Black Rhapsody

Writer Zora Neal Hurston -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural explosion of the flapper era in which black Americans made tremendous strides in music and popular culture. The era extended roughly from 1920-1940, although some would start it as late as 1924, when Journal of Negro Life was published in the mainstream press. Prior to the Harlem Renaissance, black culture was pretty much off the radar of white society. Seen too frequently as the earthy "tripe" of freed slaves and domestics, their writings and music were dismissed by established publishing and entertainment venues.

Then something peculiar happened as the Great Migration brought more black people to northern cities and a black middle class took hold. In 1910, a group of black investors purchased several blocks of Harlem in New York City. Harlem had previously been an affluent white area but was an early example of “white flight”. The investors established bars, theaters, churches, publishers and other venues that catered to black clientele including many “New Negro” sophisticates. These new Harlem ventures showed that not only could black people be literate, they could also be phenomenally creative and cogent.

What followed in Harlem’s next two decades was an incredible flowering of black culture. The list of notables is a mile long but includes writers Langston Hughes and Zora Neal Hurston, poet Ruth Dixon, intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois, and musicians like Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Several now-famous clubs sprang into existence: the Cotton Club, Apollo Theater and Savoy Ball Room. The Apollo has been opened continuously since 1914 and now hosts the TV program Showtime at the Apollo, which showcases new black talent. A musical byproduct of this era was Harlem Stride, which blended brassy jazz music with strings and piano. Where jazz had previously been seen as a purely ethnic genre, it suddenly was embraced by white society. In fact, white literati were so enamored of the “New Negro” culture that major themes were borrowed for the “lily white” productions of Noel Coward, Cole Porter and the Gershwins.

No major movement is without its critics and the Harlem Renaissance met with fierce criticism from none other than mid-20th-century black activists. There were two or three general objections made against the Renaissance... Some felt that the entire style of the movement was one of “acting white”. In fact, many of the Harlem celebrities were light-skinned (“high yellow”) people with English given names and very nearly Bostonian middle class manners.

Others thought that much of the literary output catered to the prejudices of white people. Writer Zora Neal Hurston was notable for being a successful anthropologist and novelist. But she took flak for using Negro slave dialect in her (now venerated) book, Their Eyes Were Watching God. She also took flak for voting Republican and believing in individual responsibility over welfare. Where many didn’t like the white caste of the Harlem Renaissance others were rightly outraged that it was book-ended by two (then recent) decades when in fact, black music and writing have flourished for decades before.

In 2010 we are now marking the 100th anniversary of the Harlem real estate venture -- and only 4 years away from the centennial of the Apollo Theater. So what of Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington and Zora Neal Hurston? They are squarely back on their pedestals where they belong. Their contributions were in a seminal, somewhat crazy era of American history and there probably could’ve been no other cultural easement than the one that was offered.

We have a black President now, who some accuse of “acting white”. What we might just consider is that black has a thousand shades, just like a thousand shades of pale. Why presume to judge the style of a person, culture or era on such superficial criteria? The strength, beauty and wisdom comes through no matter what. In somewhat of a rebuke to the Harlem Renaissance critics, the 2009 movie Precious received Oscar nominations and rave reviews. It’s very much in a Harlem Renaissance style, updated for the 21st century. Things have come full circle and as in so many things, it’s a great bit of closure. What drives our cultural critique now is not so much anger as thoughtfulness -- and the Harlem Renaissance laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement as well as the sixties cultural revolution. Praise be to that.

© 2010 blogSpotter

Midland's Desert Marigold

Bush with school children in 2005 -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I just finished listening to Laura Bush’s memoire, Spoken from the Heart. I’ve always liked Laura, and the plain-spoken, sincere and evocative life story that she delivers here just solidifies that impression. Her background in education and reading shines through – she gives vivid descriptions of her Midland origins. You might feel like you’re there yourself -- enduring a dust storm, spying a horned toad in the garden or counting the stars on a Midland summer night. Her gift of words is a welcome counter-balance to the often ineloquent speech of her husband. In fact, Laura’s story makes the entire family seem more endearing; the Bush’s remind me of many of my own relatives.

Mind you, I wouldn’t want to see any of these relatives as President with their hardened attitudes about race and religion, but they are nonetheless well-meaning people who’ve been exemplary in many other ways. It’s a complicated world – hard to write off every person with whom you have an intellectual quarrel.

Laura was an only child, born in 1946 to a Midland home builder and his wife. The Welch’s were middle class but her father, Harold Welch was a “mover-and-shaker” who did well in his real estate business. He situated the family near the best schools and soon had his shy, bookish Laura enrolled with the scions of oil families. Despite her shyness, Laura was pretty and blue-eyed – she dated several prominent young men. At 17, Laura was in a tragic car accident driving her father’s Impala. She failed to see the other car -- a Corvair driven (ironically) by a former boyfriend. He was killed instantly, causing grief to the entire small town of Midland. Laura was deeply affected and says that she has pangs of guilt and sorrow to this day. Some political enemies later tried to portray it as a cover-up; there was no cover up – just a community moving past a local and unchangeable tragedy.

Laura went to SMU and graduated in 1968 with a degree in education. She added a Masters in Library Science in 1973. She taught at various public schools and libraries in Houston and Austin, finally settling at Austin’s Dawson elementary in 1977. She loved Austin (as does blogSpotter the author) so we share this central Texas affinity. Shy, sweet 31 year-old Laura, who read Russian novels while sunbathing, was about to have her life take a major turn. On a visit to Midland, her friends introduced Laura (the self-dubbed “old maid of Midland”) to George W. Bush, “Midland’s most eligible bachelor”. George was smitten with Laura and they married 3 months later. Some of Midland society was aghast – George married someone from the middle class.

From here, Laura’s story becomes a blur of political races and historical data, peppered with a few personal events. The couple had trouble conceiving a child and were about to adopt when twins Jenna and Barbara were born in 1981. She felt a chill from her mother-in-law Barbara Bush, who closed ranks with immediate family and served tart, judgmental remarks to the young Laura. They later became closer after shared experience as first ladies. George had mixed successes as an oil man and baseball team owner. His fortunes changed for the better when he quit drinking at Laura’s request in 1986. He redirected his focus to helping his father’s campaigns in ’88 and ’92 and then to his own gubernatorial race in ’94. The camera-shy Laura had a national audience when she spoke at the 2000 Republican Convention for George’s Presidential nomination.

This isn’t a George Story so we’ll leave out the (still, I think) sorry details of Dubya’s term in office. For her part, Laura worked on several causes – she wasn’t the Stepford robot that some accused her of being. She supported literacy – the National Book Festival was one of several such programs she started. She worked for women’s health issues – Heart Truth and Susan Komen foundation benefited from her work. Laura also traveled the world and promoted cures for HIV/AIDS as well as malaria awareness. Laura described herself several times as “apolitical”. However, she has come out in several different forums as pro-Choice and pro-gay marriage which put her leftward of Bush and his cronies. She also seems better-spoken and less doctrinaire – is at any wonder that she was voted by Gallup as one of the most popular first ladies in history? Her presence helped to soften the brunt of the Dubya Bush policy debacles.

When push comes to shove, Laura is a staunch defender of her much-maligned husband – you still have to love her for (apologies to both Tammy Wynette and Hillary) standing by her man. She makes some valid observations about the incredibly crass, negative discourse that’s come about in our pop culture. The negativity goes both ways and Obama has been on the receiving end of it more recently.

In all, Laura Bush is a charming woman, whose common-sense approach to life and basic decency come through in all her life’s chapters. If you listen to the book on tape, you’ll get to hear Laura’s Midland accent -- she and George emphasize the sibilant plurals “our heartsss” and “fragrant grassessss”. It’s all good, and if you’re a native Texan, Laura’s story will be in many ways like a trip to a long-forgotten prairie home.

© 2010 blogSpotter

The Facebook Age

Come network with me ... -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I probably don’t have to tell anyone what Facebook.com is – it’s the phenomenally successful and hip social networking site that’s handily bypassed MySpace as the place to hang your on-line profile. Facebook is the brainchild of Harvard grad Mark Zuckerberg who was all of 20 years old when he launched his famous app from a dormitory room in 2004.

Zuckerberg is from an affluent family – he attended Philips Exeter Academy prior to Harvard. It was at Philips Academy where he picked up the idea of a “Face Book”. Philips maintained a printed directory with students’ faces and short profiles called a Face Book. Zuckerberg carried the idea considerably further with his on-line version for Harvard. He was hardly twiddling his thumbs prior to Facebook; at @ 17 he created “Synapse” – a music listening precursor to Pandora that memorized the listener’s musical tastes. Microsoft and AOL made bids to purchase Synapse and hire Zuckerberg to develop the app, but he chose Harvard instead.

The success of Facebook was so widespread and intense that Zuckerberg dropped out of college in his sophomore year. He now heads up Facebook in Palo Alto, CA, and has a net worth in excess of 4 billion dollars. The networking app has 400 million users and gets more than a 100 million hits a day. Microsoft did purchase a 1.6% stake in Facebook, for $240 million. This was after they outbid Google Inc. which was also wooing Facebook.

What makes Facebook so special? To be frank and up-front, it’s probably not all that special. Explaining the popularity of web sites is similar to doing the same for drinking establishments or turtle neck sweaters. One variation will languish while the other one takes the world by storm. The scientific merits of one over the other matter very little. Facebook is a very effective hyper-networking tool, where conversations in different social circles overlap. Circles widen as people look at friends’ friends and add them as their own. Due to its powerful connectedness, Facebook is not good as a “hookup” site or dating service. Rude, lewd remarks could easily make the rounds and come back to haunt the sender. To look up old cronies, friends and family members, Facebook is excellent. Facebook has also woven in a few games (Farms and farm animals) and gimmicks (“pokes”) to provide an all-encompassing experience (although I have to say I’m annoyed by farm animals).

In the early 1990’s, it was thought that the OS was the most important factor in a customer’s on-line experience. Then the theater of war became browsers – Netscape versus IE versus Opera versus Firefox. In the 2010’s, “uber-apps” have become the battleground – things like Google’s search engine, iTunes music store and Facebook. (Take note-- Microsoft has no stake or a small stake in any of these).

Alas, my middle-aged take on Facebook doesn’t vary that far from my take on AOL chat when I wrote about that (“Games People Play” Feb 2005). My main critique then was that people tend to lie or exaggerate on profiles (big news! :-)). I’ve since noticed that even the most honest self-appraisals and recent photos fail to capture essential details – you must meet the person in person. And if you want anything but a most superficial “hookup”, you probably need to exchange a lot of emails. You can invest all this effort on what pans out to be a wrong prospect. Personally, I have better ways to spend my time.

I will say that Facebook offers a powerful network reach that brings many people to this particular gateway. Will it be “the one” for all time? It probably won’t even be that for 10 months – I’m amazed at the extreme fickleness of the computer crowd. MySpace is still licking its wounds, as the lover scorned. In conclusion, I’m enjoying Facebook for now and now is all that matters ( according to Sanskrit poetry which I don’t have with me to quote). Which all reminds me, I need to check Facebook and see if I’ve been poked.

© 2010 blogSpotter