Originally posted 2/12/18
I really miss them and I still like the portraits!
Official portraits of President Barack Obama and former first lady, Michelle Obama, installed in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery on February 12, 2018.
Artists: Kehinde Wiley (Mr O.) and Amy Sherald (Mrs. O.) They became the first black artists commissioned by the Smithsonian to produce presidential portraits.
“I Bring What I Love” – is a documentary film about Youssou N’Dour, the pop music superstar from Senegal, West Africa.
N’Dour is revered all across Africa for his “remarkable range and poise and for his prodigious musical intelligence as a writer, bandleader and producer. He absorbs the entire Senegalese musical spectrum in his work, often filtering it through the lens of genre-defying rock or pop music from outside his culture. N’Dour has made “mbalax”—a blend of Senegal‘s traditional griot percussion and praise-singing with Afro-Cuban music—famous throughout the world during more than 20 years of recording and touring outside of Senegal with his band, The Super Étoile”.
The director of “I Bring What I Love”, Elizabeth Chai Vasahelyi, followed the singer for 2 years through Africa, Europe and the U.S. to bring us a picture of this super talented and complex man that spread the music and rhythms of his homeland worldwide.
The annual event will be different this year. After 22 years of welcoming children and adults to their wide selections of events in person, the 2020 HBF will be “virtual”.
~ “HBF2020 will be live-streamed on Facebook Live, with simultaneous links to YouTube, Instagram Live, QBR.com, Harlembookfair.com, CAOTtv.com”
~ “Multi-platform broadcasting: The Harlem Book Fair will be available where online readers go for their information. New readers; new audiences”
~ “Your favorite books, authors, and most compelling issues presented directly to your device.”
Saturday, July 18, 2020
“The vision of the Harlem Book Fair is to partner with local and national leadership organizations under the banner of literacy awareness, affirming HBF as the nation’s largest African American literary event celebrating family literacy, community empowerment, and community cooperation.“
The ambitious intentions of a playwright resulted in the impressive, and enjoyable, “August Wilson Century Cycle” box set. It consists of a play for every decade of the 20th century that would chronicle some part of the black experience in America.
Through the use of his great ear for dialogue, Wilson (4/45 – 10/05) was able to give us some insight into the daily life – both struggles and triumphs – of an assortment of universal characters that his audience could easily recognize.
An amazing undertaking, but, his huge vision was realized and it resulted in 2 Pulitzer Prizes, a Tony award and many other accolades. He accomplished a lot doing what he loved to do and perhaps more importantly, August Wilson left a powerful body of work that will be read and performed for years to come. Dreaming big has rewards of all kinds.
All 10 of August Wilson’s plays are collected in hard cover with a nice presentation box. Each has an introduction by an actor, director or writer familiar with his work
In 2005, August Wilson completed the ten-play cycle:
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“I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day…”
There is nothing like good music during questionable times. Gives a lift.
The opening bass line that precedes the above lyric is for one of my favorite songs by the Temptations, “My Girl”. It is instantly recognizable, instantly evoking a time/ place/age that is gone, but still very much alive when the music plays. (I still know all the words.)
I watched the DVD, “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” again. It tells the story of the “Funk Brothers”, those musicians who rhythmically supported the stars of Motown with their piano, drums, horn section and guitars. According to the liner notes, “They played on more #1 records than the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Elvis combined…”
There are interviews with the guys, funny and touching, as they reminisce about their experiences at “Hitsville, USA”. Unknown by the thousands of us that religiously bought a new 45 record whenever possible, they drove the beat behind the Motown hits from the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder (he was “little” then), the Miracles, etc. The stars were good, but so was the band.
We are also treated to terrific concert footage – artists of today singing the old songs. It’s been a long time, but the music lives – they do a great job, different – but still great.
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