imnothinginparticular

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay. Another book I had saw Mekel read during the pandemic and not having any money just left it on my wishlist. This is a recently re-discovered novel from the Harlem Renaissance writer that was too transgressive at the time going into the legacy of the black diaspora, queer identity, and the black body & historic mutilation of it...cleverly combining it all thru its symbolism. The story is about a black sailor who has to stowaway and is caught and locked in a freezer causing frostbite leading to a complete amputation of both of his legs. He meets a lawyer while in the hospital who wins him an unprecedented lawsuit. In it, already you can see the metaphor of the transatlantic slave trade and mistreatment of the black body. He is apperently made whole through the money but is left questioning whether it cannot ever trying compensate what was done to him. He returns to his old town in Marseille where his old friends treat him differently before falling in love again with a prostitute wishing for them to return to Africa before tragedy befalls the affair. In Marseille a lot of the characters are openly queer while the dynamics of the town is explored through race and history. A really tight concise package in under 130 pages.

[imnothinginparticular]

+collage on paper, 2019

"I ain't going out without a fight"

210mm x 297mm.

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck. Picked this up from the free bookstore in Baltimore. I am quite a big fan of his with "East of Eden" being my favorite, so was happy to find a novella that I hadn't read by him for free. This was his propaganda work for the war effort circulated for those under Nazi occupation written right after Pearl Harbor. It was highly criticized at the time for not being aggressive enough, which for a thinking writer like Steinbeck to write such easy propaganda... just wouldn't be possible. The American audience didn't quite get it and as a result it ended up having a huge impact as it was bootlegged throughout Europe with its biggest following in the Scandinavian countries where the locale of the story was loosely upon. Although never actually living under the occupation his work really struck a chord...a result of the interviews he had with people who fled the occupation as the work was for them anyway. Recall in another free book I got from the same place last decade in Sartre's "What is Literature?", he used this novel as an example in his contention that we can have no true understanding of a literary work unless we know who an author is writing for. Also comparative was the famous Vercors resistance novel that circulated through France in "The Silence of the Sea" where the people resisted through silence. There was a pre-French new wave Jean-Pierre Melville film adaptation that was really good as well. All in all a solid read that like a lot of his lesser novels gets its name from Shakespeare. In Macbeth right before Duncan is murdered the two guards mention to each other, "How goes the night, boy?" To which the other replies, " The Moon is down; I have not heard the clock" foreshadowing the descent of evil on to the kingdom. The allusion relates to the spiritual darkness Nazism brought about.

[imnothinginparticular]

+collage on paper, 2024

"it's obvious"

210mm x 297mm.

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Picked this up at the free book store in Baltimore. Recall watching the 1961 film with my grandfather and later at school that had that original Broadway cast from the play that included Sydney Poitier and Ruby Dee. It is my favorite adaptation although the 1989 PBS version with Danny Glover is just as good that even including left out sections in the 1961 film. The most notable section was of the sister going natural with her hair which predated the "black is beautiful" movement that popularized the idea later in that decade going into the 70s. With a running time of nearly 3 hours, I guess they weren't easy editing decisions. But for those uninitiated the story tells of a family's attempt to improve their existence with a pending insurance check payout. Featuring well rounded complex characters, each has their own dream and in dealing with housing discrimination, assimilation and racism...struggle to stay together. The title comes from a Langston Hughes poem, "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" It was the first play to be written and produced on Broadway by an African American woman as well to feature a black director. Unfortunately, she died just 6 years later at age 34 making for one of the bigger "what if's" in our history as she had a lot to say. Her family challenged restrictive housing covenant in a famous Supreme Court case and I was always impressed with what Baldwin recalled in her telling the president off in a private meeting on civil rights. He recalled her as the strongest person in the room among men and in addition as a lesbian she spoke out for gay rights as well.The play stands the test of time for better or worse as the same problems exist and found Amiri Baraka's reevaluation of the play to exemplify this, "We missed the essence of the work - that Hansberry had created a family on the cutting edge of the same class and ideological struggles as existed in the movement itself and among the people...The Younger family is part of the black majority and the concerns I once dismissed as 'middle class'- buying a home and moving into 'white folks' neighborhood's - are actually reflective of the essence if black people's striving and the will to defeat segregation, discrimination, and national oppression. There is no such thing as a 'white folks' neighborhood except to racists and to those submitting to racism."

[imnothinginparticular]

+collage on paper, 2021

"Joni Mitchell Never Lie" 210mm x 297mm.

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks Theaster Gates: Afro-Mingei by various. This is the delayed exhibition catalog from the exhibition that was at the Mori Art museum that I just had to get. I actually don't recall ever attending a museum show in Japan from a black artist. Straight titled "Afro-Mingei," it is viewed by the artist as a speculation and a proposal. What is key is the way in which Mingei honors makers native to a place, while resisting external impositions of cultural identity. He cites Mingei and the "Black Is Beautiful" movement to offer key understandings on celebrating subcultures as resistance to the hegemonic. Bit of contradiction with Mingei of which a lot of its Korean (and Taiwanese) items were acquired during Japanese colonialism, but guess like most things in regard to African American life...we just take it with a grain of salt. But with this cultural exchange of sorts that the exhibition represented, it randomly me recall sometime when I first got to Japan and unknowingly dated a girl who was involved with SGI (considered a cult like Buddhist sect with a political party) and was introduced at their HQ. I am open minded enough to go through things I would never believe more so to see what others can see in it. But I had an interesting question proposed to me by a member who spoke really good English since my Japanese was nonexistent in 2008. At that time I was really into Japanese culture from Ozu to Shiga Naoya, which in vogue to say you like now, was quite rare at the time. She put it to me that perhaps Japan in relation to African American culture posed such an extreme dichotomy where the former was the most insular culture never really been conquered till 1945 while African American of which has become among the most recognized yet stems entirely from oppression. It was something I hadn't really thought of but I appreciate this notion of limitation prevalent in both for what despite being at a cult's headquarters was an interesting conversation. With that perhaps my favorite part of the show aside from the Chicago church, community center elements which I had seen in Washington DC was the "Black Library & Black Space" where he literally he imported his entire book collection. My favorite thing to do at someone's house is to look through their book shelf and to see Theaster Gates' was special with a lot of similarities and a few surprises that I added to my wishlist. I will say though my grandma's Jet Magazine collection is just as a good haha.

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

+collage on paper, 2017

"a little orange"

210mm x 297mm.

*Available, link in bio.

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks Lover Man by Alston Anderson. I got this after seeing @mekiel_nunez post this who became a good literary friend via social media during the pandemic even sending me a few books including the extremely rare Mojo Hand as I was struggling pretty bad financially then. Lover Man, finally in print for the first time in nearly half a century, this is a collection of short stories written in the mid-20th century during Jim Crow. In life he only wrote one other work, a historical novel, that he wrote in the depths of his own alcoholism and addiction. To this day no one could really figure out why he wrote it as it is about a former slave wanting to return to slavery that was to be taking as a cynical but the seriousness of the perspective left readers disturbed. Also, around that time he wrote a letter defending William F. Buckley (seen at the time as a conservative public intellectual; intelligence begs progression which I always saw as an antithesis to the very notion of conservatism) defending him against James Baldwin. It would be the last anyone ever heard of him till he died in obscurity in 2008...prompting years later this reprint. But the stories themselves were seen to be challenging at the time, and like these instances sometimes...the art actually holds up much better today. I think the extremely subtle queer nuances threw readers off in general to the lack of plot his stories carry. "Signifying" is the buzzword critics use when describing these stories which I would simply relate to mono no aware in Japanese literature. There is a problem but the characters will comment on something unrelated avoiding the real problem carrying on as before accepting it all in stride. But really his stories are delicately nuisanced making this an enjoyable and important.

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks Burger's Daughter by Nadine Gordimer. This is one of those rare occasions where I actually followed an algorithm to decide to get this book. At the time I added this to my wishlist, I was really going into African literature, specifically Nigerian in Tutuola, Soyinka, Achebe, and Okri (review soon). This popped up so many times in context that I just gave in and ya this is why I don't follow algorithms for literature, music, etc. Set in South Africa in the 70s, it tells the story of the daughter of Afrikaner anti-apartheid activists who both died in prison. Based in and around real events like the Soweto Uprising, it alternates between a coming of age and a serious political novel while switching narrative modes from anonymous third person and the daughter's internal monologues. A device that proves effective for remaining factual and objective for the political aspects and subjective giving the novel its heart. However, a lot like the terrible Denzel film Cry Freedom, black characters are there to just populate the background as it is really just about the white people. Which unlike the film is entirely fine here, I just was really getting into the tribal folklore of the Nigerian writers and they kept recommending me this, which is just completely different in every way. It is a bit of a slow read as well, I did find myself forcing this quite often finally finishing during the typhoon. Certainly an important work that goes beyond the 70s touching on Mandela's trial, the Sharpsville Massacre, etc... I just don't understand the context for the recommendation based off of where I was.