The Book of Toli

Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah

toli: n.1.A juicy piece of news. 2. The latest word or gossip. 3. The talk of the town, typically a salacious or risque tale of intrigue, corruption or foolishness. (Ga language, Ghana, West Africa)

I give you a guided tour to the first year and a half of toli. This is the material I would draw on if I had the time to fashion a novel out of my earlier musings on the blog (everything written before the appropriately titled Mind the Gap was fair game). I've tried to discern themes that were lurking in these writings to give an organizing principle to what were often cacophonous outpourings. As befits things written for an audience of one, these notes stand alone and can be read in any order. To date I've resisted the call for better organization of the blog and have been happy to let folks encounter the toli in their own way. This then is a gesture in the direction of friendliness of navigation (all those links on the right hand side were getting irritating).

The technology writings mostly constitute a separate collection, and I've been told to excise the music and literary pieces if I am actually serious about developing a good book proposal. On this last, I can't imagine my brand of toli without some consideration of art hence they remain firmly part of my elevator pitch. The current Things Fall Apart series essentially revisits these ideas with more formal constraints, something that I paradoxically am finding very liberating.

Looking at the list, it appears I've written quite a bit, and on many varied topics. In any case, I hope this proves useful to newcomers or that it serves to reintroduce old friends to the nascent toli that issued as I found my voice. Welcome again. July, 6, 2006. Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I. The Journalistic Impulse Strange Bedfellows "I'm in the grip of the journalistic impulse." Inauguration a l'Africaine A Neighbour's House on Fire King Leopold Haunts Congo Again Strange Bedfellows and the Journalistic Impulse Koforidua Fever (or Naki does Ghana) Handling Rogues Sign of the Times Harvard Graduations and Okyeame How to Hand Over to Yourself Toli on the Radio
Small Things "You welcome the U.S. to the fun of the Third World." Frank and Frances (or 500 Steps) Inman Square Still Life Lights Out West Nile Blues Strange Days Manhole Explosions in Central Square Get on the Bus The Joy of Small Things
II. London's Got Soul "Celebrating the South London Brew." London's Got Soul Catford Bridge Bullet From a Gun Kente, Lace and Champagne
III. The Art of Toli Musical Obsession "If you live with a music lover you'll know that there's something not quite right with them." Vibing with Abbey Lincoln Amel Larrieux Breaking Through On Musical Obsession Shuffle Serendipity Cooking with Rokia Traoré A Soul Jazz Thing The Roots' Tipping Point On Dub Roots and Rockers The Jazz Playlist Rick James is Dead The Toli Music Awards 2004 In a Blanket of Soul Found! Sunday Night with Jill Scott Alphabet St Blues Full Force in the Long Tail The Roots + Floetry = Virtuosity Miles Ahead
An Omnivorous Reader "Quintessential abstractions flung across the table." The Last Philosophers Zingers Street Lit, Pulp Fiction and The Worst Novel Ever Written Eating People is Wrong Wistful Zingers On Catholicism and Serendipity Best Left Unread Reading the Haitian Landscape On The Wire Inamorata: I Wan Bi President A War in Nine Stanzas, On JK Galbraith Proverbial Zingers On an Ambiguous Adventure
IV. The New Formula The B-Movie Theory "Manifest Destiny revisited as farce." On Political Theatre and Politics as Theatre The B-Movie Theory Supremely Supine (original) Supremely Supine (redacted version) On the Importance of Biting Satire Manifest Destiny Erustication and The Italian Job Noblesse Oblige The Long Thief in the Night Huhudious (or Silly Season)
Cultural Sensitivity "It is rather in small, insignificant items that the tribal instinct is articulated." Tradition and Modernity On Slums, Squalor and Sodom and Gomorrah On Bend-down Markets and African Textiles: The Ragu Theory Merlene Ottey - Ageless Wonder Mosquitos, West Nile Virus and Malaria Check Your Pockets, Check Your Bags More Abu Ghraib Karpinski's Sharp Elbows and Garden Variety Bungling The $10 dream: a year of school A life measured in ounces Behind Disaster Recovery On Blogging at IBM A Hyphenated Parable Calling Things by their Names The France IBM Connection On the Loss of Smooth Mint Gel On Dentistry On Swallowing Pills The New Formula Inflation Calypso Cultural Sensitivity in Technology