Moviegoing (Pandemic) - February

I posted a bit on my Blogaversary (Blogiversary?), not too long ago, so I will keep this entry brief. Every day of almost every week day this month was packed with one thing or another, I have been Zooming nonstop yet sitting still (go figure), chairing, conducting remote readings, and so forth. I also have a new book (poetry!) in the works for later this year (wish me luck!).

Here's February's list:

Lupin* (series - I could watch Omar Sy in anything but this was an immense treat)

Plutão (short)

Urano* (Brazilian short by Daniel Nolasco)

The Breeding* (Extremely disturbing, on many levels)

The One You Never Forget* (tender queer short)

Gay Agenda films on HereTV: Bill & Robert, Diary Room, Floss

My Culture (Mario Bobino film, not super memorable)

Pretend It's a City (Scorsese & Leibowitz - it got a bit tiresome after a while, though I'm a fan of his and hers)

The Tall Target* (a historical thriller, starring Dick Powell & Adolphe Menjou & directed by Anthony Mann about a thwarted attempt to assassinate Abe Lincoln)

Ghost Dog, The Way of the Samurai* (an old favorite)

Thomasine & Bushrod* (Gordon Parks' take on the western, starring Vonetta McGee and Max Julien, star of The Mack)

A Season in France* (my introduction to Mahamet- Saleh Haroun & one I highly recommend)

Abouma* (another Mahamet-Saleh Haroun success)

Cotton Comes to Harlem* (Chester Himes' detective novel vividly realized, starring Godfrey Cambridge & yummy Calvin Lockhart & Raymond St. Jacques, directed by Ossie Davis)

Take a Giant Step* (Philip Leacock's 1959 film about a Black teen coming of age in a racist environment, the film stars Ruby Dee, Beah Richards, Estelle Helmsley and budding singing star Johnny Nash ("I Can See Clearly Now"))

Daratt* (translating to Dry Season, this is one of this Mahamet-Saleh Haroun's masterpieces)

A Screaming Man* (another haunting & remarkable film from Mahamet-Saleh Haroun, Chad's gift to the world of filmmaking)

Pressure* (Horace Ové's powerful portrait of 1970s Black London/Britain)

Celebration* (YSL documentary - very good)

The Brother from Another Planet* (an old fave)

Black Lightning* (series, new season - love love love) 

16th Blogiversary

The Translation Project's Black
History Month tweet, from February 21, 2021,
 highlighting my essay "Translating Poetry,
Translating Blackness"

Happy Black History Month and Happy Almost-End-of-February 2021. We are almost a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, and it has been over a year since I posted on this blog. It sometimes amazes me that more than a decade and a half has passed since I first began blogging, back in 2005, during what was a decidedly different time in the online world. Social media platforms as we know them barely existed; blogging was still a somewhat new and exciting activity, though the bloggers who inspired me had been blogging for several years; and people read and commented on blogs, including this one. I have over 2,000 non-spam comments attesting to that. 

16 years later, blogs and blogging do still exist, and the term "the blogs" is often bandied about on reality shows as a catch-all for any site, blog or not. This is the case despite that period perhaps ten years ago when some in the media trumpeted blogging's demise, and despite the proliferation of quasi-blog-like sites, like Tumblr and Instagram, the former of which has done away with words altogether, and both of which are now part of many peoples' daily consumption, even if blogs as they once existed--as they existed in 2005--seldom are. I won't rehearse my blogging history, which is available via a search of this prior blogiversary posts on blog (I started off blogging about poetry and the arts, etc.), but blogging here was, at least for that first year, and certainly for the next decade or so, a vital experience for pondering the sometimes imponderable, conveying some of my enthusiasms and interests, especially across the arts, posting translations, sharing photographs (from daily life, events I attended, my random walks through NYC, Chicago and elsewhere), and just having a scratchpad to play, in written form.

Things began to change demonstrably, I think, in 2014-2015 when I began chairing a department. My free time increasingly disappeared, which meant that that I had to rearrange my priorities, with some things suffering more than others, among them blogging. (A colleague queried whether I had In 2013, my second year at Rutgers-Newark (I was acting chair for part of that year) I blogged 140 times; by 2014 it had fallen to 59. I made an effort over the next few years to blog a bit more and got up to 78 and 71 blog posts, successively, in 2015 and 2016, but my entries plummeted in 2017. In 2018, I again made a strong push to blog, and nearly reached 100 posts, but most of them that year appeared during National Poetry Month, and by the end of the year, I was down to a 1-a-month trickle. Two years ago I only managed six posts, a miracle I sometimes think, in that I had one of my busiest and most draining years in academe, and I think I consciously tried to post something, though the results were, as the total underscores, paltry. 

This past year, the Covid-19 pandemic, which is still very much with us, didn't result in a flood of posts, but rather a feeling of PTSD-style wordlessness, at least in terms of blogging, that I am still trying to process. I had a few blog stubs I began, and I will try to finish some of them, even if they consist mostly of links and images, but I also feel like the silence--the absence of posts--is testimony to what has transpired over these last 17 months (since February of 2020). Most of the people who were blogging when I began or who started during the last 16 no longer do so, at least regularly, though Gukira bucks that trend, with entries that are always rich, subtle, lyrical, and distinctive, however brief. This month he continues his readings of Dionne Brand's remarkable 2018 collection The Blue Clerk. I keep thinking that I will again be able to find the time and focus to blog, but I also increasingly feel, as I pointed out in a blog several years back, reading itself appears  fallen by the wayside, and videos, whether on Youtube or IG's stories--which Facebook, tellingly, has adopted, even though it owns Instagram--or TikTok, accompanied by music and each with its own distinctive set of active participants, have become increasingly predominant, so perhaps even occasional posts, as loose and free as possible, might be the thing to aim for.

One of the many types of blog posts I tried to include over the years entailed reviews, of films, series videos, and books of course, and I feel proudest of some of those, which still hold up. One of my most read posts (4,100 views) is a short review of Christopher Honoré's 2010 feature film Homme au bain, starring the writer Dennis Cooper and the porn star François Sagat. Perhaps its stars drew more readers than most of my other posts, though I think it provided a helpful introduction to the film, the best I have seen by Honoré. I also have been able to write about more recent offerings like Terence Nance's 2018 Afrofuturist masterpiece series Random Acts of Flyness (one of the strangest and most original things I have ever seen on TV), Boots Riley's 2018 film Sorry to Bother You (I dream of more films like this!), and John Trengove's 2018 film Inxeba (Wound), which also spurred a series of typically, thoughtfully dazzling responses from Gukira (Ke'guro). One of my favorite films, which I haven't seen in years, is Tsai Ming-Liang's slow, astonishing Goodbye, Dragon Inn. I remember watching it and thinking, the viewership for a film like this is probably very small, but I most certainly am one of those cineastic people, yet in reviewing it, I tried to make it legible for a wider array of potential viewers. Perhaps if and when I find the opportunity I'll try a few more reviews this year, so keep an eye out.

I'll wind down here, and say that I feel like I've accomplished something just by posting something on this blog today. (I also deleted a slew of spam comments, which also felt like an achievement!) I am still chairing and teaching (including a graduate novel workshop this semester) and supervising theses, all via Zoom (like everyone else), every day of every week feels even more busy than usual (each seems to be triple-booked at a minimum in terms of Zoom meetings, calls, etc.), and my stack of required reading grows and grows, but it feels invigorating even to have gotten this far in this post. It is here. It is done. & I am going to try to post more.

Moviegoing (Pandemic) - January

A new year has begun and we are already at the end of its first month, though not without drama. On January 6, 2021, supporters of DJT attempted to storm the Capitol and overturn a legitimate election in which Joe Biden and Kamala Harris soundly and roundly defeated DJT and Mike Pence. In addition to extensive damage, several dead cops, one dead coup participant, unfulfilled threats to kill the sitting Vice President (some of the coup participants erected a gallows outside the Capitol and others chanted "Hang Mike Pence") and extensive destruction to the buildings, as DJT watched on, failing to quell the violence, the House and Senate were able to certify Biden's victory and he is now President of the United States. Covid-19's strains are still raging, but there are vaccines, social distancing continues, we have adapted in ways large and small at home, at work and in the wider world, and while we're not out of the abyss, there seems to be path upward and forward. My January films included:

Hasaki Ya Suda*

Twaaga*

The French Lieutenant's Woman* (I read Fowles' novel before I saw the film years ago & both, I must say, are very good)

Ministry of Fear*

The Age of Swordfish

Easter in Sicily

The Pub

Snuck Off the Slave Ship*

Lo Cal Hero

Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask

Les Saignantes* (I want to see much more by this director)

Yeelen* (remarkable)

Phoenix

White Elephant

Zumbi Child*

Blackmail

Kill List

Sorry We Missed You

Draw Me Now

Intimate Stranger

Space Is the Place* (I love Sun Ra & this film)

Marianne & Julianne

Mon Oncle*

Date with Dizzy*

Moonbird*

Dadli*

Flores* (I watched it again, it's short & beautiful)

Money Movers

Rome, Open City* (a classic)

Persona* (I have watched this film maybe 10 times!)

Poetry In Motion*

The Grass Is Always Greener

What Women Want: Gay Romance

Living for the Weekend* (series)

The Boys of Rio

Stranger than Paradise* (an old fave) 

Happy New Year (2021)!

At the Oculus, WTC, NYC

May this year bring us all much better tidings than the relentless, Covid-19-ridden horrorshow of 2020! Health, prosperity, healing, hope, love & real change!

Happy New Year!

Feliz año nuevo

Feliz Ano Novo

Bonne année

Buon Anno e tanti auguri

Kull 'aam wa-antum bikhayr

Aliheli'sdi Itse Udetiyvasadisv

Na MwakaMweru wi Gikeno

Feliĉan novan jaron

聖誕快樂 新年快樂 [圣诞快乐 新年快乐]

Bliain úr faoi shéan is faoi mise duit

Nava Varsh Ki Haardik Shubh Kaamnaayen

Ein gesundes neues Jahr

Mwaka Mwena

Pudhu Varusha Vaazhthukkal

Afe nhyia pa

Ufaaveri aa ahareh

Er sala we pîroz be

سال نو

С наступающим Новым Годом

šťastný nový rok

Manigong Bagong Taon sa inyong lahat

Feliç Any Nou

Yeni yılınızı kutlar, sağlık ve başarılar dileriz

نايا سال مبارک هو

Emnandi Nonyaka Omtsha Ozele Iintsikelelo

Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa

Chronia polla

Szczesliwego Nowego Roku

Kia pai te Tau Hou e heke mai nei

Shinnen omedeto goziamasu (クリスマスと新年おめでとうございます)

IHozhi Naghai

a manuia le Tausaga Fou

Paglaun Ukiutchiaq

Naya Saal Mubarak Ho

(International greetings courtesy of Omniglot and Jennifer's Polyglot Links; please note a few of the phrases may also contain Christmas greetings)

Moviegoing (Pandemic) - December

It seems almost unreal that 2020, this tumultous year, is coming to an end. There are positive signs on the horizon when it comes to Covid-19--vaccines, with more on the way!--though we are still not out of the woods. The same is true with the US as a whole; it remains to be seen if DJT will leave office peacefully, since he has continued to claim the election was stolen--it wasn't, he lost handily--and the recovery, on every level, after four years of his tenure, particularly the horrendous year that just concluded, will require a herculean effort. I did keep watching movies during December (Criterion featured an Afrofuturist-focused curated set to end the year) and here they are:

Crumbs* (Miguel Llansó's post-apocalyptic trip across the Ethiopian desert)

My Culture

T

Afronauts* (a reimaging of the space race from a Zambian perspective)

White In, Black Out* (one of Brazil's most exciting young Afro-Brazilian filmmakers, from Brasília & a revelation) 

Robots of Brixton* (a short triumph from Kibwe Tavares)

Ballad of Genesis & Lady Jane* (documentary about Genesis Breyer P-Orridge & his wife Lady Jaye's ongoing Pandrogyne project)

The Awful Truth* (classic screwball film centering on divorce & featuring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne - what's not to like)

Zombies*

Once There was Brasilia* (another Adirley Queirós film that rocked my world)

The Changing Same* (a gem from Cauleen Smith)

Entertainment* (Rick Alverson's portrait of a truly bizarre, broken comedian)

The Becoming Box (Afrofuturist short)

Hannah Arendt* (severe but effective, from Margarethe von Trotta)

Torch

Jonah* (Kibwe Tavares's short featuring Daniel Kaluuya and playing off the Biblical story)

Holiday* (Katharine Hepburn is so peppy & brittle in this film it's unreal)

1968 < 2018 > 2068* (Keisha Rae Witherspoon's 7-minute meditation on the future)

The Go-Between* (one of my favorite Joseph Losey films, starring Julie Christie, with a Pinter screenplay, and tackling the potentially dire ramifications of the intersections of class and desire)

The Eloquent Peasant* (Chadi Abdel Salam's short set in around 2160 BC)

To Die Like a Man (João Pedro Rodrigues's take on a trans woman's attempt to grapple with her past and present)

The Undoing (a Ryan Crepack film I didn't full vibe with)

Four Women* (Julie Dash - I wish she'd gotten so much more money & support to direct so much more)

Illusions* (a Julie Dash fave)

Pool Sharks* (WC Fields)

The Golf Specialist (WC Fields)

Queen Sono* (I enjoyed the series but felt it should have been extended)

Cat People* (I saw the 1982 version when it debuted & later the Jacques Tourneur version, which was this one - I like it better than the update)

The Legend of Rita* (another Schlöndorff political thriller that was really well written & directed & gave a sense of the stakes of ultraradical politics)

The Ogre (nowhere near as good as the Tournier novel)

Tchoupitoulas* (a documentary about seeing New Orleans, from the perspective of three young Black New Orleanians)

Wild Strawberries* (Bergman is so severe but so talented)

Caché* (a Haneke psychological thriller that's unsolvable through logic)

The Best Man* (the Schaffner film from 1964, written by Gore Vidal, based on his play, not the later romantic comedy starring Taye Diggs, which I also love)

The Public Enemy* (Jimmy Cagney, in one of his best roles, as a White street hustler who attempts to rise in the world of organized crime)

The Comedy* (I cannot state enough how disturbing this film, by Rick Alverson, truly is; it is White male trolling elevated to the level of art)

The Body Beautiful (Ngozi Onwurah's short about her White mother's experience with breast cancer)

The Chase (Brando & Jane Fonda, directed by Arthur Penn, written by Horton Foote & Lillian Hellman - still fell a bit flat for me)

My Favorite Wife (more Cary Grant & Irene Dunne)

Industry* (series)

Cheer* (series)

Catharsis (I think this is the Cédric Prévost film about filmmaking and spectatorship--but I can't remember beyond writing the name down)

 

Moviegoing (Pandemic) October-November

I've already blogged about the election, which turned DJT out of office (if he leaves, that is, for which there is no guarantee) and will bring back Joe Biden, this time as president, with Kamala Harris as VP. So much else has gone on over the last few months that I basically smushed the two together, so instead of individual entries for October and November, here's my tally for both months. It's a long list, but an interesting one. One thing I'll note again is that it was refreshing to see both Criterion Channel and Amazon Prime respond, in their differing ways, to the Floyd murder and the Black Lives Matter push, with diverse and unexpected offerings. What remains to be seen is how long this lasts. The other streaming channels (Netflix notwithstanding), like the cable TV ones, need to up their games.

My list for the two months:

Beau Travail* (an old fave)

Career Girls* (I'd always heard about this film & it was worth the wait)

Suburbia (a 1984 Penelope Spheeris that felt less engaging than many films from that era on a similar theme)

Tomboy* (one of Céline Sciamma's best)

Viridiana* (a film of considerable formal and plot restraint that is nevertheless quite outrageous)

Luminous Motion (Bette Gordon realist film from 1998)   

Variety* (I watched it again!)

Born in Flames* (Lizzie Borden's masterpiece, IMHO)

Calendar* (Atom Egoyan film about a woman who decides to stay in Armenia once her husband finishes his photographic assignment & heads home to Canada - visually striking & full of Egoyan's signature touches)

Lola Montès* (the Max Ophüls masterpiece I first read about years before actually being able to watch it; this was my 3rd viewing)

Henry Gamble's Birthday Party (a good introduction to Stephen Cone's oeuvre if you haven't ever watched one of his films)

The Gates* (I saw this in real time--the exhibit inaugurated this blog!--& the film was a delight)

The Headless Woman* (by the director of La Ciénaga--I definitely want to watch this again)

Pauline Alone (one of my first introductions to the work of Janicza Bravo)

Salut les Cubains* (Agnès Varda, introducing viewers--me--to revolutionary Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez)

Vitalina Varela* (a performance so searing you won't soon forget it--my favorite of Pedro Costa's films that I've seen so far)

Affirmations* (Marlon Riggs--love love love)

100 Boyfriends Mix Tape* (Brontez Purnell)

Lovecraft Country* (series)

Two Drifters (a João Pedro Rodrigues film from 2005; not among my top films by him but suitably strange and full of unexpected twists)

A Drop of Sun Under the Earth* (Shikeith Cathey's marvelous short)

Anthem*

The Joy of Life* (Jenni Olson's lesbian hymn to San Francisco)

2001: A Space Odyssey* (one of my all-time faves)

Mildred Pierce* (Joan Crawford's greatest role)

The Ornithologist* (the incomparable João Pedro Rodrigues at his best--utterly bizarre and unpredictable yet still able to weave everything together)

O Fantasma* (Rodrigues's first major international success & one I've seen many times now)

Videodrome* (an old Cronenberg fave)

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum* (jointly directed by Volker Schlôndorff & Margarethe von Trotte, this is a ironic political film in the best sense & one you seldom if ever get from Hollywood these days)

Burroughs: The Movie

The Night of Counting the Years* (Shadi Abdel Salam's version of The Mummy, but really a neo-realistic, groundbreaking essay in filmmaking)

Flores* (visually arresting)

Coffee Colored Children* (Ngozi Onwurah's experimental film about growing up mixed-race in the UK)

Jáaji* (Hopkinka films)

Anti-Objects of Space Without Boundaries*

Lore* 

A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness* (a Ben Russell film, starring Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe -- whew!!!)

Terence Nance films*: Swimming in Your Skin Again, Their Fall Our All, No Ward, Jimi Could Have Fallen from the Sky, You and I and You

8th Continent* (compelling short about the aftermath of migrancy and refugee arrivals)

Buck Privates* (Abbott & Costello film - pure silliness)

Accident* (Joseph Losey's campus entanglement film, starring Dirk Bogarde, Stanley Baker, Michael York, Delphine Seyrig, and Vivien Merchant, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter)

Welcome to the Terrordome* (Ngozi Onwurah's groundbreaking SF film)

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty* (A Terence Nance joint, very inventive)

A Dream Is What You Wake From* (Third World Newsreel's documentary film about three Black women and their lives)

Tender Game* (animation by John Hubley)

Totally F***** Up* (perhaps my favorite Gregg Araki film & his most racially diverse - I watched it again)

Working Girls* (Lizzie Borden's feminist film about a young woman trying to fund her own business and the steps she has to take, including sex work, to get there)

The Dark Past* (William Holden vehicle about a psychopathic hostage taker, starring Lee J. Cobb as a psychiatrist)

Mangrove (Small Axe)* - (this and the other Steve McQueen mini-films are some of my favorites of his work. I wish he'd make many more)

The Homecoming* (an adaptation of Pinter's brilliant, frightening play--I'm a huge fan of Pinter's but I appreciated this cinematic adaptation)

Vente et Loquamur (Hopinka)

Wawa (Hopkina)

When You're Lost in the Rain (Hopinka)

The Crown* (series, Season 4 - when is this show never not entertaining?)

The Wise Kids (another Stephen Cone film)

Portugays* (O Ninho) (A series about queer 20-somethings in Porto Alegre, Southern Brazil)

Conframa* (series, new season)

Freefall

Borat

 

Joe Biden & Kamala Harris Have Won

President-Elect Joe Biden Jr.
& Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris

This has been a nightmarish year on so many levels, from the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, to the Ahmed Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor murders, as well as many others, at the hands of police and extrajudicial forces, to the current economic crisis (the second major one in less than two decades, yet again under an inept Republican administration) and ballooning wealth and resource inequality, to the devastating effects of climate change (hurricanes and tropical storms, wildfires, etc.), and on and on, but if I can identify one possible ray of light, troubled though it may be, it would be the Joe Biden's and Kamala Harris's historical and groundbreaking defeat of Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the recent presidential election. Four years of malign incompetence, brazen criminality, incoherent domestic and external policies all keyed to and driven by the narcissistically warped vision thankfully met with a major NO MORE from US voters, and now Biden and Harris are the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect of the US, and will, attempted coups by Trump and the GOP notwithstanding, assume office on January 20, 2021.

They defeated Trump despite the Covid-19 pandemic (or, more likely, as a result of his catastrophically horrendous response to it), which meant markedly reduced in person campaigning and canvassing by Democrats; evident and relentless voter suppression across the US; threats of continued Russian interference; Trump's seeming attempts to destroy the United States Post Office by appointing as Postmaster General his supporter Louis DeJoy, who gutted branches all over the US by removing sorting machines and reducing hours; and a steady drumbeat of disinformation, misinformation, and anti-voting rhetoric from the President, his supporters, various other agents of disruption, and at times the legacy media, which amplified--rather than countering--Trump's message of a "rigged election" and "voter fraud." (We very well may look back and find that in fact he was, as usual, projecting about his own attempts to steal the election this year.)

In the end, Biden and Harris received more than 80+ million total votes, the most ever, 7 million more than Trump and Pence's 73+ million, and 306 electoral votes, the exact total Trump received in 2016, when, despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, he labeled his victory a "landslide." The Biden-Harris combo won back three states-Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania--that Barack Obama had won in 2008 and 2012, but which Clinton lost in 2016 by slender margins, while also winning two more, Arizona and Georgia, that a Democratic presidential candidate had not won since Bill Clinton in the 1990s. They make history with Harris becoming the first woman Vice President, first Black woman VP, and the first Asian American VP.  She also is the first graduate of an Historically Black College or University (HBCU) to serve as VP, and the first member of a Black sorority to hold that office as well. She will be the second VP not to be White (Charles Curtis was the first) and the second in an interracial marriage. Biden will be the oldest man elected to the presidency, and the second Roman Catholic president, and a decidedly devout one, after JFK. 

The next President and Vice President
of the United States of America

Ideologically Biden has tended to be a conservative to moderate Democrat, with a problematic legislative history, especially during his Senate tenure, of support for racist, pro-corporate policies, while Harris, at least in the US Senate, is considered one of the most liberal US Senators based on her voting record, though her records while California's and San Francisco's Attorneys General were more mixed, sometimes quite progressive and at other times conservative (pro-police). (I should note that in the Democratic Presidential primary I again voted for Bernie Sanders, but have contributed the campaigns of both Harris and Biden.) Both have expressed support for and voted for neoliberal economic and social policies in the past, and during the primary campaign, neither would consistently commit to programs that progressive and Democratic Socialist branches of the party endorsed, like Medicare for All or Single Payer health insurance, or the comprehensive Green New Deal. That does not mean, however, that they cannot be pushed towards more comprehensive, popular, paradigm-shifting policies, but their political backgrounds, especially Biden's suggest moderate rather than radical changes. But I am going into the next four years with clear eyes, and have set my expectations low. The first tests of this will be how they deal with this pandemic, which has worsened as Trump's malignant time in office winds toward its close.

Whatever they do achieve will depend in significant part on which party controls the US Senate, whose fate hangs in the balance as Georgia's two Senate seats head to runoffs, but also will hinge on the Democrats' ability to retain their control of the House, where their margins for error plummeted as Republicans regained a number of the seats they lost in the 2018 midtarms. How Biden will govern given the challenges, which mount daily, facing the country and his administration, remains to be seen, but if he can take any lessons from Trump's four years, and the eight Biden served as VP under Obama, they might include grasping the nature of the contemporary zombie Republican Party and its overriding goal of nihilistically holding power; the appeal of economically populist policies and politics and the effect of government largess for the 99% (remember 2012?) vs. the abject failure of neoliberal capitalist orthodoxy and libertarianism, especially amidst a pandemic and its aftermath; the importance of transparency, openness and regular communication with the nation; liberal interventionism in foreign policy should be a dead letter from now on; and the absolutely fundamental concept of not forgetting and ignoring your base voters, as Obama frequently seemed to and Trump never did, which, in Biden's case, comprises Black and other BIPOC voters, especially Black women, young people (Gen Z and millennials), seniors, urbanites and many suburbanites, educated middle class voters, and working-class and poor voters, even if and as he works to expand his coalition. 

It is one thing to clean house when it comes to Trump's lawlessness, recklessness and incompetence, but replicating the worst aspects of the Obama years will imperil not only Biden's tenure and doom Democrats but the nation and the globe. I cannot predict how the next four years will turn out, but it will be refreshing to have Trump out of the White House, whatever damage he attempts as a private citizen, and, as when Obama was president, we will have to press Biden and Harris, as FDR said, to do what is needed; in fact, echoing FDR, we will need to make him (them) do the right things, for all of our sakes.

Moviegoing (Pandemic) - September

The number of films & series I watched this past month dwindled to its lowest level since March, for a range of reasons, not least my slow and steady recuperation, though an ultrasound late this month showed healing (thank the gods). The pandemic rages, classes have begun, online, I have new colleagues in the MFA program, a new (longstanding but with a new position) colleague in Africana Studies, Rutgers-Newark has a new Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, and Rutgers University (all three campuses) has a new president, Jonathan Holloway (I served on the committees that selected all of them). Fingers crossed things will work out OK in all cases.

As for the movies:

The Future (a Miranda July film that didn't hit)

The Third Generation* (Fassbinder's take on radical left politics in West Germany)

Town Bloody Hall* (the deliciousness of seeing Norman Mailer getting his public comeuppance drums on like a tattoo)

Zama* (the original di Benedetto novel is brilliant and Lucrecia Martel's adaptation is superb)

Duck Soup* (an old favorite)

Lost in America* (an old fave)

Princess Cyd* (a queer coming of age film by Stephen Cone)

The Wise Kids* (the first Stephen Cone film I'd ever watched)

Bacurau (this was hyped but fell flat for me)

La Ciénaga* (one of the month's highlights)

Personal Problems, Part 2*

Imagine the Sound* (an old favorite)

Black Narcissus*

The Last Tree* (Shola Amoo's exploration of a young Black man from rural England who moves to London)

Residue* (Meriwa Gerima's version)

Dames

Wolf* (Ya'ke Smith's 2012 film)

Before I Do 

 

Moviegoing (Pandemic) - August

It is hard to believe that August is here and gone. I have been hobbling around, having torn (or severely strained) a tendon behind my knee, and trying to avoid the heat, as well as Covid-19, which continues its rampage. This month I watched fewer movies and TV shows than any of the prior months, for a variety of reasons (see above), but I did watch at least 20, and here they are:

Bolden (I had been waiting on this one, in part because it starred Gary Carr and because of its long production history, and it was a bit of a bust)

Push Comes to Shove (a Bill Plympton animated feature)

Sun Don't Shine* (an Amy Seimetz film, full of mystery)

The Lonedale Operator* (a Guy Madden short, focusing on none other than John Ashbery, though not his poem of the same name)

Sabotage* (a still compelling thriller)

The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith* (heartbreaking and powerful)

Rafiki* (a gem of African queer cinema)

Snows of Grenoble* (a documentary on the 1968 Winter Olympics, featuring one of the greatest skiers of all time, Jean-Claude Killy)

Suzanne, Suzanne* (Camille Billops's compelling 1982 documentary

Wolf (a bizarre film with lycanthropic elements I'd probably have to watch again)

Happy-Go-Lucky* (Mike Leigh's character study of a relentlessly happy teacher)

Losing Ground* (a Kathleen Collins fave & testament to her originality & talent)

Things to Come* (Isabelle Huppert in one of her better performances)

Personal Problems, Part 1* (Ishmael Reed's highly original series--what if independent series had taken off in this vein rather than the ones they did?)

Bill Gunn Interview*

Foreign Correspondent*

Gohatto* (my favorite Nagisa Oshima film--visually it's exquisite)

Don't Look Now* (haunting 1970s thriller)

Moviegoing (Pandemic) - July

145,000+ people in the US have officially died from Covid-19 and the totals of those who've gotten it once or multiple times far exceeds that number. The US continues to stagger forward, in crisis and chaos, under DJT's misrule. I kept up my moviewatching, though I tallied far fewer films this month than prior ones. Here's my July 2020 total:

Aguirre, Wrath of God*

Made in U.S.A.*

Detour

Their Own Desire

Red Road

The Human Factor

Between the Lines*

Me and You and Everyone We Know* (I loved this film when it came out but I felt a bit more critical of it this time through)

Love Is the Devil* (Francis Bacon!)

Sleepwalk

Soleil Ô* (Med Hondo's film was a highlight for the month)

Young Ahmed* (chilling but a sharp psychological portrait of fanaticism)

Dear Mom

Birthright

Zora Neale Hurston's Fieldwork Footage*

My Own Private Idaho* (an old fave)

Death in Venice*

Sidewalk Stories* (an old fave--so good)

Stille Nacht

In Absentia (the Quay brothers, enough said)

The Scar of Shame* (I first saw this in a Black film class in college)

Border Radio* (rewatched)

The Exile

Barbarella* (very light entertainment)

Company: The Original Cast Album* (I love this film and the musical as well)

Vazante* (a lovely historical film from Brazil, by Daniela Thomas)

The Lovebirds (Issa Rae & Kumail Nanjani but it didn't gel for me)

Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado* (magnificent!) 

Moviegoing (Pandemic) - June

The horrors--the pandemic continues, with 120,000 now officially reported dead (and who knows how many deaths remain unreported), the aftermath of George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police, the steady tide of state murders, the growing protests against the administration and the state security apparatus, the administrative crisis plaguing the federal government, the general sense of chaos and misrule....I won't list the roll of devastation except to note that the economy is cratering, people continue to get sick and die from Covid-19, the administration's and countless others' disinfo and misinfo continue, and we are supposed, somehow, to function. Make it make sense! (I also rang in my birthday and thanked the gods I made it to another year, so far Covid-free.) Perhaps in response to the ongoing catastrophe I did watch more movies this past month than during prior ones. I think my tally exceeded 40. Does that sound right?

Movies & TV shows watched during June:

Greetings from Africa

Symphony in Black*

A Rhapsody of Negro Life* 

Totally F***** Up*

The Owls

Hoagy Carmichael

Variety*

Janine

A Bundle of Blues

Je, Tu, Il, Elle* (It wasn't what I thought but it's still groundbreaking)

She Don't Fade* (one of my favorite of Cheryl Dunye's films)

The Potluck and the Passion*

St. Louis Blues

Artie Shaw's Swing Class

And When I Die I Won't Stay Dead* (Bob Kaufman, resurrected in this documentary)

Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho

People Like Us

Bazodee* (a Trinidadian love story)

Pretty Dudes 

Homecoming* (series, season 2)

El Violinista* (a stunning documentary about a young Haitian violinist who heads to the DR & resumes his passion for the violin)

A Miami Love Story*

Kafou* (Haitian filmmaking with wit)

Before I Do

Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie* (Buñuel at his late career best)

The Dark Past

The Fountainhead (as bad as I remembered)

Tristana*

Vanilla Sex

A Rhapsody in Black and Blue* 

Audience* (Lesbian filmmaking pioneer Barbara Hammer's film about the impact of her work with audiences around the country)

Guerrillière Talks* (Vivienne Dick's experimental shorts)

Two Knights of Vaudeville*

Dirty Gertie from Harlem* (landmark early Black cinema)

Urban Rashomon (my favorite Khalik Allah entry on Criterion Channel)

Water Lilies* (a Céline Sciamma gem)

Angst Ist Seele Auf / Ali: Fear Eats the Soul* (an old fave)

My Josephine* (early Barry Jenkins)

Portrait of Jason* (one of the all-time great, complicated Black queer portraits, esp. for its era) 

Moviegoing (Pandemic) - May

The pandemic continues, as does life these days in all of its strangeness. This past month 38,000+ Americans died from Covid-19 related causes, and 65,000+ died in April. The scenes in New York, the disparate impact here in New Jersey, the vulnerability of frontline workers and Black and Latinx Americans, the poor and working-class and elderly in urban areas, all juxtaposed with the scattered government response, fills me with dread. And then there was the police murder of George Floyd, as cameras rolled, on May 23 of this month. Four cops, led by Derek Chauvin, pinned Floyd down and choked the life out of him. The disposibility of Black life, already amplified by countless other state murders and this pandemic's toll, was made clear to everyone in this country and across the globe. BLACK LIVES MATTER, a phrase as important today as it ever has been.

During the interstices of my days out of solace and engagement I did continue watching movies and here is my tally for May:

Homecoming* (season 1)

Mauvais Sang*

The Juniper Tree* (this film gave me nightmares--Björk, I hate to blame you, but....)

Wuthering Heights (the 2011 version)

Aves* (by my namesake Nietzchka Keene)

Still

Elles

Separate Tables*

You Were Never Lovelier

The Pawnbroker*

Unknown Pleasures* (Jia Zhangke, you know it's going to be a banger!)

Cane River* (a standout for me)

Bless Their Little Hearts* (Billy Woodberry's heartbreaker--so beautiful)

Bunny Lake Is Missing* (a thriller, starring Olivier and Carol Lynley)

The Fits* (a moving glimpse at Black girlhood)

I Am Not a Witch* (a Zambian entry by Rungano Nyoni--I recommend it)

Listen* (a fascinating film about a family in crisis)

Pygmalion*

Staying Vertical* (Alain Guiraudie's unusual & always queer takes merit a viewing)

So Dark the Night

Bonjour Tristesse

Border Radio*

David Holzmann's Diary (I couldn't get into this film)

That Obscene Object of Desire* (an old fave--I could watch anything by Buñuel)

Diamantino (interesting but I wasn't feeling it)

Al fin y al Cabo

The Chadwick Chronicles (series 1 & 3)

Undercover* (series)

A Quiet Place

LUV Don't Live Here

People Like Us (series)

As I Am

Chem Sex* (grim but revelatory) 

Moviegoing (Pandemic) - April

Last month I tallied up all the films I'd watched throughout March as the pandemic wrought havoc, and I noted that I would try to continue doing so, if possible. The pandemic rages and my moviegoing (at home) proceeded accordingly. To quote last month's post: 

One thing I decided to do this month, since I have found it hard to concentrate on non-work-related reading, is to watch films, and so I'm listing the films and TV shows I watched this month, and plan to do so, if I can, for the foreseeable future. These films and TV shows have been a balm, an education, a conversation, points of departure, entryways into critique and deeper thought, and so forth. My filmwatching was not systematic and, as you'll see, heavier on features and shorts than on documentaries (though I did watch some). There may be duplicates and the list is likely incomplete, as my level of distraction is at an all-time high. I won't include descriptions for all of them but I may star films I felt stood out, and provide some other indicator for films that were particular duds. I also am listing them in the order I watched them and not alphabetically (unless otherwise indicated). I watched most on the Criterion Channel, Netflix, Kanopy, HereTV, Hulu, HBOMax, Youtube, and various cable channels, of course.

Here are my April 2020 films:

The Draughtsman's Contract* (Peter Greenaway's marvelously strange 1982 offering)

Vertical Features (remake)

Windows*

Intervals

Raging Sun, Raging Sky* (Julián Hernández's striking essay in queer desire--remarkable)

A Walk Through H

The Naked Prey

The Wonders

Corpo Celeste* (my intro to Alice Rohrwacher, one of Italy's best contemporary directors)

Blackboard Jungle* (an old fave)

Diva* (an old fave)

Day of the Condor*

Thank God It's Friday*

H is for House

The Eyes of Laura Mars*

Shaft*

Affair in Trinidad

So Dark the Night

Pixote* (always stuns me with its candor & brutality)

Slightly French

Canterbury Tales* (Pasolini's brilliance on display)

A Dandy in Aspic* (an Anthony Mann-Laurence Harvey confection, worth seeing)

Targets (very disturbing and apropos for today)

The Flying Ace* (early Black American cinema--do not miss this if you can catch it)

Veiled Aristocrats* (early Black American cinema)

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters* (I was enthralled by this film when I was in my 20s) 

Brother (NF)

Surface Tension

And Breathe Normally* (interesting film about migration, social tension, etc. in Europe)

Miriam Miente* (a moving Dominican film about a young Afro-Dominican girl)

Sócrates* (what a performance by the lead)

Ka Bodyscapes* (queer Indian cinema)

Conframa (series)

Onisciente* (series)

Sintonia (series)

Martyr 

Moviegoing (Pandemic) - March

Earlier this year, and particularly this month, a horror the likes of which we haven't seen in some time, a deadly viral pandemic, SARS-Covid-19, descended upon the USA and globe, shaking the country to its core and necessitating a shift to very different modes of living. Covid-19 has led to scenes unimaginable perhaps since the Spanish influenza epidemic 100 years ago across the country, but particularly in New York, New Jersey and other densely packed urban areas. In our case, it has meant making sure loved ones are safe and healthy, having classes and meetings moved online (to Zoom, Webex and online platforms, more email, etc.), engaging in multiple forms of social distancing and far fewer trips to the store, post office, etc., masking, greater vigilance around handwashing, etc., and trying to make sense of the conflicting array of misinformation, disinformation and so forth coming out of this administration (is anyone surprised). Earlier this month the president appeared to suggest ingesting bleach was the right response (!), and his government has repeatedly downplayed the pandemic and its devastating effects, creating confusion instead of badly needed clarity about how to proceed. I fear the final toll once we get through all of this--we will--in terms of the dead, those with lingering illness, the social, economic and political fallout, and more. It is a catastrophe in every way and looks to only become more so by the day.

One thing I decided to do this month, since I have found it hard to concentrate on non-work-related reading, is to watch films, and so I'm listing the films and TV shows I watched this month, and plan to do so, if I can, for the foreseeable future. These films and TV shows have been a balm, an education, a conversation, points of departure, entryways into critique and deeper thought, and so forth. My film-watching was not systematic and, as you'll see, heavier on features and shorts than on documentaries (though I did watch some). There may be duplicates and the list is likely incomplete, as my level of distraction is at an all-time high. I won't include descriptions for all of them but I may star films I felt stood out, and provide some other indicator for films that were particular duds. I also am listing them in the order I watched them and not alphabetically (unless otherwise indicated). I watched most on the Criterion Channel, Netflix, Kanopy, HereTV, Hulu, HBOMax, Youtube, and various cable channels, of course.

Here goes: March 2020:

The Defiant Ones* (I've seen this before & especially appreciate Poitier's performance)

Nadja in Paris* (Rohmer short)

Liberian Boy*

Atlantiques (short)*

Paper Moon* (an old favorite)

Look at Me

The Taste of Others*

A Thousand Suns* (the Mati Diop film, focusing on the star of Mambéty's Touki Bouki)

Edge of the City*

The Hunger* (an old fave)

Gilda*

Art School Confidential (seen several times & enjoyable even with its flaws)

You'll Never Get Rich (I loved the dancing, esp. Rita Hayworth)

Ghost World* (an old fave)

The Cruz Brothers & Miss Molloy (one of Kathleen Collins' 2 films she completed before her untimely death)

Through a Glass Darkly* (dramatic Bergman)

The Girl from Chicago* (an early Black film, from 1932)

Close-Up* (Kiarostami's 1990 gem)

The Day of the Locust (West's novel is a work of genius but the film falls a little short)

They Call Me Mr. Tibbs!*

Brother John* (strange but beautiful film)

The Milky Way*

The Swimmer* (as haunting as Cheever's short story but in a different way)

A Girl Walks Home at Night*

Black Panthers* (A Varda gem)

The Entertainer* (I cannot get Olivier's performance out of my head)

Sea Devil

Sacrilège

The Skin I Live In* (Almodóvar!)

All These Creatures

Mahler

Desperately Seeking Susan* (an old fave)

Ornette: Made in America* (kind of obsessed with this one)

3 by Shirley Clarke*: Parks of Paris, Dancer, Bullfighter 

My 2019 (Semi-)Hiatus

A photo from our contract rally at
Rutgers-Newark, April 2019

As J's Theater readers--if there still are any!--may have noted, last year (2019) was a very lean one in terms of my presence here. I believe I managed six entries (with perhaps double that still in draft mode), and that was pushing it. One, which I only recently published, featured a review I undertook for Art in America on last year's Whitney Biennial, which I found fascinating on multiple levels, in contrast to many mainstream critics, including one who summed it for me at lunch late in the year, as "predictable." As it turns out, it was anything but--and, as I argued in that piece, really multiple Biennials, including one transformed by the protests that not only the Biennial's artists, but outside activists, supporters and artists, and the Museum's staff, launched. To be able to watch it unfold and write about it was a pleasure, but alas, I had almost no time to focus on it here.  I also had no real time--or rather no time to focus--to complete memorials to figures who have been incredible important to me, whom we lost in 2019, and I am thinking in particular of Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall (who was one of my favorite teachers in grad school), and Ernest J. Gaines, among many others. They are but a few of the people who left this human plane last year, and perhaps at some point I can either finish my mini-tributes and turn those live or write new ones this year. We will see.

My day jobs are, as readers know, a writer, and a professor of English and African American and African Studies (AAAS). Over the last six years (roughly since 2013), however, I've also served first as Acting Chair and then full-time Chair of AAAS, a post I have enjoyed deeply, but which also has entailed a very different level and kind of time commitment, since chair duties, I had to learn quickly, run every day of the week and all year long, and involve all kinds of matters, from curricula to student needs and concerns to staff and faculty personnel issues to other kinds of university service to general administration to tasks defying categorization. 

What I also learned was that there often is little training, except on the job, for the challenges that present themselves. Soliciting the advice of one's peers, especially other chairs or former chairs, and colleagues, listening to them carefully, addressing pressing and longer-term issues, and encouraging and engaging not only in an ethos but a practice of collaboration are all key, but administrative duties can be very stressful, and run along timelines parallel to but different from those of the academic year. Add this to my regular (teaching, mentoring, advising, my own life and writing) and irregular duties (letters of recommendation, tenure, judging panels, etc.), and it's fair to say that my blogging has been one major area to suffer some of the the greatest blows as a result.

This past fall was also a particular challenge because, on top of everything else, I was serving on four search committees. Serving on one search committee is a high hurdle; four is almost impossible to describe, though I grasped why I was asked to serve, and was cognizant throughout of what my presence could help to effect and why I committed to each. I can say, breaking no confidences, that each went quite well, and 2020 should bring good news to my institution and some excellent people who, I hope, will be wonderful leaders in their various ways and invaluable colleagues. That, as all such work tends to be, is the hope and goal, making people, programs and departments, the institution itself, better and stronger than they were before, with added benefits not yet foreseen but which will redound and resonate long after the moment of the work has ended. That is the core of so much of what we do in life, though, isn't it, or at least hope to?

2020 brings a competitive leave sabbatical--courtesy of several fellowships I received in 2018--so I hope to be able to post here more often. I have been thinking quite a bit about how blogging has changed in the 14 (soon to be 15!) years since I began this blog, and though I am ever more convinced that we live in an increasingly post-literate, let alone post-post-modern world, where the power of the regime of images grows ever stronger, the role of the oral has become more central and dominant, public prose is transforming into a shadow of itself, and social media's forces and forms are reshaping not only language as an exterior medium but our interiorities in ways we have not fully recognized or reckoned with,  I do believe there is a place for this blog and others, even if it ends up looking somewhat different than it did in the past, so I will strive to post semi-regularly here, even if, as I have at times, primarily with quotes and notices from others, including citations of and links to blogs I still follow, like Keguro Macharia's, to name one of my favorites and one of the very best. (And speaking of which, his remarkable study Frottage: Frictions of Intimacy Across the Black Diaspora is now out from NYU Press!)

So, here's to 2020, more blogging (I hope), and the excitement to come!

Happy New Year / 2020

At the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Manhattan, NY (photo @ C)

Happy New Year!

Feliz año nuevo

Feliz Ano Novo

Bonne année

Buon Anno e tanti auguri

Kull 'aam wa-antum bikhayr

Aliheli'sdi Itse Udetiyvasadisv

Na MwakaMweru wi Gikeno

Feliĉan novan jaron

聖誕快樂 新年快樂 [圣诞快乐 新年快乐]

Bliain úr faoi shéan is faoi mise duit

Nava Varsh Ki Haardik Shubh Kaamnaayen

Ein gesundes neues Jahr

Mwaka Mwena

Pudhu Varusha Vaazhthukkal

Afe nhyia pa

Ufaaveri aa ahareh

Er sala we pîroz be

سال نو

С наступающим Новым Годом

šťastný nový rok

Manigong Bagong Taon sa inyong lahat

Feliç Any Nou

Yeni yılınızı kutlar, sağlık ve başarılar dileriz

نايا سال مبارک هو

Emnandi Nonyaka Omtsha Ozele Iintsikelelo

Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa

Chronia polla

Szczesliwego Nowego Roku

Kia pai te Tau Hou e heke mai nei

Shinnen omedeto goziamasu (クリスマスと新年おめでとうございます)

IHozhi Naghai

a manuia le Tausaga Fou

Paglaun Ukiutchiaq

Naya Saal Mubarak Ho

(International greetings courtesy of Omniglot and Jennifer's Polyglot Links; please note a few of the phrases may also contain Christmas greetings)

A Tale of Two Exhibitions: The 2019 Whitney Biennial

Earlier this summer, I had the immense pleasure of viewing the 2019 Whitney Biennial, which is still running, for a few more weeks (until September 22, 2019), at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. It was not only a better show than the 2017 installment, I thought, but in essence two different exhibits in one, I ultimately argued, in a review now out for Art in America. The second of the two exhibits became possible, however, only after the Whitney resolved a festering crisis that had underpinned the exhibit--and the institution itself as a whole. In fact, the revolt that occurred, creating the new exhibition, necessitated that I rewrite the laudatory first review I'd drafted.

The qualitative differences between the two exhibits, whether visually evident or not, resonate throughout the work on display, throughout the museum's spaces itself, as a shift in ethos and an aura, however temporary. I won't replay my entire essay, which underwent a great deal of editorial distilling (so many thanks to Will Ratik and his editorial team at Art in America), so here is the link to the full essay, "The Whitney Biennial: A Tale of Two Exhibitions," and a paragraph from it, in which I argue for further action by the exhibits artists and, I would assert, artists working in all media, including literature.

I believe we are at the moment when the artists should be encouraged to actively trouble the “circuits of valorization,” as prior generations of artists have done. I say trouble rather than disrupt, since the latter term has taken on particular connotations in the language of neoliberal capitalism, particularly in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. But what might the effects be of such a troubling on the lives and careers of today’s artists, especially those who, like many of this year’s biennial participants, come from groups, intersectionally understood, that have been traditionally excluded from participation in exhibitions such as this, as well as from elite art schools and institutions, and from the global gallery, art fair, and auction networks? What would more extensive rethinking, dismantling, and transformation of those circuits look like? How much energy and effort can and ought they expend in understanding and critiquing the ecosystem in which they are working? From an ethical standpoint, can they forgo such an undertaking, whatever the cost?

If you can, please see the exhibit before it goes, and do leave your thoughts on the Biennial and my review in the comments section if you'd like.

American Academy of Arts & Letters Ceremonial 2019 & Award

Six years ago, back in 2013, I blogged about attending the American Academy of Arts & Letters' annual Ceremonial award celebration. I was the guest of a friend and colleague, Dorothy Wang, who was a guest of an award-winner, the poet Joanna Klink, and though I had seen some of its award winners and awards I'd seen listed over the years, I had no idea about the organization or where it headquarters were located, let alone about its awards. In fact, I often mistook it for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, which is located in Cambridge, not New York; they are two similar but distinct organizations. The latter encompasses the sciences and is more of a scholarly honors organization, while the latter primarily focuses, as its name suggests, on arts and letters.

Aububon Terrace (photo by C)

In my previous post, I gave a potted history of the AAAL:

It's an august institution too: a closed honor society of 250 members selected and elected by standing members without outside nomination, it grew out of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, founded in 1898, consisting eventually of 200 members, from which the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a smaller and more elite sub-organization of 50 of the most eminent figures in their fields, emerged in 1904. US President William Howard Taft signed a Congressional act that incorporated the Institute of Arts and Letters in 1907, and the Academy in 1916. In 1976 the two organizations merged, and in 1993, all 250 members merged into one entity now known as the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

I also mentioned some of its members and the day's award-winners, a few like my former graduate school professor and thesis advisor E. L. Doctorow no longer with us, so won't recapitulate that earlier blog post, but I will say that uncanny pleasure of once again attending a Ceremonial up at Audubon Terrace in Washington Heights, this year, as a recipient, having received the Harold T. Vursell Award in Fiction. This award is given to a writer specifically based on the quality of their prose. (!) J's Theater readers will note my often baroque stylings (and typos, forgive me) here, and perhaps ponder why I was designated a recipient of this prize, but it was primarily for Counternarratives, in which my rhetorical and syntactic play was, I think it fair to say, at its most daring, and so I took the honor as an affirmation of what I attempted in that book, though I also think it's probably not wrong to suggest that all of my published books have in them some sort of experimentation when it comes to prose or verse, and that when it works, it is at least distinctive if nothing else.

As an award recipient, I was invited to a pre-Ceremonial reception and luncheon, which C attended with me, as did my New Directions editor and publisher, Barbara Epler, and I had the opportunity there to tell Jamaica Kincaid once again how much of a fan I was and am. Her prose, as well as her inventiveness as a storyteller and novelist, have been among many powerful influences on my own work. I also had the opportunity to chat with a few fellow award winners or new members, including poets Aracelis Girmay, fellow former Dark Room member Natasha Trethewey, Marilyn Chin, Claudia Rankine, and Grace Schulman, and fiction writers Alice Hoffman, Lorrie Moore and my collegue Jayne Anne Phillips, who was elected to the AAAL a few years ago. After the luncheon, as before it, C and I viewed some of the art and literary materials, by members and recipients on display.

One of the more fascinating rooms featured the photos of all the prior and present members, lined up in rows in stall-like spaces. The original members were, unsurprisingly, all white men, a great many of them legendary names in American culture, which got me wondering who had not been a member yet produced work that today we hold in high esteem (F. Scott Fitzgerald, to name one, Ernest Hemingway to name another); on the other hand, many of the names would not register at all to contemporary sensibilities. At a certain point, a few white women's faces pop up, and then, slowly, the further we progressed into the 20th century, there were more white women, a few black writers, like W. E. B. DuBois (was he the first?) and Langston Hughes, and then black classical composers and jazz musicians, Asian American, Latinx, and Native American writers' portraits appear (see the photos below). The Academy's members still strongly reflect the upper reaches of the preponderantly New York-and-northeastern based world of architecture, visual arts, literature, and European-American art music, but the awardees have begun to diversify somewhat more, or so I was told. Certainly this year's winners were more racially and generationally diverse than I recall from 2013.

In one of the rooms featuring paintings
bequeathed by American Impressionist
F. Childe Hassam (photo by C)

One of the rooms in the American Academy
 headquarters  (photo by C)

Members and honorees assembling on stage
 (photo by C)

Once the Ceremonial began, I took my numbered seat on the stage, between Jamaica Kincaid and poet D. A. Powell, also a prize recipient; to his left sat our presenter and a member of the committee that selected us, poet Henri Cole. A row behind me sat Eileen Myles, among others. A number of illustrious members, like sculptors Martin Puryear and Richard Hunt, whom I mentioned in my prior post, and honorees like Meredith Monk and Thelma Golden, were seated in the front row.  This year's recipient of the Gold Medal for Literature, the Academy's highest honor, Toni Morrison, and the Gold Medal for Art, Lee Bontecou, were unable to attend, and so were fulsomely lauded by their presenters. One highlight of this year was the Blashfield Lecture by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici, once a controversial figure in the American classical music world and now a venerable and venerated elder. Del Tredici's lecture, "The Task of Gayness," explored his coming into his own in his field, and out as a gay man, with humor and concision. Were he to write a memoir, I'd most certainly buy it.

A photo of me walking to receive
my award from Henri Cole (photo by C)

Receiving my award from Henri Cole
(Photo by C)

At the conclusion of the awards ceremony, which ran roughly an hour, another reception unfolded, on a bright and sunny but thankfully not hot afternoon, which afforded us an opportunity to speak with more writers, editors, artists, and others in attendance. It was, all in all, a lovely afternoon, and many thanks to the Academy jury for the award!

My Appearance on State of the Arts NJ

Last fall, Susan Wallner of the wonderful TV program State of the Arts New Jersey contacted me about possibly producing a short clip about my work and me. I am always a bit wary about such efforts, as I would always rather have my work do the speaking for me, but since there was a possibility that SOANJ would feature my students, teaching and Rutgers-Newark, I thought I'd go along with it. The filming occurred in early November, and again in late February, and I can say without hesitation that Susan and her crew were a pleasure to work with, from start to finish.

Many, many thanks to them and everyone at State of the Arts New Jersey who made this possible. Many thanks also to superb critic and writer Julian Lucas, and to Poet Laureate of the US, Princeton professor, poet extraordinaire, and my former Dark Room Collective compatriot Tracy K. Smith for their kind, insightful comments on my work and me. Also a very hearty thank you to my MFA students, who agreed to be filmed, and sparkled (as they always do) on camera, and to everyone at Rutgers-Newark who greenlighted the filming. 

I am so shy and self-conscious I could not initially bear to look at it (I needed but did not get a haircut before the February filming), but C told me it came out very well, and pointed out that Susan and her team had even threaded a Bob Cole tune through the video, a lovely touch, of course, and tribute to one of the artistic figures I explore in Counternarratives. The show aired last week, and though we've been DVRing the episodes and keeping an eye out for it, we also missed its debut airing! Here, for those who do not regularly watch State of the Arts New Jersey, is the short video. Enjoy!