Before I go search for the Arc of the Covenant, a few passing notes on cultural artifacts of another order.
Yes, Ralph Ellison's Three Days Before The Shooting has been shipped. I've been waiting for years for this. I hope it is not an omen that it arrives the day of Barack Obama's State of the Union message. It is the story of a mixed race Senator, who passes as "white" and is assassinated.
For those of you who are aging hipsters, yes Jimi Hendrix did record more songs at Electric Ladyland studios. And dig this--you can order 45s or vinyls of "Valleys of Neptune." Rolling Stone raves about it but anyone whom Yawn Wenner saw gets raves. Just check out the last few reviews of Neil Young. Apparently, there is alot more Hendrix that was finished and will be released in the future. The new disc or CD or whatever format you choose has 12 cuts on it.
If you love the Village and lower Manhattan, Patti Smith Just Kids is a wonderful memoir of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. The book was done to fulfill a promise Patti made to him before his death of AIDS in 1989. It covers how they inspired each other's art and how, with literally nothing, they stayed in seedy hotels and cramped apartments before they hit the big time. It's hard to believe that Patti fresh off the bus from southern New Jersey slept for her first days in Manhattan in Central Park. The title comes from a story of two tourists walking in the Village and they see Patti and Robert dressed in a Bohemian manner. The wife says,"Dear, take their photographs." The husband says gruffly," No dear, they're just kids."
Feeling funky and lost hope. A friend of mine put me on to Adam Hochschild's Bury The Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves. His previous book was Leopold's Ghost, which portrayed the horrors and I mean "the horror" of the Belgian Congo. In paperback, Bury the Chains recounts the history of 12 men, who came together in a London printing shop in early 1787 to create the first grassroots movement to fight for human rights--the struggle to outlaw slavery. Human rights advocates will recognize a number of strategies these men created--consumer boycotts, wall posters, celebrity endorsements and lapel buttons. But the key lesson was their insistence on making their case with facts and not sensational charges. This is a great book to read to remember the roots of today's human rights movements before it got taken over by large corporate entities.
David Plouffe is indeed back,sending out e-mails for Barack Obama fans to host house parties to watch the state of the union address. I hope no one catches on what this guy can do. And, David, you're still young so you've got awhile before you become corrupt.
Have been reading Forrest Church's books of theology. Church was a Harvard Divinity Schoolmate of mine. The son of Senator Church of CIA hearing fame, he was the pastor of All Souls Unitarian Church in Manhattan. Love & Death covers his meditations on both as he faced treatment for cancer with the certain belief he would be dead in months. He went in remission and went on to finish his life with a final book on Unitarian theology. He died of cancer last year.
Unfortunately for me I started reading his books with So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State, which sounded to me like a revised version of his doctoral thesis. It covers our first cultural wars. George Washington wanted religions strictly regulated so that they could not have influence over politics. The President who was warmly supported by born-again Baptists was none other than Thomas Jefferson. Madison was an atheist and John Adams won the hearts of Presbyterians and Unitarians who at that time wanted a more official status of Christianity. Liberal churches demanded during the Civil War that having Christianity as an official religion would have spare the country. Anyway, Forrest does an excellent job in upending the apple cart in describing these early fights that continue to this day. It is a useful tool to counter the revisionist history now being done by the right.
But Forrest can write some clinkers. He was asked on a Caribbean Cruise to give a Sunday sermon. So he chose the subject of the film Titanic. Life like the Titanic is a beautiful and grand ship but it too will sink. I'm sure his audience quickly went for the pina coladas after that remark.
Finishing on biblical notes. The Ark of the Covenant is supposedly a drum that could be heard 3 1/2 miles away and terrify opposing armies. A tribe in Zimbabwe claims their priests brought it to Africa. The strange part of this is that DNA tests have identified the genetic markers for the priestly line of Jews. A separate DNA test of the priests in the tribe also show the same genetic markers, which are not found outside the Jewish race. And of course the protectors of the Ark were the priests. Who knows?
If you are greedy, boastful and don't feed the poor, you are a Sodomite. That's the real biblical meaning. That casts the Log Cabin Republicans in a wholly different light.
Off to Ethiopia. The home of the Rasta prophet Hailie Selassie.
Showing posts with label Ralph Ellison. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ralph Ellison. Show all posts
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Best Books of 2010--That's Right
January will start the year off great with the publication of Ralph Ellison's lost masterpiece (some even thought it didn't exist) Three Days before the Shooting. Edited and reconstructed from lost computer files and discs by John Callahan and Adam Bradley, we know this will be great from the earlier book-length fragment Juneteenth. The story of a U.S. Senator who "passes" as white. Filled with some of the most marvelous reconstructions of black religious language and rhetoric, this one will not disappoint. Modern Library plans for the rollout on January 26. It weighs in at a hefty price tag of $50. It will join my first edition of the Invisible Man.
And in August, we are finally promised Evil River by William S. Burroughs, a book I have had on order for three consecutive years. The manuscript found among Burroughs' archive after his death.
And in August, we are finally promised Evil River by William S. Burroughs, a book I have had on order for three consecutive years. The manuscript found among Burroughs' archive after his death.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Music and Missing Books
An old favorite of mine Jorma Kaukonen has released River of Time on Red House Records. This album is without his old sidekick Jack Casady and contains 13 cuts of Jorma and his group on acoustic. Recorded at Levin Helms studio/ house in Woodstock, it's the best sounding album of Jorma's over the last few years. The pleasure comes in hearing a musician become even more accomplished at an instrument you first heard him play at 13. If you want, you can learn Jorma's finger-picking style at the Fur Peace Ranch in Ohio at his workshops. Jack is also there for bass lessons.
But the real purpose of this entry is to ask the question about books that are missing and we're--alright only me--are waiting for.
1. Ralph Ellison's second novel Three Days Before the Shooting has been promised for over a year. This is a great story for literature fans. Long rumored not to exist. Ralph Ellison claimed the manuscript was burned in a fire at his home in western Massachusetts and subsequently rumors went around that Ellison never really wrote it. He suffered from writers' bloc. After his death,his executor received from his widow boxes of mauscript pages and floppy discs (remember them) from a variety of computers and in different software. Together with a student assistant, he pieced together the final draft of a huge novel. The student assistant had to locate the various computers--some almost PC prototypes--to decipher the text and create a time chart of each draft. Ralph Ellison always told Albert Murray it existed and they often talked about chapters but after years people began to think it was like Truman Capote's Unanswered Prayers, a novel which was talked about but didn't exist in manuscript form. The first excerpt of the novel was published as the long "Juneteenth" several years ago. And we have been promised the full masterpiece over the last year. So far, I have not found any pub date and it keeps being pushed off.
2. William Burroughs' Evil River. In Bill Burroughs estate, a completed novel was found. Amazon has had it listed off and on for the past three years. I have pre-ordered it for the whole length of time and have now gone two Christmas' without it. Now Amazon promises an April 1 pub date, which I'll believe it when I see it.
3. Herman Melville's Complete Poems and Billy Budd as edited and annotated by Melville scholar Herschel Parker. Both volumes have been promised in the Newberry series of the Complete Herman Melville. It's hard to imagine the hangup on Billy Budd. The Complete poetry I understand since it has only been in the last few years that newly-found bits and pieces have come to view.
Then we have Missing Authors:
1. James Ellroy. Since becoming a cult writer and cult figure, James Ellroy has only surfaced as the writer of very short pieces. At one point, he suggested in an interview he had been researching the Clinton years with an eye of writing about them. A perfect idea since the Clinton years brought back in force the use of private detectives such as Terry Lenzer, who would be a prefect tool for melding Hollywood and Washington decadence.
2. Ian Rankin. This is unfair since Exit Music came out only a short time ago. In it Detective Rebus retires. But Rebus takes with him the dead cases from his career. It was clear that Edinburgh had outgrown Rebus' character. It had become yuppie-ized and European. The dead cases allow both Rankin and Rebus to go back to a nitty-grittier time more in character with the main character.
3.George Pelecanos. Pelecanos is the only novelist writing now that actually captures the real Washington away from the political world. After his last novel, he said he was exhausted and that it was harder each time. He's been writing for television shows like The Wire. Don't go, George.
4. J.G. Ballard. Last year Ballard left his readers with the distrubing news he was dying of cancer. We just want to know how's he doing.
5. J.D. Salinger. The New York Times already did their annual J.D.Salinger story. Has he been writing all this time? Is Janet Malcolm right--there are two completed novels in his workroom? Will we ever know? Is this the biggest Truman Capote?
6. Mary Oliver. One of our leading poets has actually been prolific since her life companion died a few years back. It's just that I could use another Mary Oliver soon.
But the real purpose of this entry is to ask the question about books that are missing and we're--alright only me--are waiting for.
1. Ralph Ellison's second novel Three Days Before the Shooting has been promised for over a year. This is a great story for literature fans. Long rumored not to exist. Ralph Ellison claimed the manuscript was burned in a fire at his home in western Massachusetts and subsequently rumors went around that Ellison never really wrote it. He suffered from writers' bloc. After his death,his executor received from his widow boxes of mauscript pages and floppy discs (remember them) from a variety of computers and in different software. Together with a student assistant, he pieced together the final draft of a huge novel. The student assistant had to locate the various computers--some almost PC prototypes--to decipher the text and create a time chart of each draft. Ralph Ellison always told Albert Murray it existed and they often talked about chapters but after years people began to think it was like Truman Capote's Unanswered Prayers, a novel which was talked about but didn't exist in manuscript form. The first excerpt of the novel was published as the long "Juneteenth" several years ago. And we have been promised the full masterpiece over the last year. So far, I have not found any pub date and it keeps being pushed off.
2. William Burroughs' Evil River. In Bill Burroughs estate, a completed novel was found. Amazon has had it listed off and on for the past three years. I have pre-ordered it for the whole length of time and have now gone two Christmas' without it. Now Amazon promises an April 1 pub date, which I'll believe it when I see it.
3. Herman Melville's Complete Poems and Billy Budd as edited and annotated by Melville scholar Herschel Parker. Both volumes have been promised in the Newberry series of the Complete Herman Melville. It's hard to imagine the hangup on Billy Budd. The Complete poetry I understand since it has only been in the last few years that newly-found bits and pieces have come to view.
Then we have Missing Authors:
1. James Ellroy. Since becoming a cult writer and cult figure, James Ellroy has only surfaced as the writer of very short pieces. At one point, he suggested in an interview he had been researching the Clinton years with an eye of writing about them. A perfect idea since the Clinton years brought back in force the use of private detectives such as Terry Lenzer, who would be a prefect tool for melding Hollywood and Washington decadence.
2. Ian Rankin. This is unfair since Exit Music came out only a short time ago. In it Detective Rebus retires. But Rebus takes with him the dead cases from his career. It was clear that Edinburgh had outgrown Rebus' character. It had become yuppie-ized and European. The dead cases allow both Rankin and Rebus to go back to a nitty-grittier time more in character with the main character.
3.George Pelecanos. Pelecanos is the only novelist writing now that actually captures the real Washington away from the political world. After his last novel, he said he was exhausted and that it was harder each time. He's been writing for television shows like The Wire. Don't go, George.
4. J.G. Ballard. Last year Ballard left his readers with the distrubing news he was dying of cancer. We just want to know how's he doing.
5. J.D. Salinger. The New York Times already did their annual J.D.Salinger story. Has he been writing all this time? Is Janet Malcolm right--there are two completed novels in his workroom? Will we ever know? Is this the biggest Truman Capote?
6. Mary Oliver. One of our leading poets has actually been prolific since her life companion died a few years back. It's just that I could use another Mary Oliver soon.
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