Stand The Storm: A Novel by Breena Clarke, Little, Brown and Co., Hachette BookGroup USA, e-book edition 2008.

This is the author’s second novel.  I read her first, River, Cross My Heart, some years ago and only vaguely recall it.  As I started with Stand The Storm, the writing style is what I recalled.  Like the first novel, it is a grounded narrative with an even paced tempo.  As a reader I’m kept on the outside of the narrative…never drawn in.  The story remains grounded in an African American perspective in that the survival and growth of the characters lays in what goes on amongst them and between them and the White gaze is only anecdotal and supportive for moving the story along.  I think for me, not certain, that it was the historian John Blassingame who spoke to this being key to our survival in detail.

The characters are a family of needlefolk…Sewing Annie, her daughter and son, Ellen and Gabriel…extended members of the family Daniel Joshua and Mary.  The setting is urban life in the 1800s with bordering plantations in Washington D.C., Virginia, and Maryland…a setting when compared to life further south affords a slight, slight more measure of physical movement for enslaved and free Africans of the time period which Clarke utilizes as a support for the development of the story.

The location of the novel centers around the back rooms of a tailoring shop where Gabriel has become the chief tailor.  Gabriel and his family are owned by Jonathon Ridley and Ridley owns the shop that he purchased from a Jewish tailor who Gabriel apprencticed under.  Aaron Ridley, the owner’s nephew oversees the shops but is less concerned with its daily runnings and the people who do the work than he is about hobnobbing at the local eateries…in turn, affording Sewing Annie, Gabriel, and others a great deal of personal freedom…but freedom that do not squander as is the focus of improving their lot and the lot of others when opportunities are present, stay at the forefront of their minds and doings. Sewing Annie and Gabriel have purchased their own freedom by burning the midnight oil sewing military uniforms.

I’m just under half-way through this book and the extended family is growing to include a new woman freshly escaped from slavery along with 8 children.

Breena Clarke’s website

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

It was a nice break from intense reading but I must admit that by that time I reached the month of September in the author’s year-long happiness experiment I was ready for the year to be over!  There were points that Rubin wondered about the self-indulgence of her own experiment.  In the first 2/3rd’s of the book I dismissed this concern and leaned toward it being a worth while endeavor based on her approach and worthy of sharing with the larger world.  Overall, I would mention it to anyone as an interesting and approachable read.

The Warmth of Other Suns, (continued)

Over the last couple of years I’ve noticed my sadness when I come to the last chapter of a book that deeply touches my heart.  I don’t want to say goodbye.  I did this with this book.  Wilkerson’s is a superb narrator.  Ida Mae, Robert, and George are the 3 people from over 1200 that she selected to tell their story alternating from their lives to a larger historical perspective and I found myself so immersed in their lives and the history and reflecting on my own family that I just didn’t want to stop.  Back in the 80’s I set out to do genealogy and oral interviews with family members which would become the basis for poems.  This book sent me back to that mindset and my mind spiraling about future projects in quilts.

I was so immersed in the 3 lives Wilkerson focused on that I didn’t want their stories to end.  I wanted to know even more…I wanted more historical revelations…not because the narrations or histories where inadequate, but because the lives of African Americans is so full and rich and yet so little known beyond generalizations by the larger public regardless of race.

Wilkerson also treats history as a fluid, living, breathing body of knowledge.  I take the view that there are artifacts, letters, data that have yet to be dusted off, studied, and revealed and we need to be gingerly about clamping down on fixed notions, ideas as if they will never change.

This book along with The Grace of Silence will be on my lips for years to come and will become re-reads in the future.

Henry Louis Gates video interview with Isabel Wilkerson

Charlie Rose interviewing Isabel Wilkerson

The Warmth of Other Suns-The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, Kindle Edition, by Isabel Wilkerson, 2010, Vintage Books and The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin, 2010, Harper-Collins E-book.

You might be wondering why I’m discussing these 2 books in one post.  The Warmth of Other Suns is a Pulitzer Prize Awarded book that chronicles narrates the history of  migration by African-American in post-Reconstruction through the 50’s/60’s.  The strength of the history is highlighted by narratives of 3 people during the decades of the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s.  Three people who took different routes, propelled by different circumstances, but all for the same reason of escaping the strangulation of the Jim Crow South for Freedom and Dignity and Life itself.

(click on either photo image for more info)

This is a FANTASTIC pairing with The Grace of Silence, my previous read.  Both of these books that have gotten inside of me and I’ve become an advocate that both are must-reads for everyone!  Of course I recognize that sly hopeful, maybe naive, current that if everyone understood and  knew the details of the African-American experience we would be respected for what could be described as a story of Biblical greatness and thus Reparations would begin in earnest and without conflict.  But then I am who I am, and the snarky self arises and I know that even if everyone read these books and knew, they wouldn’t care…but at least, it couldn’t be said that not knowing was the cause of ignorant and fearful behavior.

The 3 main narratives in this book cover the events prior to individual decisions to migrate away.  First is Ida Mae and her husband George, cotton sharecroppers, who left Mississippi in the 3o’s after an in-law had been murdered by a mob for stealing turkeys which later found out not to be true at all.  The next narrative covers George, a fruit picker with a year of college in Florida, who decides to leave in the 40’s after orchard owners discuss plotting to kill him over his attempts to organize labor. The third narrative covers Robert, a surgeon from Louisiana, who couldn’t stomach the indignities after returning from military service in Austria where he was afforded some freedoms and respect.  All their lives are placed squarely in the larger narrative of millions of people who formed this historical phenomenon.

This book and The Grace of Silence have filled me with inescapable reflecting on my own family and their journey.  Back in the 80s when I was actively writing poetry and researching genealogy and collecting oral histories, I wrote a series of poems using the information I had gathered.  The reflecting gets intense and fills me so that I feel like I’m going to burst.  As a way of lessening the internal feeling of pressure I wanted something light, humorous…I first reached for a book by David Sedaris but it wasn’t doing the trick. Solely by accident, well maybe not true since Amazon analyzes my buying habits and searches  I found The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.

Rubin’s book was the literary prescription.  She explores her own personal life happiness, not because she was unhappy or depressed, but to challenge herself to maximizes her life to the fullest appreciation of it.   She went all far-reaching by reading everything and everyone on the subject of happiness and then sets out to personalize her own journey and observing the effects upon her life and those around her.  She has just enough of the keeping-it-real attitude that gives the book a humorous touch while not being dismissive about what she is attempting to do.

I haven’t finished either one of them but I’m enjoying both of them for different reasons!

Isabel Wilkerson’s website

Gretchen Rubin blog

The Grace of Silence, by Michele Norris, Pantheon Books, NY, 2010, Kindle Edition

Michele Norris, journalist and host for NPR’s All Things Considered, set out to help Americans have deep and honest conversations on Race,  post-Obama’s inauguration.  Jumping from a community conversation in York, PA into her personal history and how it played into the larger scale of history, she discovers family events kept secret.  Events which held a profound impact on her upbringing, events, once discovered propelled her to want to reconcile the discrepancies between what she thought she knew and what was.

The central focus in on her father, (someone who she thought she knew well until after his unexpected passing), and his upbringing in Alabama and his own initiations into manhood.  She first opens with the secret held by her mother about Norris’ grandmother.  She was one of the women hired to promote Aunt Jemima Pancakes back in the days before Auntie got her makeover.  This translate into being in costume and character of the caricature.  Norris’ was stunned to discover this about a woman who took carried herself with great personal pride and dignity.

From page one to the end, Norris’ family history felt familiar and personal.  I knew the people she was kin to.  They were my own family members and Uncles, and Grandparents and neighbors.  The language, the discussions, and the family strife were so close to my own family that it almost could have been me telling my own story.

The ending of the book has about 20 questions for discussion and encourages readers to actually explore their own family secrets with openness and grace.  Back in the 80’s I attempted to do just that through poems.  I put together a manuscript based on interviews with family members.  I’m now continuing to work with those poems by finding ways to incorporate them into my art quilts.   I want my adult children to read the book.  I purchased the Kindle edition but would love to have the hard copy of this wonderful book.  At the end I found myself in tears reflecting on the depth and scope of what is lost to history about African American lives and over the potential we have yet to fully articulate and live.

Michele Norris’ website.

I started The Warmth of Other Suns today which I think will be a great companion to The Grace of Silence.

King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era by Edward A. Berlin; Oxford University Press, 1994. Kindle Edition

After reading Joplin’s Ghost, my interest was peaked about the life of Scott Joplin.  Since Tananarive Due used actual historical data to craft her novel, I selected King of Ragtime by historian Edward A. Berlin who she referenced and characterized in Joplin’s Ghost.

Berlin has a great balance of story and technical information that appeal to both the musician and lay reader like myself with no-to-little knowledge of musical technicalities.   Joplin’s embrace and passion for being an artist pitted against the racial struggles of the times and woven through by the threads of his personal relationships in business, family, friends, and love really fascinated me.  Also, I learned that he was considered the King of Ragtime WRITERS.  Due to his passion for scripting his music and his popularity and name recognition, publishers made money from his Rags.  It was only when Joplin reached to grow as an artist with selecting complex African American syncopation to transpose into operatic/classical form was he met my marketing and cultural naysayers.  He was pigeon-holed as determined by White socio-economic power structure.  For that, I grieved because not much has changed in 100 years.

Edward A. Berlin’s Home Page.

I plan to do a quilt to speak to my new found impression of Joplin alongside another quilt inspired by Oliver Lewis, the first winner of the Kentucky Derby.  The times in which both men lived and worked overlaps.  I haven’t worked out a design yet,…wanting it only to hint at representational imagery and keeping with my love of mystical abstraction.

The one thing that I kept looking for is some reference of Scott Joplin appearing in Louisville, but Berlin doesn’t reference any.  However, one of Joplin’s brothers, Robert Joplin managed a club here for 2 months before being let go.  I’m going to start with research at the Filson Historical Society when weather permits to see if there is any record of Scott Joplin performing here.  With him being based in St. Louis, I can’t imagine that he never ventured here.  From there, I will delve into UofL’s records.  Something interesting is bound to turn up!

Rootworker…cont.

I was expecting interviews with rootworkers and those who utilize their services. I was expecting more discussion of regional differences and an attempt to strongly substantiate the practices. The author’s intent was to elevate Rootwork beyond narrow stereotypes and association with evil. McQuillar defines Rootwork as “folk magick that uses the elements of nature to create change in ourselves, others, or our environment. It is an African-American form of shamanism that makes use of herbs, stones, rocks, and other organic material to heal the body or the mind, or to solve a problem.”
McQuillar, Tayannah Lee (2010-05-20). Rootwork (p. 3). Fireside. Kindle Edition.

The knowledge came with the surviving Africans during the slave trade and mixed with like minded knowledge and traditions of Native Americans. Its strong hold and practices developed in America where largely in the South, particularly in areas McQuillar offers as being impacted by Catholicism, i.e. Louisiana. I’ll add to this by offering in areas where the African population significantly outnumbered whites. Although McQuillar points out that Whites were also known to use African/African American Rootworkers as well and notes some famous Rootworkers.

Overall, it was a very quick read. The book is straightforward and to the point and includes some practices for those who wish to partake of Rootwork Magick. Nothing quite took hold for ideas for quilts but to continue on the path I started Sacred Symbols of the Dogon: The Key to Advanced Science in the Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics by Laird Scranton.

Rootwork: Using the Folk Magick of Black America for Love, Money, and Success by Tayannah Lee McQuillar, Fireside Books, NY; 2003, Kindle Edition

From the title alone, I’m betting this to be an ejoyable and somewhat enlightening read.  I’m starting it tonight and hope it leads to at least one quilt on the subject if not the beginning of a series.

(click on image to go to Amazon.com)

 

Joplin’s Ghost, Tananarive Due, Atria Books, New York, 2005, Kindle

I abandoned The Artist’s Rule…not due to any reason associated with the book but my I’m not ready to focus on any spirit/life work right now.  Instead I found myself reading Joplin’s Ghost by Tananarive Due…my second foray into what is labelled sci-fi/paranormal genre.  My first was an Octavia Butler novel (I can’t recall which one) that I commanded myself to finish.  It was among the first books I dropped for Bookcrossing.

Joplin’s Ghost went beyond what I expected! The story is woven seamlessly and beautifully with  gems of history (and I guess that all good fiction writers do this) which captivated me to want to know so much more about Scott Joplin and kept me reflecting on the trails  and trials that early artists had to create and blaze.  Due made the personal agony very real by pitting Joplin’s thoughts and emotions and ego against the thoughts and emotions and ego of an uprising young woman coming of age in current times.

The book opens with Scott’s voice and the next chapter is the voice of Phoenix, the artist in contemporary times and continues to flip back and forth until their experiences merge intimately and passionately in the middle of the book (which held me wondering where it was all going and not at all predictable) and the end of the book their lives (Scott’s and Phoenix’s) battle to separate.  But what is history if not a mirrored reflection for us to study as we go forward…can you say Sankofa.

Due creates two parallel love stories; one being Scott’s love and passion for his second wife, Freddie; the other, Phoenix’s and Carlos’s,  a young music journalist who is the only one willing to believe Phoenix’s encounters with the ghost of Joplin.  There are a hosts of supporting characters which are interesting but slightly predictable in their roles…but the story development makes up for what lacks in character development and the central characters have strong situations and good personal dialogue.

In addition to exploring musical history, Due also handles the world and violence associated with hip-hop moguls, along with the dynamics of family relationships to create a very natural feel to the tensions and the dramas.  I think it would be a great cross-generational read with teenager not only for the educational resource but the action in the story is fast-paced enough for young people and the situations the characters continually face sparks plenty of opportunities for moral and philosophical and financial discussions.

To find more out about the book:

http://books.simonandschuster.com/Joplin’s-Ghost/Tananarive-Due/9780743449038

I will be reading more books from Due.

the ARTIST’S RULE…nurturing your creative soul with monastic wisdom by Christine Valters Paintner; Sorin Books, Notre Dame, Indiana, 2011 Kindle PC edition.

The winter is approaching all too soon for me. My quilt construction studio is packed into storage and going into the other studio has to be tempered against the weather and my health. To help me maintain perspective, it is a great time for me to get cozy with myself and make another leap in my emotional, artistic, intellectual, spiritual journey. I selected this book after stumbling over it at Amazon. I look upon this aspect of my journey as going back in to excavate with a more open heart and mind.

The seed of the book begins with the author sharing her infatuation with “Hildegard of Bingen, the twelfth-century Benedictine abbess who was an artist, visionary, musician, theologian, preacher, spiritual director, and healer.” Valters Paintner has a background in the expressive arts. It was this passage in the first chapter that comforted me: “The inner monastery is a quality of consciousness you bring to everything you do, including creating. It is the crucible for your transformation, and everything you need to be whole is right there within you already.” This has been a long held belief for me, but the reality of living it out is many times a unconscious disconnect when I allow daily disappointments, hurdles, struggles, etc. become too far reaching into defining who and how I exist.

I started week one today which involved sacred reading (lectio divina) and mediation. She offers the possibility of incorporating a movement response such as walking and being open to the environment.

The book is a 12 week practice of reading, meditation, response, and reflection. The responses are written and visual ones.