E-NOTES: WHEN THE NEWS IS NOT ENOUGH. THE BLOG OF E. ETHELBERT MILLER
Monday, December 31, 2012
THE FOOTBALL CLIFF
ARIZONA CARDINALS
The Arizona Cardinals fired coach Ken Whisenhunt on Monday, making it seven total coaches fired on Black Monday.SAN DIEGO CHARGERS
The San Diego Chargers cleaned house on Monday, firing head coach Norv Turner and general manager A.J. Smith, the team announced.BUFFALO BILLS
The Buffalo Bills fired head coach Chan Gailey on Monday, the team announced.CHICAGO BEARS
The Chicago Bears fired head coach Lovie Smith and asked for permission to interview other candidates on Monday, according to a report.KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
The Kansas City Chiefs fired head coach Romeo Crennel on Monday, the team announced.CLEVELAND BROWNS
The Cleveland Browns fired coach Pat Shurmur and general manager Tom Heckert, according to an announcement from the team.NEW YORK JETS
Rex Ryan will remain the head coach of the New York Jets, but the team announced the firing of general manager Mike Tannenbaum on Monday.PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
The Philadelphia Eagles fired head coach Andy Reid, the team officially announced on Monday after a weekend of rumors.JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS
The Jacksonville Jaguars fired general manager Gene Smith, the team announced on Monday.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
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 | Altar Ego: Power in the Paint, an art collection
The act of transformation can be powerful.There is Power in Paint.I paint people as they would like ...
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Just Like The Movies
When she quickly runs across
the street into your arms you wish
everything to be in slow motion -
the moment of embrace when the first
thing you touch is the scent of her-
you push your nose into her hair
like your tongue. You close
your eyes just like in the movies-
waiting for the music to begin,
for a song to be sung by someone,
with words like - This is love,
this will always be love. This
is love, this will always be love.
- E. Ethelbert Miller
When she quickly runs across
the street into your arms you wish
everything to be in slow motion -
the moment of embrace when the first
thing you touch is the scent of her-
you push your nose into her hair
like your tongue. You close
your eyes just like in the movies-
waiting for the music to begin,
for a song to be sung by someone,
with words like - This is love,
this will always be love. This
is love, this will always be love.
- E. Ethelbert Miller
Saturday, December 29, 2012
24th
ANNUAL
CONFERENCE
OF THE
AMERICAN
LITERATURE
ASSOCIATION
May
23-26, 2013
Boston,
MA
Charles Johnson’s “E-Channel” Writings: A Year in the Life of a 21st-century
Writer
 |
| CHARLES JOHNSON |
Organized by the Charles Johnson Society
Chair: Jim
McWilliams, Dickinson State University
1.
“Lessons Learned from a Year in the Writer’s House,” Marc C. Conner, Washington & Lee
University
2.
“Noble Friendship: The Literary
Activism of Charles Johnson and E. Ethelbert Miller,” Julia Galbus, University
of Southern Indiana
3. “The
E-Channel: Bring Writer Charles
Johnson’s Epistemology into Focus,” John Parks, Howard University.
4. “Creating the E-Channel:
Helping the World to Embrace the World of Charles Johnson,” E. Ethelbert
Miller, Director of the African American Resource Center, Howard University.
A SWINGING LESSON
THIS IS A NICE SHORT INTERVIEW WITH ALEC BALDWIN AND WYNTON MARSALIS
http://video.pbs.org/video/1901102313
What's E doing?
I plan to post the first part of my interview questions with Linda Pastan on January 1st. A good way to begin the year. I began today listening to my friend Joanna Chen read two poems of mine that she translated into Hebrew. Fun talking about language and not prevented by geographical borders or boundaries - a universal literary community.
I've been watching movies - a few classics. Nothing like looking at things in black and white. Last night it was Lolita and I had a chance to watch Shelley Winters and Peter Sellers. Sellers
steals this film with his acting. It made me want to forget about James Mason.
Later today I plan to watch The Symmetry of Love -a film by Aitor Gaizka.
I've been watching movies - a few classics. Nothing like looking at things in black and white. Last night it was Lolita and I had a chance to watch Shelley Winters and Peter Sellers. Sellers
steals this film with his acting. It made me want to forget about James Mason.
Later today I plan to watch The Symmetry of Love -a film by Aitor Gaizka.
A SPECIAL TO E-NOTES FROM giovanni singleton
 |
| giovanni singleton |
In the night, I saw the poet Jayne Cortez. Her face and body undulated like ocean waves, finally dissolving into a tornado that funneled upward into sky, into ether. . .
I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of the poet Jayne Cortez. She was in fact the very first living poet whose work I encountered while studying at the American University in Washington DC, I wandered, as I often did, into a bookstore then known as Vertigo Books near Dupont Circle. My eye was immediately drawn to a book on the remainder table called Coagulations: New and Selected Poems by Jayne Cortez. I picked up the grey and red covered book and turned it over in my hands several times, front then back then front again before opening to its contents, uncertain as to whether or not I was ready for what was inside. I remember how with the turning of each page, my temperature literally seemed to rise. With feverishly shaking hands, I quickly made my way to the register. Up until that point, I had had only one other encounter (on the page and in person) with the work of a living writer of color and that was Toni Morrison. I was astonished to find that there was another. Mind you this was all before poetry became a focus of my life. In fact, Coagulations was the 3rd book of poetry that I ever purchased in my life after the Collected Poems of Anne Sexton and the Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath.
Since that day, Ms. Cortez’s work has been an integral part of my life and my education as a poet. She was careful with language as she knew its power and its history. “Those New York City Pigeons”. Peace and Revolution and LOVE and blues. Yeah. . . “I See Chano Pozo”. Her poems were lessons unto themselves. "They want the oil but they don't want the people." Years later while in graduate school, when writing about her work, that of Bob Kaufman, and Beauford Delany, I had an opportunity to speak with Ms. Cortez. She was extremely generous with her time and with her wisdom. What stood out as well was her amazing spirit, presence, and support of younger poets.
I would encounter Ms. Cortez several times over the years and each occasion was an important one on my path. At her invitation, and because of her generosity, I was able to attend the Yari Yari Pembari Conference at NYU in 2004. Never had I imagined that the world was filled with so many incredible women writers from throughout the African Diaspora. And the books. . . I bought so many books and had numerous thought-provoking and passionate discussions. Another time while standing in line at the Blue Note in New York City waiting to hear the incomparable Abbey Lincoln, I noticed just ahead of me a familiar face. It was the poet Jayne Cortez. She was attending the concert with a friend of hers. I, unaccompanied, uncharacteristically asked if I could join them at at their table. After the concert, Ms. Cortez invited me to go with her to Abbey Lincoln’s dressing room. Afterwards, Ms. Cortez and her friend gave me a ride to where I was staying. I was awestruck and remain so. I have read her books (her first was published the year I was born), recited and taught her poems, and listened to her CDs. Hers was a mighty ear.
On October 29, 2007, nocturnes (re)view of the literary arts, of which I am the founding editor, and the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University, sponsored a concert featuring Jayne Cortez and her band the Firespitters (including her son Denardo Coleman on drums) at the Roxie Theatre in San Francisco. It was electrifying to say the very least. I also participated in a conversation with Ms. Cortez during which she talked about her just released poetry collection The Beautiful Book published by her own Bola Press. Here is a link to an interview with Jayne Cortez conducted by sfgate.com while she was in San Francisco in 2007:
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Poet-Jayne-Cortez-makes-heady-music-with-Ornette-3237076.php
Jayne Cortez was courageous and one of the great pillars of my life along with Lucille Clifton, Alice Coltrane, Julie Ezelle Patton, and Wanda Coleman. The five directions, wisdom keepers alit with grace in all of their humanity.
peace,
giovanni
Friday, December 28, 2012
FOR THE POET JAYNE CORTEZ
SHE LEAVES US WITH SCARIFICATIONS
I first met Jayne Cortez in 1973. We read together at Dingane’s
Den located on 18th Street in Washington, D.C. She signed a copy of her chapbook Pisstained Stairs and The Monkey Man’s Wares
and gave it to me. This was back in the day when a book was just $2.00.
Cortez was one of the established writers at that time who were very supportive
of my early work, the others were Eugene Redmond, Lance Jeffers, Haki Madhubuti,
Stephen Henderson, Sterling A. Brown and Leon Damas.
What Cortez gave me was poetry ears. Maybe this is why I
could listen to Ornette Coleman after listening to her. Cortez made me listen
to the music (again). My favorite John Coltrane poem will always be “How Long
Has Trane Been Gone.” But who will ever
forget how she ended her poem
“Theodore” with that classic Cortez slap against
consciousness:
Yes remember
the name was
T. Navarro
they called him
Fats for short
and his life
was snuffed by
inadequate people
whose minds was
Dry as
chicken-shit-slime
Jayne Cortez had a fan club consisting of other writers. I’ll
always associate her with Quincy Troupe. I suggest we honor Cortez by finding a
copy of Yardbird Reader, Volume 5
that was published in 1976. Here one will find Charles Davis, Eugene B.
Redmond, Stanley Crouch, Deborah A. Gilliam, Charles C. Thomas, Verta Mae
Grosvenor, and Clyde Taylor writing about her. Troupe however is the first to
give testimony. His words seem to
resonate tonight as I think about Jayne Cortez:
Many times we recoil in
horror from what we hear and feel in the poetry of Jayne Cortez; sometimes many
of her poems make us want to weep, not for her, but for ourselves, our own
transgressions, our own particular weaknesses, as well as the weaknesses of the
world; then there are the poems that makes us angry, both at Ms. Cortez, for
telling us a particularly, penetrating truth, and at ourselves for committing
the acts that the poem is addressing itself to; but at no time in listening to
and reading the poetry of Jayne Cortez, are we failed to be moved by the power
of her impact.
I hope as we remember Jayne Cortez we also remember the men
in her life. When I met her in 1973, I also met her partner Mel Edwards. One
thing that should be celebrated more in the African American community are
those “cultural love couples.” Edwards
designed many of Cortez’s books that she released through her own Bola Press.
He took her pictures. He was always there when she came to DC to give a
reading. It was several years after 1973 that learned more about the stature of
Edwards; he was that humble. It was Jayne Cortez who was always talking about
Leon Damas and Christopher Okigbo. She was at the center of all those poets one
finds in the landmark anthology Giant
Talk: An Anthology of Third World Writings compiled and edited by Quincy Troupe &
Rainer Schulte. Cortez’s life touched the entire black world. Too often only
gravity or a life like Walter Rodney will accomplish this.
I hope we have not seen the last of the Firespitters. I kiss these
words by Cortez one more time:
Ask me
Essence of Rose
Solitude
chickadee from Arkansas
that’s me
i sleep on cotton bones
cotton tails
and mellow myself in
empty ballrooms
i’m no fly by night
look at my resume
i walk through the eyes
of staring lizards
i throw my neck back to
floorshow on bumping goat
skins
in front of my stage
fright
i cover the hands of
Duke who like Satchmo
like Nat (King) Cole
will never die
because love they say
never dies
E-Note by E. Ethelbert
Miller
NEW BOOK
Esperanza Cintron's new book of poems is out. What Keeps Me Sane is also the winner of the 2013 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. I made the following comment about this collection:
What Keeps Me Sane is a choir of women's voices. Cintron's work might differ from Nina Simone's "Four Women" but it is just as moving. Unlike Simone, she explores something much deeper than color...There is triumph as well as pain and hurt in the lives of Aiyo, Lily, Brisa and Plum. Cintron's work consists of story-telling jewels that...are meditations on what it means to be a woman and how to remain sane in this world.
Order from: www.lotuspress.org
What Keeps Me Sane is a choir of women's voices. Cintron's work might differ from Nina Simone's "Four Women" but it is just as moving. Unlike Simone, she explores something much deeper than color...There is triumph as well as pain and hurt in the lives of Aiyo, Lily, Brisa and Plum. Cintron's work consists of story-telling jewels that...are meditations on what it means to be a woman and how to remain sane in this world.
Order from: www.lotuspress.org
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON
Subject: Bernice Johnson Reagon reads the Emancipation Proclamation It's billed as a "dramatic reading" of the Emancipation Proclamation by Bernice Johnson Reagon (Folkways recording artist and founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, and formerly researcher for the Festival of American Folklife, director of the Program in African American Culture, and curator in the National Museum of American History’s Division of Community Life). For more on Bernice, see http://www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/bernice_reagon.aspx Her dramatic reading begins at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, January 1, in the Rotunda of the National Archives, and will be followed by a full day of activities at the National Archives, in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Details are at http://www.archives.gov/dc-metro/events/january.html#emancipation
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Don't you just love these informal letters...
| Ethelbert -- Because of you, I'll be taking the oath of office again on January 21st. I'd like you to be part of this historic moment -- whether that's in Washington, D.C., or wherever you call home. As we make plans, we want to make sure the people who made this inauguration possible are the first to know what's happening. Add your name here to take part in inaugural activities. I'm honored each and every day to be your president, and I will never forget how I got here. I'm so grateful for everything you've done. Let's also remember why we're here: we've got more work to do. And we're going to begin this next chapter in the American story together. Sign up and stay updated: http://action.2013pic.org/Inauguration Thanks, Barack |
|
|
|
|
You are receiving this message as a member of BarackObama.com's online community.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee 2013 is solely responsible for the content of this message.
This email was sent to: emiller698@aol.com.
|
.JPG)
MEETING OF THE AAE (Acker/Ali/Ethelbert)
 |
| CAMILLE ACKER |
After Christmas Day came another day of joy. I had fun yesterday serving tea and chocolate to Camille Acker and Grace A. Ali. A time to talk about writing, movies, and the many things that keep us sane. We sat around the table in my house like people of the book. I'm looking forward to Acker's first collection of short stories- we met at the AWP Conference in Denver a few years ago. I've known her mother and father for a spell. Grace continues to reside in that place in my heart where there is no need for gentrification. I'm talking about that old time friendship that you know is for life. Please support her online publication: www.ofnotemagazine.org
 |
| GRACE A. ALI |
MORE NEWS DRAMA
We now move away from the house.
Who will save us? Is this a nation or a sitcom?
TOP NEWS
Senators to Return With 5 Days Left and No Clear Fiscal Path
By JONATHAN WEISMAN and JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Adding to the
tension over a pileup of threatened tax increases and spending cuts, the
treasury secretary notified Congress that the government would hit its
borrowing limit on Monday.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
FROM INDIA WITH LOVE
CHARLES JOHNSON EMBRACING THE WORLD
http://www.re-markings.com/
http://www.dkagencies.com/doc/from/1023/to/1123/bkId/DKA2521716276327094461715702971/details.html
UNCHAIN YOUR MIND
Excerpt from an interview with Jamie Foxx by Kam Williams
KW: Did you have any reservations?
JF: I didn’t have a knee-jerk reaction like some people did to the language and the violence. My stepfather was a history teacher at Lincoln High School in Dallas. So, I was already familiar with the N-word and the brutality of slavery. What I was drawn to was the love story between Django and Broomhilda and how he defends and gets the girl in the end. I thought it was just an amazing and courageous project.
KW: Did you have any reservations?
JF: I didn’t have a knee-jerk reaction like some people did to the language and the violence. My stepfather was a history teacher at Lincoln High School in Dallas. So, I was already familiar with the N-word and the brutality of slavery. What I was drawn to was the love story between Django and Broomhilda and how he defends and gets the girl in the end. I thought it was just an amazing and courageous project.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
MAYBE WE SHOULD SIMPLY SKIP TO 2014
What if someone discovered there was only a finite number of news stories. Maybe every year we consume the same narratives but only in a different package, a recycling of information for consumers who simply need their coffee. Who pays attention to stale news? If this was true then it would be possible to "predict" the news of tomorrow. Let's see...
I suspect we will consume the followings stories in 2013:
- Talk of a possible invasion of Iran by Israel.
- North Korea and security in the Asia region. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
- Pakistan and Yemen and another rise of Islamic terrorism? Is that a drone in Obama's pocket?
- 2-3 deaths of a major celebrity - one tragic. Car or plane?
- Mugabe stories - ah Zimbabwe again. You can't keep a good Z down.
- Egypt's decline. An Arab spring with no democracy flowers. Sniff. Sniff.
- Assad becoming another sad story in the Middle East. No stable Syria for decades. No one is serious when it comes to Syria.
Oh, and what about the Super Bowl? I think one of these teams might win it:
Denver, Seattle or Washington. Of course I wish it was Brady and NE but that's another story.
I suspect we will consume the followings stories in 2013:
- Talk of a possible invasion of Iran by Israel.
- North Korea and security in the Asia region. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
- Pakistan and Yemen and another rise of Islamic terrorism? Is that a drone in Obama's pocket?
- 2-3 deaths of a major celebrity - one tragic. Car or plane?
- Mugabe stories - ah Zimbabwe again. You can't keep a good Z down.
- Egypt's decline. An Arab spring with no democracy flowers. Sniff. Sniff.
- Assad becoming another sad story in the Middle East. No stable Syria for decades. No one is serious when it comes to Syria.
Oh, and what about the Super Bowl? I think one of these teams might win it:
Denver, Seattle or Washington. Of course I wish it was Brady and NE but that's another story.
The Night As Dark As A Woman's Hair
Everywhere things reduced to rubble -
buildings, men, speech, homes, dreams,
turned to dust or just blown apart.
A friend collapses in the middle of the night
on the way to pee.The darkness of the room
attacks her as if she was in India, where men
rush in, the sperm in their hands reducing
a woman to rubble, mixing flesh, bone and grief.
- E. Ethelbert Miller
Everywhere things reduced to rubble -
buildings, men, speech, homes, dreams,
turned to dust or just blown apart.
A friend collapses in the middle of the night
on the way to pee.The darkness of the room
attacks her as if she was in India, where men
rush in, the sperm in their hands reducing
a woman to rubble, mixing flesh, bone and grief.
- E. Ethelbert Miller
Monday, December 24, 2012
EAR-UP! WITH JOHN PARKS
Christmas Music To
Help Make The Season Bright
The Christmas Holiday means many things to different people,
but no matter how you spend your Christmas I hope that it is safe, enjoyable
with some time given to energizing your faith. And while you’re at it add some
music to whatever you do.
And remember, The
Secret of Christmas: “It’s not the things you do at Christmas time. It’s
the Christmas things you do all year through.”
From Louis Armstrong
& Friends What A Wonderful Christmas compilation (1997)
Louis Armstrong/Benny Carter Orchestra
Christmas In New Orleans
Louis Armstrong/Gordon Jenkins Orchestra
White
Christmas
Dinah Washington
Silent
Night
Mel Torme
The
Christmas Song
Chestnuts
Roasting On An Open Fire
Louis Armstrong/Benny Carter Orchestra
Christmas
Night In Harlem
Peggy Lee/Jud Conlon’s Rhythmaires
It’s
Christmas Time Again
Louis Armstrong/The Commanders
Cool Yule
Lionel Hampton/Vocal Chorus
Merry
Christmas, Baby
Louis Armstrong/The
Commanders
Zat You,
Santa Claus?
Eartha Kitt/Henri Rene & His Orchestra
Santa Baby
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
Jingle Bells
Lena Horne
Santa
Clause Is Coming To Town
Louis Jordan & His Orchestra
May
Everyday Be Christmas
Louis Armstrong/Gordon Jenkins Orchestra
Winter Wonderland
All songs re-released on The
Best of James Brown The Christmas Collection (1995)
Christmas is Love from the album Hey America (1970)
Let’s Unite the Whole World at
Christmas from the album Soulful
Christmas (1968)
Santa Claus Go Straight to the
Ghetto from the album Soulful Christmas
(1968)
Soulful Christmas from the album Soulful Christmas (1968)
From the Verve compilation, Have Yourself A Jazzy Little Christmas (1989) and Wynton Marsalis’ Crescent City Christmas Card (1989).
Ray Charles with Betty Carter, Baby It’s Cold Outside from The Spirit of Christmas (2009)
W. Marsalis, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! from Crescent City Christmas Card.
Bill Evans, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town from Have Yourself A Jazzy Little Christmas
Dinah Washington Ole Santa from Have Yourself A Jazzy Little Christmas
Jimmy Smith, Jingle Bells from Have Yourself A Jazzy Little Christmas
W. Marsalis, Jingle Bells from Crescent City Christmas Card
W. Marsalis, Little Drummer Boy from Crescent City Christmas Card
Dinah Washington, Silent Night from Have Yourself A Jazzy Little Christmas
Oscar Peterson, A Child Is Born Have Yourself A Jazzy Little Christmas
The Swingle Singers, Christmas Medley Have Yourself A Jazzy Little Christmas
W. Marsalis, Carol of the Bells Crescent City Christmas Card
W. Marsalis, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing Crescent City Christmas Card