Serena Williams: The Greatest

Serena Williams won her 22nd singles grand slam title last Saturday at Wimbledon. She is without question one of the greatest athletes of all time. Williams has dominated her sport with a combination of exquisitely smart play, phenomenal accuracy, and cultivated strength. She is unmatched. Her will to rebound over tough losses and periods of uncertainty reflect a tenacity and discipline even rare in the world of elite international sports.

At a press conference last Thursday after her semifinal win against Elena Vesnina, Williams was asked this question by a reporter: 

"There will be talk about you going down as one of the greatest female athletes of all time. What do you think when you hear something like that?"

Williams' response:

"I prefer the word one of the greatest athletes of all time."

Here is Serena Williams reciting "Still I Rise," the poem by Maya Angelou that inspires and motivates her.

Remembering Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald by Carl Van Vechten. Source: Beinecke Library, Yale University

Ella Fitzgerald died twenty years ago today. She was the most versatile singer of the 20th century, a vocal virtuoso with perfect pitch. Her band reportedly tuned up their instruments to the sound of her voice. Ella Fitzgerald expressed the pantheon of human emotion with a clarity so acute she became the voice of postwar America and "the First Lady of Song." She was a flawless vocal tactician with the range of an orchestra. Fitzgerald could make her voice sound like the blaring of a trumpet, the plinking of piano keys, or the tsk of the high hat.

Every song she sang became an absolute truth. In Summertime, when she sang "your father is rich and your mother is good looking," that lyric became a statement of fact.

Her contemporaries had immense strengths as singers, but Fitzgerald was able to combine all their best traits and create magic. She had Dinah Washington's emotional heft and smoothness, Carmen McRae's gift of interpretation, and Nancy Wilson's light touch with a lyric. Ms. Fitzgerald sang with an enchanting confidence and easy manner. Tony Bennett still works in her style, sauntering through the world of Pop deploying a charm out of time with the unearned hauteur required of contemporary singers. 

Ella Fitzgerald was always the coolest person on stage. When she performed duets with Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, men known for their easy banter and confidence, they had to work up to her level of nonchalance.

Ms. Fitzgerald has been gone for twenty years, but her legendary voice is still here, a mesmerizing delight. 

Bessie Smith's Blues: A Playlist

Bessie Smith. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1936.

Bessie Smith recorded her first song "Cemetery Blues" ninety-three years ago. Her ribald tales of good times and regret built Columbia Records into a powerhouse music label. Smith's powerful and plaintive voice gave her songs a particularly clear and visceral resonance that still touches listeners today. The tempo of early Blues is slow by contemporary standards, but her songs are incredibly fresh. People still fall in love and make a mess of romantic entanglements today like they have for thousands of years. In the decades since her death, some of her hits have been recorded by artists including Nina Simone, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Janis Joplin, Bobby Womack, and Van Halen.

Bessie Smith and her Blues singing contemporaries along with the female stars of Pre Code Hollywood films, were among the few women who openly expressed sexual desire in art forms enjoyed by mass audiences nationwide in the early 20th century. The frankness of the Blues provided riveting social commentary on the changing sexual, gender and political mores of the time. Straddling the Roaring 20s and the Great Depression, Bessie Smith's music was a soundtrack of the complex black experiences born of the Great Migration.

It is easy to dip into Ms. Smith's music and become enamored with her. The highs of love and the depths of loneliness and despair have been a constant in human experience. Smith's catalog lends itself to be mixed and matched to create a playlist to suit almost any mood. The following songs follow the story arc of a woman who has lived the high life of good booze and fine men and found herself destitute and alone. Bessie Smith's music is Blues at its finest, passion and pathos in song.

Everybody Eats

Read these three very different, but connected pieces about food culture. Whose cooking gets recognized, who do we trust to talk about food and why, once again, representation matters.

Eddie Huang on the Oppressive Whiteness of the Food World

Chipotle Now Says It Tried to Invite Latino Authors for Its "Cultivating Thought" Bag-and-Cup Series: Update

On Being Black in the Kitchen

Congratulations, Ms. Kalman

Source: kalman.blogs.nytimes.com

In honor of Maira Kalman receiving the 2016 AIGA Medal from the Professional Association for Design and Presidents' Day, here is Kalman's funny and enlightening story about George Washington. 

Watch Ms. Kalman talk about her love of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Recommended Reading

Source: chicagoreader.com

This is a great reading list for fans of humor and memoir. I've read "Bossypants," "I Like You: Hospitality Under The Influence," "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns)," "Meaty," and "The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl." "Meaty" was my absolute favorite. Samantha Irby is uniquely hilarious. She can describe things you don't want to know about in excruciatingly detailed and vivid language. Her blog Bitches Gotta Eat will make you laugh, gasp and possibly cringe. 

Edna Lewis is the Touchstone

Source:ednalewisfoundation.org

“One of the greatest pleasures of my life has been that I have never stopped learning about good cooking and good food.”- Edna Lewis, “In Pursuit of Flavor”

Edna Lewis is credited as the first person to write about Southern food as a cuisine worthy of study and admiration. She was a committed “locavore” and practitioner of “farm-to-table” eating decades before those words became culinary buzzwords. The chefs and writers who operate in the world of Southern food owe a debt to Ms. Lewis for her scholarship and evangelism. Her influence can also be felt in the ethos of American culinary professionals and home cooks who revere the glories of simple ingredients cooked with techniques passed down from generation to generation.

Edna Lewis' culinary point-of-view on local food and seasonal cooking continues to be a philosophical cornerstone of American food culture. The genre of culinary memoir is imbued with her intimate storytelling style. Despite her monumental role in American culinary history she remains a niche interest like Dixieland Jazz.

 "Fried Chicken and Sweet Potato Pie" - Film

The recognition Ms. Lewis receives in mainstream publications is scant in relation to her enormous influence on American food culture. Francis Lam took a step to correct that error in a beautiful October 2015 article for The New York Times Magazine. The piece is a thoughtful examination of the forces that shaped her journey to becoming a culinary pioneer. It ends with a call to action by Ms. Lewis directed to "The Jemima Code" author Toni Tipton-Martin after the two had met at an event.

"I told her that I wanted to tell the world that there were more women like her than just her,’’ she [Ms. Tipton-Martin] said. A while later, Lewis sent her a letter, written on the same kind of yellow legal pad that she used to write ‘‘The Taste of Country Cooking.’’ ‘‘Leave no stone unturned to prove this point,’’ she wrote. ‘‘Make sure that you do.’’

Source: nytimes.com via Knopf

Writers like Ms. Tipton-Martin, Jessica B. Harris (“High on The Hog”), Adrian Miller (“Soul Food”) and Leni Sorenson took Ms. Lewis’ encouragement to “Leave no stone unturned to prove this point” very seriously. The effort to bring black cooks and chefs into the cultural consciousness is as relevant today as it was the day Lewis wrote to Ms. Tipton-Martin.

Interview with Chef Edna Lewis

The next generation of black women chefs and cooks influenced by the work of Ms. Lewis are cooking food steeped in Southern culinary traditions to create a new cuisine. The food they’re making has several diverse influences including the demographic shifts created by the Great Migration nationwide, post 1965 immigration to the U.S., the “Black is Beautiful” movement and the rise of “Foodie” culture. Here is a short list of some of the women working in this evolving tradition:

·         Jocelyn Delk Adams: Baker, author of “Grandbaby Cakes” and creator of Grandbaby Cakes blog.

·         Christine Arel: Creator of No Goji, No Glory blog and freelance food writer.

·         Erika Council: Creator of the Southern Soufflé blog.

·         Angela Davis: Creator of The Kitchenista Diaries blog and personal chef.

·         Tanya Holland: Chef and owner of Brown Sugar Kitchen, and author of “Brown Sugar Kitchen: New-Style Down-Home Recipes from Sweet West Oakland.”

·         Demetra Overton: Personal chef and creator of Sweet Savant blog.

·         Nicole A. Taylor: Author of “The Up South Cookbook: Chasing Dixie in a Brooklyn Kitchen,” principal of NAT Media, and creator of the Food Culturist.

·         Sanura Weathers: Creator of My Life Runs on Food blog and freelance food writer.

Links for the Voracious

Some things old and some things new from across the Internet


Music

"A young jazz audience is such a rarity, in fact, that it's become a kind of holy grail for presenters. So how does Jarasum do it?"

How a Korean Jazz Festival Found a Huge Young Audience

Source: Bailey Rebecca Roberts via inthesetimes.com

"I'm creating hip-hop songs from a Lakota perspective and looking at the way my ancestors framed our songs, whether that be a pow wow or ceremony song. They're short, powerful phrases repeated. Something I love about Lakota music that's very important to me is the drums; you just hear it and know you're home."

Native American Rapper Frank Waln Talks Decolonization and "Dirty Sprite 2"

Mariachi Flor de Toloache- NPR Tiny Desk Concert

Source: newyorker.com

"How does a Berklee hotshot halfway to an EGOT end up playing keyboards on a tribute to a melting pot, spend half a decade working to eliminate its weak spots, and find himself sitting at the right hand of a juggernaut?"

Nerding Out with Hamilton Musical Director, Alex Lacamoire

“As I progressed from being a student to a professor who teaches and writes about popular music culture, I’m always after some recreation of my own experiences as a listener. Making selections for a course syllabus isn’t all that different from DJing; in both cases, you’re thinking about the mix."

Personal History: Riot Grrrl Radio

“Influenced by Kraftwerk, electro, Bambaataa, Italo disco, George Clinton, new wave, and post-disco boogie (essentially everything they heard the Electrifying Mojo play on his radio show), Detroit techno soon became way more popular overseas than it ever was at home."

10 Classic Techno Records for People Who Don't Know Shit About Techno

"We need a better conception of Americana, one that is polyglot and profoundly more varied than the dueling banjos of country and blues."

The South Stole Americana

“What I want to do is explore what songwriting means to me, what it is that is going to be my contribution to the music world at large other than interpretation. Because I know I’m always going to be an interpreter. That is something I do well and is something that is important not to lose sight of, but I also feel like I do have a voice to be heard. I want to make sure that there’s something really important being said.”

Learning Curves and Musical Curiosities: An Interview with Rhiannon Giddens

The Passionate Listener

Rainy Day Soul

Links for the Voracious

Source:creativegrowth.org

A fascinating article about the artists and the mission of the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland. All of the artists are developmentally disabled adults and some of them have become highly collectible artists.

Celebrate the new additions to the periodic table with Tom Lehrer's performance of "The Elements."

Lydia Stuckey remembers traveling with and making dresses for Maya Angelou.

This Leslie Jones profile is a portrait of the artist as a comic heroine.

The rediscovery of master abstract painter Sam Gilliam.

Source:georgetowner.com

"And every one of us has the right to tell our story." Tyler Perry's response to the criticism of his work in New York magazine.

Eva Longoria on returning to prime time TV and living a full life away from celebrity culture.

Ashley C. Ford talks about family, the role of mentors in her professional development and making the choice to be a writer.

Source:huffingtonpost.com

It Is Always The Right Time For The Queen of Soul

Celebrate the end of the year with the unimpeachable greatness of Aretha Franklin blessing your ears.

"Evil Gal Blues"-The Steve Allen Show, 1964 

"Bridge Over Troubled Water"- 13th Annual GRAMMY Awards, 1971

"Dr. Feelgood"- Amsterdam, 1968

"Rock Steady"- Soul Train, 1973

"Precious Lord Take My Hand"-1984

"I Say A Little Prayer"- The Cliff Richard Show, 1970

Chimamanda Adichie and Zadie Smith in Conversation at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Zadie Smith interviewed Chimamanda Adichie about her novel "Americanah" at the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for the New York Public Library podcast. It was a jubilant exchange of ideas between two literary superstars. The interview was a rare meeting of two black women authors speaking to one another in a public forum about writing. They talked about "Americanah," the ethos that influenced the novel and the often unheard of experiences of black immigrants in the United States. Here is a sampling of their wide-ranging conversation. 

Listen to the podcast.

Zadie Smith on the women in Chimamanda Adichie's fiction:"What really appeals to me in this book ["Americanah"] was the sense of a position, of an argument. Particularly of women who have not even a moment's doubt about speaking their minds which I think is quite unusual in American fiction. We're always dealing with women in relation to their men or in relation to men as status objects. But the women in your fiction here and in the other novels are somehow always themselves, always confident."

Chimamanda Adichie's on the guiding ethos of "Americanah":
"I've been a dutiful daughter of literature. I have followed the rules. You know, show don't tell, that sort of thing. With "Americanah" I thought I am going to write the book I want to write. The whole idea of pushing the character, not trying to be too obvious, not to hit the reader over the head, I did not think about it with this book. If I hit the reader over the head, I hit the reader over the head."

Chimamanda Adichie on writing strong women:
"The idea of a woman being strong, and simply being strong not to prove anything is normal to me."

Chimamanda Adichie on being a Nigerian immigrant in the United States:
"It is very different to come to the U.S. and to realize that you are something else called black and that there are so many assumptions because of this something else that you are."

"You quickly realize that you are expected to play the "good black" because you are not African American, therefore you're the "good black."

"I don't know. America fascinates me because I think there is almost a willful denial of history, I guess. But really, I keep thinking, how can white people not get it if you know the history of America. Do you know what I mean? And I am a foreigner. I'm sort of looking at it from the outside."


Zadie Smith on being a black British immigrant in the United States:
"When I came here, I guess it's very different in England where blackness is almost obscured. We're all meant to be British. To be here was kind of joyful to have people say to you "sister" in a shop. No black person in England would ever call me "sister" in a million years, unless they were a Rastafarian perhaps."

"In the UK I don't think there is a sense of a positive black identity or a strong black identity. And here, even if it has been created in defense or in response, there is so much that is beautiful in it. So much that feels strengthening. And now, when someone calls me "sister," I find it a very joyful matter."

Chimamanda Adichie on black America:
"The ethnic group I most admire in this country is African Americans. I just don't understand after having read the history how , no seriously, it is very personal to me. I would read the history and cry. Because I would think I don't believe all of this happened and I don't believe a people could come out of it with such grace."

Links for the Voracious

Death

 





Stacia L. Brown explores the narrow world of the personal essay. Tracy K. Smith shares how prose carries memory in a different manner than poetry. Rachel Kaadzi Ghanash remembers her grandfather and his will to survive in rural Louisiana and Los Angeles. Tyger Williams has written two hit movies in his career, twenty-two years apart. The fallacy of school choice.The band Death is getting immortalized at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. If you happen to be in a place where "The Golden Girls" isn't playing three hours a day on basic cable, treat yourself to some quotes and dialogue from Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia. Listen to Tony Geary talk about his career as Luke Spencer, the first anti-hero on daytime television.

Links for the Voracious

 

 

Source: commons.wikimedia.org

 

 

Bengali intellectual M.N. Roy's philosophy of Radical Humanism and his vision for an anti-colonial utopia in Mexico City. English has changed dramatically over the last five hundred years. Documenting the fall and rebirth of the National Natural History Museum in Paris.

 

 

Source: irishtimes.com

 

 

The scientific discovery which shuffles the deck of human history. The practice of photographing enslaved African women in Brazil in the late 1880's. Joan Acocella on Elmore Leonard. The American Dream plays favorites. 

 

 

Harriet by Elizabeth Catlett

Source: elizabethcatlett.org

Celebrating Sonia Sanchez

 

Source: duke.edu

 

 

Sonia Sanchez is a poet and teacher who has stood steadfast in her calling to celebrate and examine the diversity of black American life. Her poetry was an essential element of the Black Arts Movement. Ms. Sanchez's scholarship and activism were key to the development of Black Studies as an academic discipline. Her poems are enlightening calls to action both personal and political. They also inspire reflection and compassion.

 

In honor of Sonia Sanchez's 81st birthday, the legend in her own words.

 

 

 



 

 

"Malcolm"

do not speak to me of martyrdom,
of men who die to be remembered
on some parish day.
i don’t believe in dying
though, I too shall die.
and violets like castanets
will echo me.

yet this man,
this dreamer,
thick lipped with words
will never speak again
and in each winter
when the cold air cracks
with frost I’ll breathe
his breath and mourn
my gunfilled nights.
he was the sun that tagged
the western sky and
melted tiger-scholars
while they searched for stripes.
he said, “fuck you, white
man. we have been
curled too long. nothing
is sacred, not your
white face nor any
land that separates
until some voices
squat with spasms.”

do not speak to me of living.
life is obscene with crowds
of white on black.
death is my pulse.
what might have been
is not for him/or me
but what could have been
floods the womb until I drown.

 

 

 







 

 

 

 

 



Links for the Voracious

Source: ebony.com

 

 

Grace Jones through the lens of Queer history.

 

 

Evelyn C. White offers insight into the pioneering career of Althea Gibson, the first black tennis icon. Ms. Gibson is the subject of the latest PBS American Masters documentary.

 



 

Octavia Butler's "Dawn" is in development for TV.

 

The heroine's journey cannot be told with a single story. SuperSelected has put together a list of 10 movies about young black women on the cusp of adulthood. H/T poc-creators.tumblr.com

 

Mae Jemison shares her thoughts on determination, resilience and focus.

Source: wikimedia.org



Some of the most whimsical and intricate hair and nail art was on display at the Bronner Bros. International Beauty Show in August. NYmag.com produced a slideshow of the artistry.

Source: newpittsburghcourieronline.com



 

 

 

 

 

 





"Citizen: An American Lyric" and the Toll of Black Citizenship

 

Source: Columbia University

 

"Citizen: An American Lyric" is a rumination on the psychic and physical toll of anti-black racism in the U.S. It illuminates the emotional second-guessing black people have become accustomed to in an effort to make sense of the insanity of racism. The heartbreaking implications of casting black people as the 'Other' are at the heart of "Citizen." The reader is asked to bear witness to what black Americans experience daily- casual slights; the assumptions of inferiority; the bizarre, schizophrenic duality of hyper visibility and benign invisibility. 

The poems reveal to the unaware reader that black people are told in thousands of ways their lives do not matter. For the reader who has lived the daily humiliating terrors of racism, "Citizen" gives voice to a reality often too painful to be spoken.

The black citizen is a social construct. The black citizen is a mythical creature both magical and monstrous. The black citizen is the fool and the hustler, the whore, the pimp and the entertainer. The black citizen is anything but a child of God. The black citizen lives without grace, but always grants forgiveness. The black citizen is an enigma. 

Read an excerpt from “Citizen: An American Lyric."

Claudia Rankine in conversation with Bim Adewunmi of BuzzFeed.

Dr. Ainissa Ramirez Brings Science to the People

Source: NPR.org

 

Dr. Ainissa Ramirez, PhD is a materials scientist. She is also a teacher who wants to make science easily understood. In a short video, Ramirez used ice cream to explain how different sizes of ice crystals in snow packs cause avalanches. She also solved the mystery of why melted and re-frozen ice cream doesn't taste good.

Ramirez is one of the teachers NPR is honoring in its "50 Great Teachers: A Celebration of Teaching" series. Acacia Squires wrote an enthralling and educational introduction to Dr. Ramirez and her work on the NPR website.

The inimitable Ms. Hardison

"The lighter the load, the freer the journey." -Bethann Hardison, Stylelikeu interview

The video interview of Bethann Hardison for Stylelikeu's What's Underneath project has been shared thousands of times since being published on June 2, 2015. The legendary model, modeling agency owner and activist shared insight into living a meaningful life while getting undressed. 

The video's popularity is due to Ms. Hardison's captivating presence. She is a thoughtful and curious woman who embraces herself without apology. Ms. Hardison is the essence of cool. 

Watch the stylish and inspirational video. 

http://stylelikeu.com/the-whats-underneath-project-2/bethann-hardison/