Jean Toomer
Jean Toomer a poet and novelist and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance. His first book Cane is considered by many as his most significant. Toomer’s papers and unpublished manuscripts are held by the Beinecke Library at Yale University. Some of Toomer’s works are Cane, The Flavor of Man, The Collected Poems of Jean Toomer, and Problems of Civilization.
Harper’s autobiographical novel is almost out, his girlfriend Robin desires commitment, and he’s best man at the wedding of Lance, a pro athlete. He goes to New York early (Robin will come for the wedding) to hang out with Lance and other friends, including Jordan, his former almost-lover, now in media and privy to an advance copy of the book. The men discuss women, never facing their own double standard; Jordan wants to try again with Harper, at least for one night; and Harper fears that Lance will read his book and learn that the bride-to-be slept with him once to avenge Lance’s many affairs. Can Harper mature before Lance kills him, Jordan seduces him, and he loses Robin?
John Langston Gwaltney
John Langston Gwaltney was a writer and anthropologist focused on African American culture, best known for his book Drylongso: A Self Portrait of Black America. He was a professor of anthropology at the University of Syracuse in New York. Drylongso is a collection of Gwaltney’s transcriptions of oral interviews with who he described as “core black people”, ordinary men and women who made up black America.
A drama based on the life of college football hero Ernie Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy.
Charles Leavitt, Robert Gallagher (book)
Virginia Hamilton
Virginia Hamilton was an award-winning author of children’s books. She wrote 41 books, including M. C. Higgins, the Great, for which she won the National Book Award in 1974 and the 1975 Newbery Medal. Hamilton’s first book, as a child was “The Novel”. Then came Zeely, published in 1967, and won numerous awards, including the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award.
LIBRARIES MAY seem obsolete when compared with digital media but there are still many who believe that giving a child a real book can make a difference in his life.
Of those people, Vanesse Lloyd-Sgambati stands proudly as the founder of a once small book fair that is celebrating its 20th year of connecting African-American children with prominent authors and illustrators.
“This is an event to show children the gift of reading,” Lloyd-Sgambati said.
The 20th Annual African-American Children’s Book Fair returns to the Community College of Philadelphia’s gymnasium tomorrow afternoon.
This year authors from all over the country will make their way to the fair, which, with 3,500 visitors last year, is the biggest regional event promoting African-American children‘s books. Award-winning author and Philadelphia native Jerry Pinkney will be one of many authors who will chat with children, parents and teachers and autograph books.
“This year, of the 27 authors and illustrators attending . . . 14 have participated before,” Lloyd-Sgambati said.
The authors enjoy it. “We seek an audience and what this does is give an opportunity to meet that audience and put value on what you do,” said Pinkney, whose most recent book is a lavishly illustrated Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
For this 20th year, the fair is adding a number of special-interest workshops.
“Every year we try to enhance and bring books to life. This year we’ve added workshops, a cartoon workshop led by Jerry Craft who will be showing kids the art of cartooning, a workshop on bullying by David Miller geared towards preteen and teenagers and a workshop called ‘Brand Me’ by Amira Sharaz, to teach young people how to create their own brand.”
While supplies last, children, educators and parents will be given free books through the sponsorship of NBC10, PECO, McDonald’s, Health Partners and Comcast. (Educators with school ID will be given books to use in their classroom libraries.)
Sterling Allen Brown
Sterling Allen Brown was a professor, author of works on folklore, poet and literary critic. Some of his works are Southern Road, Harcourt, Brace and company, and Negro Poetry. In the early 1980s his Collected Poems won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the best book of poetry. He was interested chiefly in black culture of the Southern United States.
The classic Canadian documentary Manufacturing Consent based on the Noam Chomsky/Edward Herman book by the same name. Explores the the propaganda model of the media.
I write about a lot of things and lately I have been writing heavy but today I actually don’t want to write about one particular topic. I just want to free write and reflect on a few things in my life, if you don’t mind. One of my earliest memories as a human being/child was my grandmother coming home from work late every night. My grandmother (Mary-Ann Blair) was a cleaning lady also known as maintenance. She really worked hard every night; you know how I know because my sister and I would wait up for her each night to come home. She was exhaust, barely capable to take her shoes and coat off once she hit her bedroom. My sister and I used to help her to take her shoes off as she lied across her bed. I asked my grandmother one day, “Why do you work all the time? Stay home with us.” She replied, “So y’all can have food and clothes to wear.” Then I asked, “You work to become rich?” Mind you; I was only five or six of age asking this fatigued lady all the questions in the world. She replied, “I don’t want to be rich, I just want to be comfortable.”
“I just want to be comfortable.”
That replied have always stuck with me my entire life. I shared this story with you all because I ponder on what was my fuel to get me to this point of my life? I never actually had a life plan for my life; I just followed the wind. I do know this, the first moment I was introduced to the art of storytelling was when I was five or six years old, the nineteen ninety version of Batman the movie. I was mesmerized by the action and the tension of not knowing what was coming next. From that day on I’ve always wanted to feel that feeling if it’s in reading or watching movies. At the age of seven I was also introduced to comic book by my grandmother, she brought him two issues of Spider-man 2099 and Batman from her job. Some guy was going to throw away those comics instead my grandmother asked for them because she knew I would love them and I did! What’s one man’s trash is another boy’s gold. From that day on my awesome grandmother brought me home comic books whenever she could. I do admit, I can’t read every single word but tried with my little heart to read. I read the same comic books over and over until I understood the concept of a story.
My grandmother directed me to the road to my current life.
I have been plotting stories since I was eight years old. I never had the chance to write my ideas down because I had siblings and they would of destroyed everything; so I begun to memorize my stories. The older I become I plotted more and more stories in my head for two reason, I was ashamed to share my ideas with friends because I lived in North Philadelphia, and two, a Black kid reading and wanting to write comic book wasn’t cool. Until I become an adult I kept my true love of not just comic book but the art of storytelling to myself. Hey, that only made me stronger because I am capable of writing whole stories, essays, or scripts in my head before the letters could hit the screen. I was an author of my first comic book by the age of twenty-one. As I write this I am plotting one script and two short stories in my head. I’ve originally want to get everything out of my head and into the people’s minds because ideas and stories has been in my mind for too long. I don’t know when I am going to die or expire so I overly write to leave a legacy forErinand to make my grandmother proud of me. The irony in what I love to do is I will mimic or share life through my writing at times. To be perfectly honest, I was never afraid of death but I have always been afraid of life because it’s just so f*cking complex at times.
My grandmother might have been a cleaning woman once upon a time, so I will stride, try, and die to become something marvelous just for her.
Text stops here.
Here’s a tale that Dr. Seuss never wrote: the man formerly known as Jeffrey Drew Wilschke has been arrested again by Madison, Wisconsin police, who’d received phone calls from concerned residents. It seems the former Mr. Wilschke had been prowling around a local park, not far from the state capitol, when he was detained
But it wasn’t Mr. Wilschke who was taken into custody. Enter: Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop!
As the Capital Times reports, Mr. Zopittybop-Bop-Bop, who changed his legal name last October, apparently kept his old habits. He was allegedly carrying a knife, marijuana and drug paraphernalia when officers detained him last week. He’s now being held on a probation violation, linked to an arrest in 2011.
As the Times reports, Mr. Zopittybop-Bop-Bop (then known as Mr. Wilschke) was taken into custody in April for grinding marijuana in another Madison park. Police who searched his backpack discovered knives and a loaded handgun.
Although there’s no telling where Beezow Doo-Doo (formerly known as Jeffrey) came up with his new name, if he wants another one he has only to open any Seuss book to find Sally Spingel-Sungel-Sporn, Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate, a North (or South) Going Zax or maybe Ham-ikka-Schnim-ikka-Schnam-ikka-Schnopp.
But there’s only one Sam-I-Am
Based on the book by the famous Dr. Seuss. Inside a snowflake exists the magical land of Whoville. In Whoville, live the Who’s, an almost mutated sort of munchkinlike people. All the Who’s love Christmas, yet just outside of their beloved Whoville lives the Grinch. The Grinch is a nasty creature that hates Christmas, and plots to steal it away from the Whos which he equally abhors. Yet a small child, Cindy Lou Who, decides to try befriend the Grinch. Rejected by the Who’s as a child and living in spiteful seculsion for most of his life, the Grinch has always hated the citizens of Whoville. That especially goes for Christmas with the Who’s noise, phony sentiment and wasteful materialism. When little Cindy Lou Who’s attempt to transcend the festivities’ empty commercialism by inviting the Grinch ends with his public humiliation, the Grinch hatches upon on his supreme scheme to ruin the holidays.
This interview was originally broadcast on 010. Decoded is now available in paperback.
Long before he sold 50 million records worldwide — and before he appeared alongside Warren Buffett on the cover of Fortune magazine, accumulated 10 Grammy Awards and became the CEO of his own record label — Jay-Z was living with his mom in the Marcy Houses housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, just trying to survive day by day.
“It was a very intense and stressful situation,” he tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we’d play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day. It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike.”
Now 40, Jay-Z hasn’t forgotten his past — or the lyrics he’s written over the years about his childhood in the projects. In his new book Decoded, he unpacks the detailed riffs and lyrics that make up 36 of his songs — while examining both his own life and the growth of hip-hop over the last two decades.
He also talks candidly, both in the book and on Fresh Air, about the period in his life when he was a teenager selling crack cocaine on the streets.
“At 14 [or] 15 years old, you’re thinking about sneakers or you’re thinking about some sort of relief from all of the pain you’re feeling,” he says. “You’re thinking about buying some food for the house. You’re thinking about paying the extra light bill. So at that young age, you’re not thinking about the destruction you’re causing your own community.”
At the time he was selling, Jay-Z was also coming up with rhymes. He normally wrote down his material in a green notebook he carried around with him — but he never took the notebook with him on the streets, he says.
“I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice — anything just to get a paper bag,” he says. “And I’d write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook. As I got further and further away from home and my notebook, I had to memorize these rhymes — longer and longer and longer. … By the time I got to record my first album, I was 26, I didn’t need pen or paper — my memory had been trained just to listen to a song, think of the words, and lay them to tape.”
Since his first album, he says, he’s never written down any of his lyrics.
“I’ve lost plenty of material,” he says. “It’s not the best way. I wouldn’t advise it to anyone. I’ve lost a couple albums’ worth of great material. … Think about when you can’t remember a word and it drives you crazy. So imagine forgetting an entire rhyme. ‘What’s that? I said I was the greatest something?’ ”
Hard-Knock Life
One of the songs Jay-Z writes about extensively in the book is “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem),” a single from his third album Vol. 2 … Hard Knock Life. It samples music from the musical Annie, which Jay-Z says he watched repeatedly as a child.
“When the TV version [of Annie] came on, I was drawn to it,” he says. “It was the struggle of this poor kid in this environment and how her life changed. … It immediately resonated.”
Twenty years later, Jay-Z was on a Puff Daddy tour in the late ’90s, when he heard a DJ play an instrumental version of “It’s the Hard Knock Life” from Annie.
“It immediately brought me back to my childhood and that feeling,” he says. “I knew right then and there that I had to make that record, and people would relate to the struggle and the aspiration in it, as well.”
To get the rights for “Hard Knock Life,” Jay-Z says he “exaggerated a touch” in his letter to the original songwriters, Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin. He told them how much Annie meant to him growing up, because he won an essay contest as a child and got to see the musical on Broadway, cementing his love for the show. But, he says with a laugh, that actually never happened.
“I wrote a letter about how much Annie meant to me growing up and how I went to a Broadway play — which was an exaggeration,” he says. “I saw it on TV. It was a bad lie … for a good reason.”
Jay-Z has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide. He is the former CEO of Def Jam Recordings and the founder of Roc Nation. He was ranked the 5th top male solo artist of the 2000s by Billboard magazine. He has also received a great deal of recognition from the American Music Awards, the BET Awards, and the MTV Video Music Awards.
“I grew up in Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, and my mom and pop had an extensive record collection, so Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all of those sounds and souls of Motown filled the house,” he says. “So I was very familiar with the song when Kanye [West] brought me the sample. It had been used in hip-hop previously, but it was just such an interesting and fresh take on it that I was immediately drawn to it.”
0s
“They have a saying, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ It changed the authority figure. Crack cocaine was done so openly, and the people who were addicted to it, the fiends, had very little self-respect. It was so highly addictive that they didn’t care how they obtained it and they carried that out in front of children, who were dealing at the time. So the relationship of that respect, ‘I have to respect my elders’ … that dynamic shifted and it broke forever. It just changed everything from that point on.
“I was very aware of the dangers involved because there were people dying [and] there were people going to jail and it wasn’t a one-off. It wasn’t an occurrence where everyone was shocked. It wouldn’t be a shock like, ‘How could that happen in this neighborhood?’ It was really a weekly or monthly occurrence.”
On Danger Mouse‘s Grey Album, Which Samples Both Jay-Z And The Beatles Without Copyright Permission
“I think it was a really strong album. I champion any form of creativity. And that was a genius idea to do, and it sparked so many others like it. It’s really good. … I was honored someone took the time to mash those records up with Beatles records. I was honored to be on quote-unquote the same song with The Beatles.”
On The Song ‘December 4th’
One of the songs Jay-Z writes about extensively in the book is “December 4th” from The Black Album; the song is heavily autobiographical and features riffs by Jay-Z’s own mother, Gloria Carter.
“I tricked her [into appearing on that],” he says. “I told her to meet me down at the studio and we were going to go to lunch. She came down to the studio, and I just brought the track up and I said, ‘I just want you to talk on it.’ Because I knew if I told her [she was going to be on the song], she’d get really nervous. [She said], ‘What do you want me to say?’ And the rest is history.”
On Crotch-Grabbing In Rap Music
“In hip-hop, the music leads first. So usually, you have a hit record and then [the record executives] throw this person on stage who has never been on stage before. So they don’t have any experience on how to perform in front of people, hold the mic — all these different things you need to know as a performer. So you get up there, you feel naked. So when you feel naked, what’s the first thing you do? You cover yourself. So that bravado is an act of, ‘I am so nervous right now. I am scared to death. I’m going to act so tough that I am going to hide it, and I have to grab my crotch.’ That’s just what happens.”
On Misogynistic Rap Lyrics
“A lot of these albums are made when artists are young, 17 or 18 years old, so they’ve never had any real relationships. And if you come from the neighborhoods we’re in, we have low esteem ourselves. And the women, well, the girls — they have low self-esteem as well. These are all dysfunctional relationships at a young age. The poet is pretty much [giving] his take on his dealings with girls at that time. He’s not in a stable relationship; he’s on the road. He’s seeing girls who like him because he makes music. They spend one night together; he gets a phone number. He leaves for the next town and does the same thing over again.”
On Using The Word ‘Bitch’ In ’99 Problems’
“That was the writer in me being provocative, because that’s what rap music should be at times. That was really directed to all of the people who hear buzz words in rap music — they hear ‘bitch’ or ‘ho’ or something and immediately dismiss everything else that takes place. And everything has to be put in context. And when you put it in context, you realize that I wasn’t calling any female, besides a female dog, a ‘bitch’ on this song.”
Good Day There,
I usually share my thoughts and times in my life but today I figured it’s time for a change up. So, this week I am going to share with you guys a very interesting but good book I have been reading, “Ike Turner’s Autobiography: The Man, The Hand, and The Band” by Eli C. Briar. This is an excellent book because it tells the other side of the story between Ike and Tina. Reading this book have shown me elements of Ike’s genius side over the media hype. The material for this book was collected from Ike Turner before his death in December of 2007. The author has really captured Turner as more as of a common man over the infamous Rock star. The way the author has wrote this book I feel as if Ike is having a direct conversation with me over the author telling me about Ike Turner’s life. The book really goes indepth about Ike’s relationship with Tina, his other wives, his children, and his love for music. By the end of the book I am afraid to say but I can understand Ike’s vision much clearer; more than a woman beater but as a well rounded man. He was actually an intelligent, dogmatic at times, very talent, and funny man. This is a good book to check out; I am going to leave you guys with a page from his autobiography.
Enjoy!
Chapter three, page sixty-four from Ike Turner’s Autobiography: The Man, The Hand, & The Band:
“You know they’ll probably start working on my movie sometime…They are doing a complete movie of my life story. It will not be based on any negativity. It will be more about my life, from a kid, how I came up and why I came through. A lot of people believe that the movie (What’s Love Got to Do with It?) is the true story, that Tina did. I don’t wanna debate on Ike & Tina, but I have to say this one thing…That movie was the biggest lie, and even Tina said that it’s a lie. And she don’t like the movie. But she started put gas on the fire by supporting it. I’m not gonna try to defend, or undo what’s been done. All I could say about whatever’s been done, it’s been done, and it’s water under the bridge. I have no regrets of my life. Either accept people for what they are, or don’t. So, in other words, man, if people don’t know me, I think they do them self an injustice. Because, as a whole, I think I’m a good person. But you know what, Walt Disney got away with portraying me in the light that they were portraying me in. I have always been a fighter, so…But I have no regrets, man. It’s just like God brought me through the drugs, I know he’ll bring me through anything else in life. ‘nough of Tina and Hollywood, let’s talk about music. I used to write songs so fast like this, like snapping my fingers. Some of them didn’t even have a title, for I just did the song. Like in the early ’80’s me and Rick James done a song together called “Booty Meat.” It was a great session; we completed that song in two and half hours. But the red tape from our labels wouldn’t allow us to put out the song. Ha, well life goes on. Most music today really isn’t my thing. I respect these artists growth as in income wise and star status but today’s music isn’t like back in the day. Most times, people have some acts that they really like. I mean, I don’t have any in particular that I admire. I admire them all, you know. Hey, they’re making millions and billions these days. In those days, man, in the ’50’s, Black people in the South…We didn’t recognize contracts that much. And we didn’t recognize marriages that much, either. Ha! Besides contracts and millions I was cheated of, I believe I was ahead of my time.”
-Ike Turner
Episode 3 Below…
Mumia Abu Jamal – Who?!?: The Life Of John Carlos
Who’s afraid of John Carlos?
Perhaps the better question s: “Who Is John Carlos?”
That question popped up just days ago when Carlos and sports writer, David Zirin, visited the Occupy Wall street encampment in Manhattan, New York.
A 20-something woman, was asked could Carlos give a few words of support to the energetic gathering.
The woman blanked on the name, and Zirin, rather than launch into an extended explanation, stood sideways, thrust his fist into the air, and bowed his head.
The woman looked at him, and Zirin noted. “Her face lit up.” Oh. Ohhh! John Carlos–that John Carlos!
Dr. John Carlos, who made an indelible mark on sports and history in the heat of Mexico City in 1968, along with his partner, Tommy Smith, got on the “People’s Mic” of the voices of thousands, and gave a simple, yet powerful message: “I am here for you” (echoes of a thousand voices); and then,
“Why? Because I am you. We’re here 43 years later because there’s a fight still to be won. This day is not for us but for our children to come.”
And then, one of the 2 men who rocked the world both by racing like the wind and by standing with black gloved fist, no shoes, and red, black and green “freedom beads” after winning an historic race and Olympic medals, left the flashing cameras, and plethora of camera phones, to return to his relatively quiet life.
Zirin has just put out a delightful book, authored by Dr. John Carlos, entitled simply, John Carlos Story (Haymarket, 2011). From his Harlem youth, to his pivotal 5 minutes on the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics, and then to a life where almost every national institution tried to conspire to destroy both he and Smith, personally, psychologically, financially and professionally, we learn that dissent still has serious costs in the so-called ‘land of the free’.
I won’t spoil the story for you, but Dr. Carlos is a man of extraordinary will and determination and the book captures it, with humor leavened with heartache.
If you’re into sports, track and field, the history of the ’60s or the Black Freedom Movement, this book will both delight and infuriate you.
If enough people read it, perhaps a young woman, in her ’20s, will never again have to ask, “Who Is John Carlos?”
[Sources: Zirin, Dave, "Dr. John Carlos Raises His Fist With Occupy Wall Street";011-10-14-656/Index.html.; Carlos, John (with Dave Zirin). John Carlos Story. (Chi., IL: Haymarket Books, 2011) [pp.193]. See:www.haymarketbooks.org.]
(c) ’11 maj
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