Keeping An Open Mind

"To be a great musician, you've got to be open to what's new, what's happening at the moment. You have to be able to absorb it if you're going to continue to grow and communicate."--Miles Davis (1926-1991), jazz trumpeter.

Quoted in Black Pearls: Daily Meditations, Affirmations, and Inspirations for African-Americans by Eric V. Copage (Quill/William Morrow and Company, 1993).

The above photo is of the storied New York jazz venue, the Village Vanguard. Miles Davis was one of many iconic jazz musicians who performed there.

A Jazz Portrait: Nina Simone

Nina Simone (1933-2003), born Eunice Kathleen Waymon. She was called by her admirers the High Priestess of Soul. Her many talents included singer, pianist, and songwriter ("Mississippi Goddam"). Simone was also a noted civil rights activist. This portrait of Simone is by Armando Alleyne (born in November 1959), an artist who lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Worthy November Events

November is National Gratitude Month (What are you grateful for?), National Family Stories Month (A good time to share stories from your family history), and National Family Literacy Month (A good time to get together with family members and share a book or two.)

Books To Read In A Troubled Time

It's time to dust off our copies of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (William Shirer), 1984 (George Orwell), Farenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury), Lord of the Flies (William Golding), The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood), and other dystopian books. They will help us cope with the dark, far right- leaning days ahead. And, I hope, they will motivate us to find ways to overcome them.

If you don't own a copy of these books, visit your local independent bookstore or the public library.

Creepy Stories For Halloween

Here are two very creepy stories that I recently re-read. They are, I think, appropriate reading for Halloween:

The first is "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. It was first published in 1948 in The New Yorker magazine. The ending shocked readers and caused many to angrily cancel their subscription. Jim Freund, the host of Hour of the Wolf, a weekly sci-fi/horror/fantasy talk show on WBAI in New York, calls it the greatest horror story. (The story was anthologized in 50 Great Stories, edited by Milton Crane, Bantam Books, 1983, 46th printing.)

The second story is "The Fly" by George Langelaan. It was published in Playboy magazine in its June 1957 issue and was about a scientific experiment gone wrong. It later became the basis for the 1958 movie and the 1986 remake. (The story was anthologized in Stories of the Supernatural, edited by Betty M. Owen, Scholastic Book Service, 1967 and Pan Book of Horror Stories, edited by Herbert Van Thal, Pan Books, 1960.)

Happy Halloween, folks!

Four Biographical Novels On My To-Read List

I enjoy reading biographies. I especially enjoy reading biographical novels. Because much of what's in these books are "products of the author's imagination," they shouldn't be regarded as completely factual. But unlike biographies, they do offer the reader a you-are-there, fly-on-the-wall, get-inside-the-minds-of-the-characters approach which can be a  more dramatic and captivating experience.

The following are four biographical novels I am eager to read:

1. The Queen of Paris: A Novel of Coco Chanel by Pamela Binnings Ewen (Black Stone Publishing, 2020). According to The Last Collection: A Novel of Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel by Jeanne Mackin (Berkley, 2019), Chanel's archrival in the world of high fashion was Schiaparelli. It will be interesting to see if Schiaparelli makes an appearance in Ewen's novel.

2. Ella: A Novel by Diane Richards (Amistad, 2024), based on the life and career of Ella Fitzgerald, who has been referred to by one jazz radio DJ as "The First Lady of Song."

3. The Blue Period: A Novel by Luke Jerod Kummer (Little A, 2019). The Spanish painter Pablo Picasso is the focus of this book.

4.  The Age of Light: A Novel by Whitney Scharer (Little, Brown and Company, 2019). This debut novel retells and examines the romantic and professional connection between the photographer Lee Miller and the artist Man Ray.

A Book Publisher's Incomplete Name

There was a New York publishing house called Four Walls Eight Windows. That name always sounded incomplete to me. How about Four Walls Eight Windows and One Door?