Queen Latifah is a beacon of hope for not only women, but also animals and minerals. Objects of all shapes and sizes and utility can admire her as a positive role model because she is more than human, and by that of course I mean less than human, while at the same time being human. Pizza boxes and lamps of the world, take note: your not being human has never been more human. "Put On Your Crown," a book by Queen Latifah is not merely a self help book, but a full bodied meal for the mind of the commonplace object and a true experience to boot.
The Queen has done so much in her short time in the universe (just under a paltry few million years) -- a large majority of which I only came to know upon reading her new tome. She may very well be an Oscar nominated actress, a Grammy winner, a model and a business person, but that's the least of it: she is also, more importantly, the complete and entire nation and history of Bolivia. This is what I didn't know about her and am glad to have found out. It's inspiring, to say the least, to know that history is alive today as much as it was yesterday.
That said, this book isn't about how you can become a Queen or a country, per se, but it is a book about how Queen Latifah became Bolivia and the secret Queen of herself. She gives out some very good advice to her readers, and really shares about her time as the Incan Empire and when she succombed to the Conquitadors. Obviously, this is painful stuff for her. Reading this book is like having a conversation with Queen Latifah and with Bolivia at the same time. Because, it turns out, if you talk to either of them, you are actually talking to both of them! Because they are the same! She really makes it feel like she is talking directly to you and not to herself -- not something easily accomplished for a nation of millions and a history of genocide and subjugation.
Throughout "Put On Your Crown," Queen Latifah shares her struggles with things like weight, success, extreme pain, rupies, belly aches, how her mother helped the students she taught, acolytes, nameless slaves, the way she let miners die inside of her, dealing with rampant destruction of rain forest, a long list of revolutions, and her twisted affair with Peru. As it turns out, she actually used to be Peru, too! That was a long time ago, but still, I am impressed. I am not even Caracas, let alone Bolivia AND Peru.
One of the anecdotes I really enjoyed was about the loss of her brother. He died in a motorcycle accident while being Europe and she was overcome with grief and financial burdens. But she was able to lift herself up by her boot straps which she borrowed from China. Though it was by no means easy, she shows how she did it through the use of diagrams and children. She was even able to ride her motorcycle again too. This is amazing, not because Queen Latifah rides a motorcycle, but because Bolivia does. Had I known about this, I probably would have visited a long, long time ago. Motorcycles are like crystals when it comes to homeopathy. That is, they lift the spirit and renew the glands and give out great coupons. Next time you see one, talk to a motorcycle, you won't be disappointed. Rather, you will be appointed Queen of the coupons. You idiot, that's obviously not true. You won't be the queen of anything, you'll just get coupons.
Another thing that really makes me love Queen Latifah even more is the fact that her best friend is her mom, too. I'm also very close with her mom. I consider her my best friend too. I don't really know her, but her mom teaches art at a high school where the students have really hard lives and sometimes I sit outside eating ice cream after ice cream. The Queen tells how mom would force kids to write positive things about themselves at the beginning of the year and tell them to post it on their mirror in the bathroom to read while brushing their teeth and crying. This might even be the point of the whole book. That Bolivia has to do this but doesn't have a mirror and maybe we could fund the purchase of one large enough to see all of the Queen at once. I don't know: but think about this frail mother woman, alone amongst a throng of ne'er-do-well kids, and then imagine her squatting on the hardwood floors and giving birth to an entire country, with or without a mirror. I was so inspired, I actually did this too, first with a mirror and then without. I prefer without. I really admire her mom for taking such care of her students, so much that she became impregnated by the Earth. It is really teachers like this that make a difference in the world, specifically by adding the nation of Bolivia to it.
I highly recommend Queen Latifah, Bolivia, Peru, and her mother and the children. Also, I hate to ruin the ending, but it turns out that Camden, NJ is the crown. How the Queen suggests you get it on top of your head is riveting and I refuse to spoil it (it involves a healthy dose of cardio and a pinch of self-loathing).
If you repeat the following words twelve times, the book will appear in your spam folder tomorrow evening at eight:
This innocent and beautiful Queen,
Who owes her name to Bolivar,
Is the happy homeland where men
Enjoy the benefits of good fortune and peace.
For the sons of the great teacher
Have sworn, thousands upon thousands of times,
While brushing thier teeth, reading Post-It notes,
To die rather than see the country's
Majestic Latifah humiliated.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.