Living legend Gil Scott Heron (The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) will release his first album in thirteen years, I’m New Here, early next year on XL Recordings. For a sneak peak, go to http://imnewhere.net.

Friday ephemera | Wal Mart, Lexington (2007)

photo by Cy Twombly

Race and Religion Among the Chosen Peoples of Crown Heights

Henry Goldschmidt, Assistant Professor of Religion and Society at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

Rutgers University Press, 2006. 281 pages.

Buy here.

Last month, two Kenyan men wed in London under the United Kingdom’s civil union law, causing a controversy in their home country, where, like in much of Africa, male homosexuality is illegal. According to Kenyan blogger Haute Haiku, radio hosts fanned the flames (It’s good to know that Kenya, too, has its fair share of Glenn Becks), calling their marriage “unafrican, uncultured and sinful.”

In the controversy’s wake, a good friend of mine, who is spending the year in Mombasa, Kenya, has written a wonderful short piece about how a single trip to a karaoke bar taught him plenty about homosexuality in Kenya. Read an excerpt after the jump.

I’ve been living in Brooklyn for just over five months now - first in Ditmas Park, now in Crown Heights. The transition from cozy Brown University in Providence to New York hasn’t always been easy. I still have a lot to learn. But I have learned one important lesson since arriving in June: New Yorkers are an open book. Carrie Bradshaw was right about them: New Yorkers are always looking for a new apartment, a new job, or a new boyfriend. (I’m looking for the latter two.)