practices hard for the day she can audition for the upscale, local dance school, even though she has no formal training. It is malarkey, of course, unless you view this as total romantic fantasy. It works because you are carried along by the sheer force of the energetic, boisterous, MTV-style imagery by director Adrian Lyne. Beals is a plus as the stubborn, pouty, somewhat eccentric young woman made all the more interesting for her driving ambition. In the end, she is aided by her Prince Charming, who arrives bearing favors. Mind you, this is not the same as a rescue, as Beals is one rather tough damsel who does just fine on her own.