Lit Mag Research

I've been doing research on literary magazines, because, as most of you know, I'm trying to get myself published so I can qualify as a "real" writer.  (Though I already tell people I'm a poet with a capital P.)
One of the sad things is that most literary journals aren't taking unsolicited manuscripts at this time of the year.  Those include:
Alaska Quarterly Review
American Literary Review
The Antioch Review
Arts and Letters: Journal of Contemporary Culture
River Styx 
Bellingham Review
Brevity
The Columbia Review
Then there are the journals that I can't publish with, because I don't meet their qualifications.  One of the big disqualifications is that I am no longer an undergraduate or I don't go to a certain school.  These include:
The Allegheny Review
Echoes
Yale Literary Magazine 
Or my favorite disqualification: no unsolicited manuscripts.  I'm looking at you,
American Poet
Contemporary American Voices
What frustrates me the most about all of this is that the entire point of having a literary magazine is to try and publish people before they get famous, that way you can brag that you published so-and-so before they got it big.  I mean, maybe if I'm lucky I'll get an invitation from people like this, but so far, it's very frustrating.  
Finally, I have a short list of places I can send to immediately:
American Quarterly
Bellowing Ark
Ascent
Atlanta Review
Land Grant College Review
Beliot Poetry Journal
Black Warrior Review
Birmingham Poetry Review
The Capilano Review
This is actually not such a short list, and I know I shouldn't be complaining, but I feel like I've done a ton of work for not very much payoff.  Though, I've worked in history, I know that's basically how research always goes.  

Education Essay

My African history essay on education came back, and you’ll all be happy to know that I got an A-. It’s not as good as I’d like, because only a perfect score will please me, but it’s an improvement over the last essay in class.
The professor read from an essay outloud, and, for a second, I was scared it was going to be mine. When I was in the 7th grade, I had an English teacher who asked to read my papers to the class. I always said no because I felt uncomfortable, since people would know it was me. When I missed class to go to a dentist appointment, she read all the essays of mine she was saving. When someone quoted a bit to me later, my heart fell. It was something I knew I’d written.
This was a tough essay in some ways, and I’m a little annoyed I was marked down. You’re suppose to write an argument and use certain sources, which I did. She decided that I should have used one source where I didn’t, even though I still used cited sources. Grr. I still wrote a solid argument and did everything she asked.

The Highlife

Today, in my African history class, we did something really cool: we learned about music. Specifically, we concentrated on Highlife music, which can still be found today in Ghana and other parts of West Africa.
Highlife music grew because of a growing population in West Africa's cities, where multiple rural music styles and Ghanaian dance music mixed with Western, European music. During the second World War, U.S. servicemen (mostly African American), brought jazz, which was also incorporated into this kind of music. Mostly, they're sung in the local lingua franca, the same language that is used for conducting business affairs. A lot of this music was popular in clubs, which were expensive to get into.
There are two types of early Highlife music. One is the "lower class" version, called Palm Wine music or Guitarband Highlife. It's main instrument in the guitar, and usually performed in smaller place. It's lyrics tend to be more political, which is why I would be interested in learning more about it. After Ghana gained independence in 1957, Highlife music went out of style, only to reemerge in the 1970s, and since then it's evolved and changed.
After hearing this in class, of course, I knew I needed to go look for this sort of thing. YouTube and Google and whatnot haven't yielded much, at least not based on the musicians and bands that I noted in class. I found some E.T.Mensah, who is suppose to be the ultimate Highlife musician, but the stuff I found online wasn't as good as to whatever it was that the teacher played in class.
Luckily, I found this, which is delightful, but it's unclear to me who created this or what the songs are.

Also, I found these songs online, and I'm liking these too.


In my search, I came across World Passport, a blog that posts podcasts of this and other non-Western music. I haven't listen to any of them yet, but I think I'm going to have to.
One of the connections my teacher mentioned was Latin Jazz. She said that a lot of African music went over with slaves to the Caribbean and influenced music there, then returned in its new form to Africa to influence Highlife. Somehow, that seems perfectly right. And, I have to say, the music did remind me a little of that sort of thing, and made me think of Watermelon Man, which I'm enamored of.
I'm in love with labels like Putumayo, if only because they make it easier for me to access music like this, which I think is really fascinating to learn about.My friend Owen told me that he once took a class on world music, and I have to say, that sounds like something I would like, even though I don't really know much about music in terms of theory. I just like music in a quantitative sense: when I hear something, I know if I like it or not.