by Sandy | Jun 8, 2009 | Art, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Books, Writers
An article by Fred Kaplan, “1959: Sex, Jazz, and Datsuns” featured in the June 8, 2009 issue of New York Magazine determines that 1959 was an important year for music, politics, world dynamics, social issues, and the arts. The 60’s might have gotten more press, but, 1959 was the year of change, innovation, out of the box thinking.
The magazine piece is based on Kaplan’s book, “1959: The Year Everything Changed”. He presents his examples of some of the greatest happenings of this special year and they include:
Actor turned director John Cassavetes was perhaps the first “Indie” filmmaker with his partly improvised script for his movie “Shadows”. The Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, changed the NYC sky line on the upper East Side. The first micro chip introduced by Texas Instruments. The release of the Miles Davis album (they were albums then) “Kinda Blue” (considered by many to be best jazz recording ever). Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro invited to NYC and staying at the St Teresa Hotel in Harlem. The emergence of Malcolm X and his conversations on race and politics.
Where were you in 1959?
(I was attending Paul Lawrence Dunbar JHS in the Bronx)
“1959: The Year Everything Changed”, by Fred Kaplan
by Sandy | May 26, 2009 | Blogroll, Books, Creativity, Culture, Education, Exhibits
The Los Angeles Black Book Expo 2009 will celebrate its 5th year on 8/22/09. The day long program will feature authors, storytellers, spoken word contests and poetry performances. There will also be musicians, children’s events, panel discussions, editors, publishers, and more!
LABBX 2009
Saturday August 22, 2009 – 10 AM to 6 PM
Expo Center
3980 Menlo Ave, Los Angeles, CA
BTW – booth applications still being accepted
by Sandy | May 7, 2009 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Books, Culture, Education, Events, Learning
Save the Date!
11th Annual Harlem Book Fair & Arts Festival:
This is the largest annual African American book fair and it’s free!
Featured, on Saturday 7/18/09, will be 250 exhibit booths, 4 stages with music, story telling and children’s activities.
Harlem Book Fair, Sat. July 18, 2009, 11am – 6pm
Jacob Javits Center
655 W. 34th Street, NYC
“BUILDING READERS, EMPOWERING COMMUNITY”
For event information: (212) 348 – 1681
www.qbr.com
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by Sandy | May 5, 2009 | Artist, Blogroll, Books, Museums, Photograhy
Swiss born Robert Frank traveled around the United States in the mid-1950s and captured the America he saw through his photographs. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of his book, 83 of his images, considered controversial at the time they were taken, are on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans, May 16 – August 23, 2009
SF MoMA, 151 Third Street
San Francisco, CA
Images: Robert Frank, Trolley, New Orleans, 1955 and Robert Frank & wife at a photography festival in China (photo by E. Keating)
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by Sandy | Mar 23, 2009 | Blogroll, Books, Culture
Zora Neale Hurston, 1891 – 1960, started to publish right after the height of the Harlem Renaissance. The ability to support oneself with art that explored the African-American experience waned with the onset of the depression and she fell into obscurity until re discovered by Alice Walker (“The Color Purple”).
Her work gained attention with the introduction of college Black literature classes during the 70”s. She was found and embraced by a whole new generation (including me). Her novels, short stories and poetry are now also taught in women’s studies and general literature courses.
She studied cultural anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University. As a “folklorist”, she wrote and sang in the rural style and dialect of the people she remembered from the all black town of Eaton, FL where she was born and of the folks she met while traveling across the south.
Perhaps her most famous book, “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, 1937, is about “Janie”, who managed to make her way thru life and find love during a time and in a place very difficult for a woman’s survival. (The was made into a TV movie a few years ago with Halle Berry)
Zora Neale Hurston – Great story teller!
Bibliography (from Wikipedia)
- Color Struck (1925) in Opportunity Magazine
- Sweat (1926)
- How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928)
- The Gilded Six-Bits (1933)
- Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934)
- Mules and Men (1935)
- Tell My Horse (1937)
- Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
- Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939)
- Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)
- Seraph on the Suwanee (1948)
- I Love Myself When I Am Laughing…and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader (edited by Alice Walker; introduction by Mary Helen Washington) (1979)
- Sanctified Church (1981)
- Spunk: Selected Stories (1985)
- Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life (play, with Langston Hughes; edited with introductions by George Houston Bass and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and the complete story of the Mule bone controversy.) (1991)
- The Complete Stories (introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr (1995)
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by Sandy | Mar 10, 2009 | Blogroll, Books, Directors, Writers
“Precious Ramotswe “ is Botswana‘s only female private investigator – the main character of the “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” by Alexander McCall Smith.
I noticed a few years back that Ms Ramotswe and the author’s name were listed week after week on the SF & Bay area California paper back bestseller list. “Precious” just sort of kept catching my eye and I got curious. I discovered that the Botswana detective has a worldwide cult following.
The author was born in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, practiced law in Scotland and when McCall returned to Zimbabwe, he began to write about a red bush tea drinking female private eye – “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”. In this, and the books that followed in the series, our lady sleuth tracks down wayward husbands, missing children and solves village mysteries all the while keeping to the traditions of her culture and maintaining the standards of both Queen Elizabeth and Nelson Mandela (she admires both).
BTW: Directed by the late Anthony Minghella, “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency “will soon come to an HBO screen near you. Produced for the BBC in 2008, “Precious” is played by singer Jill Scott. Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose and Idris Elba from “The Wire” are also in the cast. Should be fun!
Books in the series:
* 1998 .The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
* 2000 .Tears Of The Giraffe
* 2001 .Morality for Beautiful Girls
* 2002 .The Kalahari Typing School for Men
* 2004 .The Full Cupboard of Life
* 2004 .In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
* 2006 .Blue Shoes and Happiness
* 2007 .The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
