HED TK

TXT TK

Note: On this day in 1955, actor James Dean was killed in a car collision in California. He was 24 years old.

Why I Love New York In 25 Words

WNYE,Channel 25, a public television station in New York, has a short feature it broadcasts between programs called "Why I Love New York in 25 Words" in which celebrities explain their love for the city. It has inspired me to do the same.

Central Park (especially the Conservatory Garden. I overheard a woman tell her male companion, "This is my peaceful garden. My sanctuary.")

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Harlem (Some of the most beautiful architecture in the city can be found there.)

New York Public Library (A cornucopia of information. A book lover's paradise.)

Museum Mile Festival (At this annual event, all the museums along Fifth Avenue, including the Met, are free.)

Book Culture and the Strand (My two favorite independent bookstores. If I was looking for a hard to find book, I would go to these stores to see if one of them had it.)

Noche Mexicana Restaurant (I love their tacos!)

Mass Transit System (Despite its many problems, it operates 24 hours a day and links most areas of the city for $2.75.)



Note: Poets & Writers magazine (September/October 2019) announced that the Publishing Triangle gave its Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction to Imani Perry for her biography of playwright Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965). The book, Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, was published by Beacon Press. Ms. Perry is a professor at Princeton University.

Last year I attended a conversation she had with Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr. regarding the biography at Harlem's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

HED TK

TXT TK

Harlem Renaissance Redux

What I would like to see is a true second Harlem Renaissance, not the one they say exists today which is really more about real estate and gentrification than anything cultural.

This new movement would rival, maybe surpass, what went on in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s, out of which came such artistic luminaries as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, et al. It would involve every branch of the arts to the nth degree, making use of existing as well as newly created cultural venues.

In my fantasy world, my apartment, which has a large living room, would be at the center of this activity a la A'Lelia Walker's Dark Tower salon on West 136th Street. (Walker, the daughter of the black cosmetics entrepreneur Madame C.J. Walker, was a supporter of the arts during the Harlem Renaissance.)

As a result, Harlem Week, instead of being a month-long series of events in August as it is now, would be year round.

HED TK

TXT TK

Stephen Sondheim On Upper Broadway

In 2018 I attended the "Wall to Wall Leonard Bernstein" program, an eight-hour tribute to the life and work of the conductor/composer/pianist, at Symphony Space, a cultural gem at the corner of 95th Street and Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

This year Symphony Space honored jazz saxophonist John Coltrane with a "Wall to Wall" program that I also attended. I was able to see and hear bassist Reggie Workman and saxophonist Gary Bartz perform live. Both men are jazz legends.

While browsing the theatre's brochure for the 2019/2020 season, I was delighted to learn that in May there will be a "Wall to Wall Stephen Sondheim" program that, like all the previous "Wall to Wall" events, will run for eight hours (3 pm to 11 pm) and will be free to the public (donations are suggested). The program will celebrate Sondheim's creative genius as well as his 90th birthday.

Sondheim, a co-creator of West Side Story (along with Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, and Jerome Robbins), as well as the composer/lyricist of other Broadway shows, is one of my favorite composers. And next year I'll get the chance to hear for the first time his music live in a theatre. All other times have been via television, film, and sound recordings.

A Long-Forgotten Pre-Stonewall Novel

One of my Facebook friends, Michael Schiavi, the biographer of the late gay film historian Vito Russo, posted a photo of the front cover of a book called The Gay Year by M de F (originally published in 1949) and described on the cover as "The revealing novel of two men and a forbidden passion."

The book is probably out of print but I would love to read it. The Strand bookstore in the Chelsea section of Manhattan might have a copy or two in its miles and miles of books.

It would be interesting to see if homosexuality is depicted as sordid, perverse, wicked, and psychotic. If it does, The Gay Year would reflect the attitudes prevalent back then.

I'm hoping the novel was way ahead of its time by showing a more progressive, enlightened view. We'll see.

Mere Clutter Or A Potential Goldmine?

When people enter my apartment for the first time and see piles of newspapers and magazines (and lots and lots of books) everywhere, their reaction tells me that they regard what they see as clutter and a possible fire hazard.

For me in those piles of printed material are potential literary goldmines--stories that are waiting to be clipped and filed and later turned into novels, short stories, poems, essays, screenplays.

What's one man's clutter is another man's treasure.

HED TK

TXT TK

HED TK

TXT TK

HED TK

TXT TK