Lemon Andersen’s County of Kings, which premiered at the Public Theatre in New York this past October, is now available in print. The compelling stage-memoir, produced by Spike Lee and the Culture Project, is recounts Lemon’s emotional coming-of-age tale detailing his gritty upbringing on his way to poetic success.
County of Kings is published independently by County of Kings Publishing, which also published Lemon’s first book Ready Made Real. The memoir promises to be the Down These Mean Streets for the hip-hop generation.
This is the kind of memoir that redefines a genre while telling a true tale of an all-American community from the 1980’s to the present.
County of Kings is currently available on Amazon.com. Check out Scribe Culture’s review of County of Kings here.
Smaller has been the trend for portable gaming systems but Nintendo is preparing to change that with the release of the DSi XL. Featuring a dual 4.25” inch touch screens Nintendo’s newest member of the DS series was unveiled earlier this week as the larger cousin of the DSi.
Both longer and wider, the DSi XL is not as portable-friendly as most hand-held consoles on the market today but offers a substantially larger screen for gamers to delight in. The new system’s stylus is also bigger and is available in brown, red and white.
Already out in Japan, American consumers will have to wait until 2010 to get their paws on the DSi XL. No price has been set for the new DS but chances are it will be more expensive than the DSi which continues to stay on sale at $169.99.
In a Spanish-written memoir released today, Juanita Castro, sister of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, remarks on her collaborative work with the United States Central Intelligence Agency against her sibling shortly after the country’s failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.
Juanita, who was a supporter of the 1959 overthrow of then dictator Filgencio Batista, began working with the agency after she became disenchanted with Fidel’s communist revolution.
In the book titled “My Brothers Fidel and Raul: The Secret Story,” Juanita decided to meet with an operative in Mexico City at the request of the wife of a Brazilian ambassador to Cuba. According to her accounts, Juanita agreed to gather information against her brother’s government because she was concerned that supports of Castro’s coup who were not communists were being isolated by the new government.
Juanita worked with the U.S. government through the Nixon administration when the CIA told her they were no longer pursuing their convert fight against Castro because it adversely affected the country’s relations with the USSR.
Oh what a pity, just about all of America’s filthy rich citizens are poorer this year than they were at this point in ’08. The collective net worth of the country’s wealthiest has declined by $300 billion in the past 12 months, dropping from $1.57 trillion to $1.27 trillion, according to The 400 Richest Americans by Forbes.
A little over 75 percent of the 400 richest Americans had their fortunes reduced as a result of failing capital markets and falling real estate prices; divorce and fraud also contributed to the decline in wealth. Thirty-two tycoons lost their rankings on Forbes’ list.
America’s second wealthiest person, Warren Buffett, was hit the hardest. He is now ONLY worth $40 billion after losing $10 billion from his personal finances as shares of Berkshire Hathaway fell 20 percent in the 12-month period.
Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates was hardly effected. For the 16th straight year he was named America’s richest person.
Sony has revised its PlayStation Portable console yet again. This time they’ve removed the UMD drive to make the brand new PSP Go speedier and lighter than its predecessors.
Though the disc drive has been abandonded, games will be easy to download via the online PlayStation Store and saved in the console’s built-in 16 GB memory.
Additionally, it has Wi-Fi capabilities and now supports Bluetooth, allowing the PSP Go to link with compatible wireless headsets speakers, mobile phones and PlayStation 3 controllers.
Sony’s new console was designed for the habitual digital downloader of music, photos, movies and, of course, games. Unfortunately, the PSP Go has a lofty price tag of $249. The console is now available at retailers.
Everyone has probably read Maurice Sendak’s children’s’ classic, “Where the Wild Things Are,” but now that Spike Jonze’s adaptation is hitting the silver screen, Urban Outfitters has helped spruce up Space 15 Twenty’s pop-up store in anticipation of the movie’s release.
Located in Los Angeles, the space is heavily adorned with branch sculptures, fiberglass oak trees and sprawled with early sketches by Sonny Gerasimowicz, art director of the movie.
The forest-inspired, interactive store was designed to give fans a sense of what it would be like to run through the wild with Max, a disobedient little boy sent to bed without his supper who creates his own world, a forest to be exact, that’s inhabited by ferocious wild creatures that crown Max as their ruler.
The Wild Thing Pop-Up Shop also has special costumes designed by Christian Joy, as well as merchandise and artwork. A percentage of the profits generated at the pop-up store will go to 826 Valencia, a charity dedicated to supporting students with their writing skills.
Max and his motley crew of monsters charge their way into theaters October 16. In the meantime, take a look at this awesome trailer:
First Oprah, now Osama? In his latest audio tape, Osama bin Laden provides Americans with a short list of books he believes we should all read. The tape was released September 13 via the “jihadist” and avid reader’s website “As-Sahab,” which was then translated by the SITE Intelligence Group and IntelCenter, which monitor terrorist sites.
