The Wherefores and the Whys

So...why La Lubu? Ever read Women Who Run With the Wolves? How about Loba by the incomparable Diane Di Prima? When I was a little kid, and my grandma wanted us kids (me, cousins, young aunts) to come in, she'd yell out the screen door "Ya better come in, or the Lubu's gonna get ya!" Sorta like the boogie man. This didn't really have the intended effect, instead sending us kids into paroxysms of laughter, hooting and howling. La Lubu is a part of me....a reflection of my culture....and besides, I still dig the howling.

Why do I blog? I love to read. Think. Debate. Discuss. Learn. And I feel like I'm cheating myself out of one step in that process by not writing, too. My writing skills have languished in lo these many years of being out of school. Not much verbal ability is required on my job save for fluent cursing (just kidding....sort of). Blogging may help me gain or recover some basic skills. Might even end up being fun, too! Many years ago, I found and read a book, No Pictures In My Grave by Susan Caperna Lloyd on her sicilian heritage and spiritual journey to the Mother/Land. My grandmother saw it, and I never got it back....I had to buy another copy! I was always in search of books by sicilian- and italian-american women, but besides Diane DiPrima, I didn't know where to look. Then I started finding more..... Unsettling America by Maria Mazzotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan, which led me to Helen Barolini's The Dream Book....and it cascaded from there. Once I got a computer, I discovered that there's a whole renaissance of italian american writers, many (if not most) of them women. It was like finding my religion. And everywhere I go....I proselytize. (Heh heh. Every italian american woman I know; we're all gettin' religion!!) Word's getting out, because the words are getting out; being printed, being published. It's refreshing, like cold water in the desert.

What can you expect from La Lubu? Well....
1. Politics, stage left variety.
2. plenty of discussion on the Labor Movement
3. talk of parenting and single mama-hood
4. promotion of sicilian- and italian-american culture
5. especially promotion of sicilian- and italian american writers
6. books!
7. also, music! and to a lesser extent, film
8. food! Everybody's gotta eat, right?

Every now and then, there'll be a section at the bottom called "for the Local Hands" that will deal with local news, issues and events. "Local hands" is a term in the trades that refers to folks from the home local. People from other locals are called "travelers" or "tramps".

Oh, and a note on style: ever since reading Dark Mother: African Origins and Godmothers by Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, I picked up her method of decapitalization. If you go to her website, she coyly says, "I like to decapitalize."; in the book she goes in depth on why that is...a way of refocusing and decolonizing the mind. Proper names of people and places are capitalized; races, ethnicities, religions and political persuasions are not. It's easier to remember the fluidity of race, ethnicity, religion and political persuasion over place and time when it's not capitalized. I liked the style, and liked the philosophy behind it even more. I'll be using it on this blog.

Salud!