Wednesday – 07 March 2012
It’s the middle of the week. And it’s new comics day. And it may or may not be Pasta and Movie Date Night.
But, more importantly: It’s Diana’s 6-month birthday!
Both little ladies are doing well, despite long crying jags in the wee hours of this morning: Diana started around 2:30, Vanessa around 4:00. We’re trying to get the girls to learn to put themselves back to sleep when they wake up in the middle of the night, so we didn’t go immediately rushing in to comfort them…
…which made for a long couple of hours.
…which, in turn, led me to sleep on the couch downstairs so I could get my last few hours’ sleep (and not have an encore presentation of Monday).
But, by the time I looked in on them around 7:15, they were all giggles, grins and kicks.
Kids. Go figure.
Stray Toasters
I just called SaraRules! to confirm that we were attending Utah Opera’s upcoming production Elixir of Love. She assured me that we were and then made a “get your towel/don’t panic” comment. I was proud, amused and a little scared (all at once) by this.
My current lack of a model railroad is making me want to take my HO Scale train equipment and make a door layout. And I just realized that I have some US HO train gear, as well as a fair bit of Marklin train equipment, that I inherited from a coworker of SaraRules. What does all this mean? Simply put: I could do a double-sided door setup — US on one side; EU on the other.
Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Professional Football Club have called it quits. Kudos to Manning for his professionalism during the press conference. Also, I noticed something: Peyton Manning and NCIS‘ Sean Murray look “a bit” alike…
Peyton Manning (l) and Sean Murray
…and I don’t think that I’ve ever seen the two of them in the same place at the same time. Just saying.
Tuesday – 06 March 2012
After a less-than-stellar start to the week, let’s see what today has to offer.
I apparently woke up on the wrong side of the bed planet yesterday. Of course, saying “woke up” implies that I really slept Sunday night, which I did… though sporadically. By the time I got to work, I could tell that I was in a poor mood. With that in mind, I tried to avoid too much interaction with coworkers — I didn’t want to inadvertently take off someone’s head for no good reason. It seemed to work.
I left early, as the girls had their six-month check-up yesterday afternoon. The doctor had nothing but good things to say about their progress/development. (That was good to hear.) Then the immunization shots – and the screaming – came. (That was not good to hear.) When we got them home, we put the girls down for naps. They woke up in good moods. Thankfully. After some play time, baths and bottles, the girls went to bed for the evening. SaraRules! and I watched some TV and unwound.
Monday – 27 February 2012
It’s a grey day with the threat of a fairly major snow storm on the horizon. At least there’s coffee…
…and, unless my basic math skills are failing me, the girls slept through the night for the FOURTH NIGHT IN A ROW!
This past weekend, while very good, was also very busy. Saturday, I judged Dr. Volt’s Comic Connection’s second “Infinity Gauntlet” HeroClix tournament… which I left in the middle of to attend a surprise birthday lunch for lj user=”nox_aeternus”. It was held at Bohemian Brewery, a place I had not been in many, many rains. Good food, good company, and yes, good beer. Then, I dashed back to Dr. Volt’s to finish up the tourney. (Thanks to SaraRules! for watching the girls and allowing me some “time off for good behavior.”) I returned home to find SaraRules! and lj user=”suzie_lightning” hanging out with the girls.
Sunday, after the girls were fed and dressed, we headed to Millcreek Cafe and Eggworks for breakfast. While there, we saw Christy, one of our former Pin-up Girl Espresso baristas. Back at home, it was time for a little pre-Spring cleaning and housework. This included (but was not limited to) some child-proofing and installing a couple of wine racks in the kitchen. Later in the day, SaraRules!’ parents came over for dinner. Since we’ve been having pretty decent weather, I fired up the grill and did hamburgers, while the girls and their granddad watched Fantasia 2000:
Diana (l), Steve and Vanessa
After dinner, the in-laws helped get the girls prepped for bed. By the end of the evening, though, all SaraRules! and I wanted to do was plop down on the couch and veg. And we did. (And watched Resident Evil, to boot!)
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s profile is: Roger Arliner Young (1899 – November 9, 1964) was a scientist of zoology, biology, and marine biology.
Born in Clifton Forge, Virginia in 1899, Young soon moved with her family to Burgettstown, Pennsylvania. The family was poor and much time and resources were expended in the care of her disabled mother.In 1916, Young enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. to study music. She did not take her first science course until 1921. Though her grades were poor at the beginning of her college career, some of her teachers saw promise in her. One of these was Ernest Everett Just, a prominent black biologist and head of the Zoology department at Howard. He started mentoring her, and Young graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1923. In 1924 Young began studying for her master’s degree at the University of Chicago. While at Chicago, she was asked to join Sigma XI, a scientific research society, which was an unusual honor for a master’s student. She also began to publish her research, and in 1924 her first article, “On the excretory apparatus in Paramecium” was published in the journal Science, making her the first African American woman to research and professionally publish in this field. Young received her master’s degree in 1926.
Just invited Young to work with him during the summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, starting in 1927. Young assisted him with research on the fertilization process in marine organisms. She also worked on the processes of hydration and dehydration in living cells. Her expertise grew, and Just called her a “real genius in zoology.”
Early in 1929, Young stood in for Just as head of the Howard zoology department while Just worked on a grant project in Europe. In the fall of that year, Young returned to Chicago to start a Ph.D. under the direction of Frank Lillie, the embryologist who had been Just’s mentor at Woods Hole. But she failed her qualifying exams in January 1930. She had given little indication of stress, but the failure to qualify was devastating. She was broke and still had to care for her mother. She left and told no one her whereabouts. Lillie, deeply concerned, wrote the president of Howard about her mental condition. She eventually returned to Howard to teach and continued working at Woods Hole in the summers.
In June 1937, she went to the University of Pennsylvania, studying with Lewis Victor Heilbrunn(another scientist she met at the Marine Biological Laboratory) and graduated with her doctorate in 1940.After obtaining her doctorate, Young became an assistant professor at the North Carolina College for Negroes (later North Carolina Central University). She later held teaching positions in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Young contributed a great deal of work to science. She studied the effects of direct and indirect radiation on sea urchin eggs, on the structures that control the salt concentration in paramecium, as well as hydration and dehydration of living cells. She published four papers between 1935 and 1938 and also wrote several books.
Young was never married. In the 1950s her mental health began to deteriorate and she was hospitalized. Roger Arliner Young died on November 9, 1964 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Friday – 24 February 2012
It’s (finally) the end of the week. It’s my working Friday, but it’s also the quiet day in the office; this isn’t to say that the day hasn’t been productive.
Of even more importance: The twins slept through the night again! And… *drumroll* … for the second consecutive night! I’m not necessarily expecting them to do so again tonight, but I wouldn’t be averse to it.
SaraRules! and I postponed Wednesday’s Pasta & Movie Date Night until last night. It was SaraRules!’ night to choose a movie. She picked Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It. We had long talked about watching all of Spike Lee’s movies, in order, but hadn’t done anything about it… until last night. And it was good, especially for his first outing.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is Llewellyn Xavier, artist.
Llewellyn Xavier OBE was born in Saint Lucia on October 12, 1945
Xavier left Saint Lucia for Barbados in 1961, working as an agricultural apprentice for a time. A friend gave him a box of watercolors, and he was soon drawn to art. His first exhibition was a great success, and soon his reputation was established. In 1968, Xavier moved to England, where he became a pioneer in the field of mail art. He enrolled in the school of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1979, and for a time was a Cistercian monk in Montreal. After a time, he left the monastery, marrying and returning to Saint Lucia in 1987.
Probably Xavier’s most important work to date is a large cycle of collages. His intense concern for the environment led to his masterpiece, Global Council for Restoration of the Earth’s Environment; it was first shown at the Patrick Cramer Gallery in Geneva in May of 1993. The collages incorporate all manner of recycled materials, including naturalist prints from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and postage stamps from many countries. They also include signatures of various world leaders of environmentalism and of a number of conservationists.
Xavier received the OBE in 2004 in recognition of his contributions to the art of the Commonwealth. His most recent series to date, also of collages, is titled Environment Fragile, and is meant to call attention to the destruction of the environment; he has sent pieces from the series to various dignitaries around the world.
Thursday – 23 February 2012
Another No Bad News Thursday is upon us. Something that makes this day just a little bit better: The girls slept through the night again!
Vanessa (l) and Diana, in new headbands… rocking out with their Sophies and some tissue paper
This more than made up for the atrocious nights’ sleep that I had. More unpleasant dreams and great case of heartburn. YAY!
SaraRules! had another Justice League meeting last night, so her father came over to dote over his granddaughters help me get the girls fed and to bed. And, to be honest, dote a bit. He and the girls played a bit. They took pictures. They told stories about the war. (Okay, that was just to make sure that you were really paying attention.) Then it was dinner (carrots) time and before too long… time for bed and a story.
SaraRules!, on her way home from saving the world, stopped and got me Chinese food take-out. As it was a bit late for Pasta & Movie Date Night, we opted to finish off the first half of this season’s The Walking Dead. Wow. Some things wound up the way I expected, while I didn’t see a couple of things coming. (Yay for avoiding spoilers for the past two months!)
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s profile is: Madam C.J. Walker, an African-American businesswoman, entrepreneur and philanthropist.
Madam C.J. Walker (December 23, 1867 – May 25, 1919) was born Sarah Breedlove in Delta, Louisiana to Owen and Minerva Breedlove. She was one of six children. Her parents and elder siblings were slaves on Madison Parish plantation owned by Robert W. Burney . She was the first child in her family born into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
Orphaned at the age of seven, Madam C. J. Walker moved in with her older sister, and brother-in-law, Willie Powell. At the age of 14, she married Moses McWilliams to escape Powell’s abuse. Three years later her daughter, Lelia McWilliams (A’Lelia Walker) was born. When Sarah was 20, her husband died. Shortly afterward she moved to St. Louis where three of her brothers lived. Her second marriage to John Davis ended in 1903.
Driven by her own struggles with hair loss during 1890s, Madam C. J. Walker began experimenting with different hair care treatments and products. In 1905 she invented a method for straightening African-Americans’ “kinky” hair: her method involved her own formula for a pomade, much brushing, and the use of heated combs. Encouraged by her success, she moved to Denver, Colorado, where she married Charles J. Walker. She promoted her method and products by traveling about the country giving lecture-demonstrations. Soon Sarah, now known as “Madam C. J. Walker,” was selling her products throughout the United States. While her daughter Lelia (later known as A’Lelia Walker) ran a mail order business from Denver, Madam Walker and her husband traveled throughout the southern and eastern states. They settled in Pittsburgh in 1908 and opened Lelia College to train “hair culturists.” In 1910 Walker moved to Indianapolis, Indiana where she established her headquarters and built a factory.
She began to teach and train other black women in order to help them build their own businesses. She also gave other lectures on political, economic and social issues at conventions sponsored by powerful black institutions. After the East St. Louis Race Riot, she joined leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in their efforts to support legislation to make lynching a federal crime. In 1918 at the biennial convention of the National Association Of Colored Woman (NACW) she was acknowledged for making the largest contribution to save the Anacostia (Washington, DC) house of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. She continued to donate money throughout her career to the NAACP, the YMCA, and to black schools, organizations, individuals, orphanages, and retirement homes.
In 1917, she moved to her Irvington-on-Hudson, New York estate, Villa Lewaro, which had been designed by Vertner Tandy, the first licensed black architect in New York State and a founding member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Madam C.J. Walker died at Villa Lewaro on Sunday, May 25, 1919 from complications of hypertension. She was 51.
At the time of her death, Madam C. J. Walker was sole owner of her business, which was valued at more than $1 million. Her personal fortune was around $600,000 to $700,000. She left one-third of her estate went to her daughter—who herself became well known as a supporter of the Harlem Renaissance—the remainder to various philanthropies.
Tuesday – 21 February 2012
Ugh. That’s how I felt this morning when my alarm went off. Not because the girls woke up in the middle of the night. (Which was fine, as they woke up about 4:15 and were asleep again shortly thereafter.) No, last night’s broken sleep came courtesy of some rather disturbing dreams. Disturbing enough that it took me a while to want to go back to sleep. Yeah, it was that much fun.
The evening, however, was good. It was another bath night for the girls. After last week’s experience with Vanessa (a.k.a. “Splash-O-Matic 5000”), I decided to change into shorts before giving the girls their baths. And, of course, this week, both girls were fairly subdued. Still, bath time was good.
After the girls were down, SaraRules! made a fantastic chicken curry dish (with chickpeas and spinach) over rice. We ate and knocked a couple of episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles and Castle off the DVR. When those were done, we saw that Blade Runner was on AMC. We watched part of it and realized that neither of us had watched the whole film in a while. We plan on rectifying that in the not-too-distant future.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is: Leslie Uggams, an American actress and singer.
Leslie Uggams was born on May 25, 1943 in New York City, to Harold and Juanita Uggams. As a small child Uggams would sing along to records, exhibiting a remarkably mature voice. The fact that Uggams had vocal talent was not a total surprise. Her father was a member of the Hall Johnson Choir, and her mother was a chorus girl at the Cotton Club.
In 1949, at age six, Uggams sang in public for the first time at St. James Presbyterian Church in New York City. The following year, she made her acting debut with a small part on an episode of the television comedy Beulah, which starred the legendary Ethel Waters. Uggams played Beulah’s niece.
At 9-years-old Leslie, opened for such legends as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington at the Apollo Theater. She also made appearances on Your Show of Shows,The Milton Berle Show, and The Arthur Godfrey Show. After completing the third grade, Uggams left her local public school to enroll at the Professional Children’s School, a private institution in Manhattan catering to children with show business connections.
At 15 , she appeared on the CBS-TV quiz show “Name That Tune,” winning $12,500 toward her college education. The appearance gave Uggams a chance to showcase her vocal skills. Her rendition of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” was noticed by record producer Mitch Miller who, as director of artists and repertory at Columbia Records, was one of the most influential figures in popular music during the 1950s. Miller signed Uggams to a contract, and her first album was released in 1959. Despite increasing career demands, Uggams continued to excel at school. At the Professional Children’s School, from which she graduated in 1961, Uggams was editor of the yearbook and president of the student body.
When Miller got his own television show, Sing Along with Mitch, in 1961, Uggams was asked to appear on it, first as a guest vocalist, then as a regular member of the all-singer cast. She became the lone African American performer regularly appearing on network television. The presence of an African American singer on the Sing Along with Mitch show drew relatively little controversy, although some stations in the South refused to air the program. “Mitch was told either I go or the show goes. He said, ‘Either she stays or there’s no show.’ He loved that show, and he had been trying to sell it for so long that to turn around and do that was heroic,” Uggams told Nadine Brozan of the New York Times in 1994. Uggams sometimes found her position as television’s only African American performer difficult to bear. “It was a heavy load. I was responsible for having a clean image. I wanted people to have respect for black people.”
Uggams later attended the prestigious Juilliard School of Music, where she studied every subject offered except singing. “They said they wouldn’t touch her voice,” Uggams’ mother told Newsweek. In 1963, Uggams left Juilliard a few credits short of a degree.
In the late ’60s and early ’70s, Uggams acted in television shows like The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, The Mod Squad, Marcus Welby, M.D., while continuing to appear as herself on variety shows. In 1970, she had her own musical variety television series on CBS-TV, The Leslie Uggams Show, and signed a new recording contract with Atlantic Records. In 1972, she made her dramatic film debut opposite Charlton Heston in the MGM film Skyjacked. However, it was Leslie’s portrayal of Kizzy in the most watched dramatic show in TV history, Alex Haley’s Roots, that won her worldwide recognition as a dramatic actress – including the Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1978, an Emmy nomination for Best Leading Actress and coveted Golden Globe Nomination from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
In 1983, Uggams won a Daytime Emmy as “Outstanding Host or Hostess of a Variety Series” for Fantasy.
In 1987, she toured with Peter Nero and Mel Torme in “The Great Gershwin Concert,” for which she received rave reviews. In 1988, she starred as Reno Sweeney in the National Company of the Lincoln Center Production of “Anything Goes” and later reprised the role at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater on Broadway.
Uggams entered the world of daytime drama in 1996 when she played Rose Keefer, a woman with a checkered past, on All My Children. Her portrayal of Rose Keefer earned Uggams a nomination for the NAACP Image Award.
Singing continues to be the mainstay of Uggams’ career, and acting assignments are fit into a busy concert schedule. Uggams would like to do more acting but,”You can’t just sit around waiting for a good script. You can wait forever.”
Information courtesy of Answers.com, IMDb.com, LeslieUggams.com, MasterworksBroadway.com, NPR and Wikipedia.
Thursday – 16 February 2012
It’s not only NBN Thursday, but it’s also “Technical Friday.”
Last night, SaraRules! and I had Pasta & Movie Date Night. We co-cooked dinner (grilled chicken and broccoli over spaghetti, with alfredo sauce) and watched Source Code. I enojyed it… for the most part. In fact, I think the thing that I disliked the most was that the blu-ray disc started skipping in the middle of Chapter 11, making us miss roughly five minutes of the film.
*shakes fist*
Aside from that, it was a good movie. It remined me of Seven Days, with a hint of Groundhog Day.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is: P.B.S. Pinchback, the first non-white and first person of African American descent to become governor of a U.S. state.
Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (May 10, 1837 – December 21, 1921) was born in Macon, Georgia, to Eliza Stewart, a former slave, and William Pinchback, her former master, who were living together as husband and wife. Pinchback was brought up in relatively affluent surroundings. He was raised as white and his parents sent him north to Cincinnati, Ohio, to attend school. In 1848, however, Pinchback’s father died. William Pinchback’s relatives disinherited his mulatto wife and children and claimed his property in Mississippi. Fearful that the northern Pinchbacks might also try to claim her five children as slaves, Pinchback’s mother fled with them to Cincinnati.
In 1860 Pinchback married Nina Hawthorne of Memphis, Tennessee. The Civil War began the following year, and Pinchback decided to fight on the side of the Union. In 1862 he furtively made his way into New Orleans, which had just been captured by the Union Army. He raised several companies for the Union’s all black 1st Louisiana Native Guards Regiment. Commissioned a captain, he was one of the Union Army’s few commissioned officers of African American ancestry. He became Company Commander of Company A, 2nd Louisiana Regiment Native Guard Infantry (later reformed as the 74th US Colored Infantry Regiment). Passed over twice for promotion and tired of the prejudice he encountered from white officers, Pinchback resigned his commission in 1863.
At the war’s end, he and his wife moved to Alabama, to test their freedom as full citizens. Racial tensions there during Reconstruction were reaching shocking levels of violence, however, he brought his family back to New Orleans and became active in the Republican Party, participating in Reconstruction state conventions. In 1868, he organized the Fourth Ward Republican Club in New Orleans. That same year, he was elected as a State Senator, where he became senate president pro tempore of a Legislature that included 42 representatives of African American descent (half of the chamber, and seven of 36 seats in the Senate). In 1871 he became acting lieutenant governor upon the death of Oscar Dunn, the first elected African-American lieutenant governor of a U.S. state.
In 1872, the incumbent Republican governor, Henry Clay Warmoth, suffered impeachment charges near the end of his term. State law required that Warmoth step aside until convicted or cleared of the charges. Pinchback, as lieutenant governor, succeeded as governor on December 9 and served for 35 days until the end of Warmoth’s term. Warmoth was not convicted and the charges were eventually dropped.
In 1872 Pinchback was elected to Congress, but his Democratic opponent contested the election and won the seat. A year later he was elected to the U.S. Senate, but he was again refused the seat amid charges and countercharges of fraud and election irregularities—although some observers said it was the colour of his skin that counted against him. He was appointed to his last office in 1882 as surveyor of customs in New Orleans.
At the age of 50 he decided to take up a new profession and entered Straight College, New Orleans, to study law; he was subsequently admitted to the bar. Disillusioned with the outcome of Reconstruction and the return to power of the traditional white hierarchy, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he remained active in politics.
Pinchback died in Washington in 1921 and is interred in Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans. His service as governor helped him to be interred there although the cemetery was segregated and reserved for whites.
Wednesday – 15 February 2012
Midweek. New comics day. Pasta & Movie Date Night.
Last night, SaraRules! presented me with awesome Valentine’s Day gifts:
Chocolate-covered strawberries
RubySnap cookies
A wedding album that she created.
She also cooked a great dinner AND made chocolate souffles.
Yeah, it was like that.
The album was, quite simply, fantastic. She pulled together a bunch of great photos from the wedding and reception, set the backgrounds, laid the whole album out and ordered the book. (She even has copyright credits.) And, it was a complete surprise. Total win.
Last night was also a bath night for the girls. Diana, while not totally in to bathtime last night, was fairly good-natured about the whole thing. Vanessa…? She LOVES bathtime. How can we tell? Well, let’s just say that SaraRules! has taken to calling her “Splash-O-Matic 5000.” With very good reason. By the time I finished bathing her, I was soaked. Absolutely drenched. But, she had a ball – and she got clean – so it was worth it.
Groove. Boogie. Sway.
I don’t think that I really need to say anything about this other than “Here it is.”
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is Odetta, an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist.
Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008) was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Odetta’s father, Reuben Holmes, died in 1937, when Odetta was only 7 years old. That same year she and her mother, Flora Sanders, moved across the country to Los Angeles.
Although Odetta loved singing, she never considered whether she had any particular vocal talent until one of her grammar school teachers heard her voice. The teacher insisted to Odetta’s mother that she sign her up for classical training. She had operatic training from the age of 13. After several years of voice coaching, she landed a spot in a prestigious signing group called the Madrigal Singers. When Odetta graduated from Belmont High School in Los Angeles, she continued on to Los Angeles City College to study music. She later insisted, however, that her real education came from outside the classroom. “School taught me how to count and taught me how to put a sentence together,” she acknowledged. “But as far as the human spirit goes, I learned through folk music.” And as far as her musical development went, Odetta said her formal training was “a nice exercise, but it had nothing to do with my life.”
Her first professional experience was in musical theater in 1944, as an ensemble member for four years with the Hollywood Turnabout Puppet Theatre. In 1950, after graduating from college with a degree in music, Odetta landed a role in the chorus of a traveling production of Finian’s Rainbow. She fell in love with folk music when, after a show in San Francisco, she went to a Bohemian coffee shop and experienced a late-night folk music session. “That night I heard hours and hours of songs that really touched where I live,” she said. “I borrowed a guitar and learned three chords, and started to sing at parties.” Later that year, she left the theater company and took a job singing at a San Francisco folk club. In 1953, she moved to New York City and soon became a fixture at Manhattan’s famed Blue Angel nightclub. “As I did those songs, I could work on my hate and fury without being antisocial,” she said.
She made her name by playing around the United States: at the Blue Angel nightclub (New York City), the hungry i (San Francisco), and Tin Angel (San Francisco), where she and Larry Mohr recorded Odetta and Larry in 1954, for Fantasy Records. A solo career followed, with Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues (1956) and At the Gate of Horn (1957). Odetta Sings Folk Songs was one of 1963’s best-selling folk albums. In 1959 she appeared on Tonight With Belafonte a nationally televised special. Odetta sang Water Boy and a duet with Belafonte of There’s a Hole in My Bucket.
The 1960s, however, were Odetta’s most prolific years. During that decade, she lent her powerful voice to the cause of black equality—so often so that her music has frequently been called “the soundtrack of the civil rights movement.” She performed at political rallies, demonstrations and benefits. In 1961, Martin Luther King, Jr. anointed her “The Queen of American folk music”. Many Americans remember her performance at the 1963 civil rights movement’s march to Washington where she sang “O Freedom.” She considered her involvement in the Civil Rights movement as being “one of the privates in a very big army.”
In her later years, after the popularity of folk music had declined, Odetta made it her mission to share its potency with a new generation of youth. “The folk repertoire is our inheritance. Don’t have to like it, but we need to hear it,” she said. “I love getting to schools and telling kids there’s something else out there. It’s from their forebears, and it’s an alternative to what they hear on the radio. As long as I am performing, I will be pointing out that heritage that is ours.”
On September 29, 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Medal of Arts. In 2004, Odetta was honored at the Kennedy Center with the “Visionary Award.” In 2005, the Library of Congress honored her with its “Living Legend Award”.
On December 2, 2008, Odetta died from heart disease in New York City.
Thursday – 09 February 2012
This NBN Thursday is a bit grey and hazy. But, I started the morning with SaraRules! and the girls, so it was a good kick-off to the day.
Last night, we watched Killer Elite (not to be confused with the movie with almost the same title from 1975) for Movie Date Night. Robert DeNiro. Clive Owen. Jason Statham. All kicking ass and, in some cases, taking names. The premise was a little different than I expected, but not in a bad way. There were a couple of plot holes, but what movie doesn’t have those these days? In the end, it made for a decent night’s viewing.
Also, I tried out something different with my bike trainer: Disengaging the tension wheel, so that the back wheel spun freely. Works, but without any resistance, I was pedaling as easily in the higher gears (15 and up) as I was in the first three gears. Still, it’s an option.
Chew on This: Food for This – Black History Month
Today, you’re getting a double d0es of Black History Month goodness.
The first person of note is James Weldon Johnson, author, politician, poet, songwriter, and educator, and early civil rights activist.James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938) was born in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Helen Louise Dillet and James Johnson. His brother was the composer J. Rosamond Johnson. Johnson was first educated by his mother (the first female, black teacher in Florida at a grammar school) and then at Edwin M. Stanton School. At the age of 16 he enrolled at Atlanta University, from which he graduated in 1894. In addition to his bachelor’s degree, he also completed some graduate coursework there.
After graduation he returned to Stanton, a school for African American students in Jacksonville, until 1906, where, at the young age of 23, he became principal. As principal Johnson found himself the head of the largest public school in Jacksonville regardless of race. Johnson improved education by adding the ninth and tenth grades. During his tenure at Stanton, Johnson wrote Lift Every Voice and Sing — often called “The Negro National Hymn”, “The Negro National Anthem”, “The Black National Anthem”, or “The African-American National Anthem” — set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954) in 1900.
In 1897, Johnson was the first African American admitted to the Florida Bar Exam since Reconstruction. He was also the first black in Duval County to seek admission to the state bar. In order to receive entry, Johnson underwent a two-hour examination before three attorneys and a judge. He later recalled that one of the examiners, not wanting to see a black man admitted, left the room.
In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him U.S. consul to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, and in 1909 he became consul in Corinto, Nicaragua, where he served until 1914. He later taught at Fisk University. Meanwhile, he began writing a novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (published anonymously, 1912), which attracted little attention until it was reissued under his own name in 1927.
In 1920 Johnson was elected to manage the NAACP, the first African American to hold this position. While serving the NAACP from 1914 through 1930 Johnson started as an organizer and eventually became the first black male secretary in the organization’s history. In 1920, he was sent by the NAACP to investigate conditions in Haiti, which had been occupied by U.S. Marines since 1915. Johnson published a series of articles in The Nation, in which he described the American occupation as being brutal and offered suggestions for the economic and social development of Haiti. These articles were reprinted under the title Self-Determining Haiti. Throughout the 1920s he was one of the major inspirations and promoters of the Harlem Renaissance trying to refute condescending white criticism and helping young black authors to get published.
Johnson died while vacationing in 1939, when the car he was driving was hit by a train.
The second person of note is Mat Johnson (no relation), an American writer of literary fiction.Johnson (born August 19, 1970) grew up in “racially stratified” Philadelphia. His mother is African American; his father, Irish American. After his parents’ divorce, he was raised by his social worker mother in a largely black section of the city, Germantown, where he often felt like a standout. “When I was a little kid, I looked reallywhite—I was this little Irish boy in a dashiki.”In his teens, he transferred to a private school, Abingdon Friends, in a more affluent neighborhood. “It was the first time I was around a lot of white people. I suddenly realized I had an ethnic identity, and started to think about race.” He listened to Public Enemy and devoured The Autobiography of Malcolm X and books by W.E.B. DuBois and Toni Morrison. “African-American literature felt like an intellectual home, this place where I fit and belonged,” he says gratefully.
Like the late playwright August Wilson, Johnson seems to identify almost exclusively with the African roots of his biracial family tree. “African-American is a Creole culture. It embraces the mix,” he asserts.
Mat Johnson attended West Chester University, University of Wales-Swansea, and ultimately received his BA from Earlham College, and in 1993, he was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Johnson received his MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts in 1999. Johnson has taught at Rutgers University, Columbia University, Bard College, The Callaloo Journal Writers Retreat, and is now a permanent faculty member at The University of Houston Creative Writing Program.
Mat Johnson’s first novel, Drop (Bloomsbury USA in 2000), was a coming of age novel about a self-hating Philadelphian who thinks he’s found his escape when he takes a job at a Brixton-based advertising agency in London, UK. Drop was listed among Progressive Magazine’s “Best Novels of the Year.” In 2003, Johnson published Hunting in Harlem (Bloomsbury USA 2003), a satire about gentrification in Harlem and an exploration of belief versus fanaticism. Hunting in Harlem won the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award for Novel of the Year.
Johnson made his first move into the comics form with the publication of the five-issue limited series Hellblazer Special: Papa Midnite (Vertigo 2005), where he took an existing character of the Hellblazer franchise and created an origin story that strove to offer depth and dignity to a character that was arguably a racial stereotype of the noble savage. The work was set in 18th Century Manhattan, and was based around the research that Johnson was conducting for his first historical effort, The Great Negro Plot, a creative non-fiction that tells the story of the New York Slave Insurrection of 1741 and the resultant trial and hysteria.
In February 2008, Vertigo Comics published Johnson’s graphic novel Incognegro, a noir mystery that deals with the issue of passing (racial identity) and the lynching past of the American south.
He was named a 2007 USA James Baldwin Fellow and awarded a $50,000 grant by United States Artists, a public charity that supports and promotes the work of American artists. On September 21, 2011, Mat Johnson was awarded the Dos Passos Prize for Literature.
Information courtesy of Chronogram.com, DCComics.com, matjohnson.info and Wikipedia
Wednesday – 08 February 2010
Vanessa turned 5-months-old today:
Last night, the girls took another foray into “New Food Adventures” with sweet potatoes. Their primary reflex is still to somewhat spit out whatever they’re fed, if it’s not in a bottle. This can be mitigated by simply re-spooning the food back in. After trying rice cereal last week, we were curious to see how they’d respond to a new food. We got our answer: They seemed to like it. It was a messy – but successful – test.
As the night wore on, I finally decided to bring my bike in and set up the bike trainer that SaraRules! got me for Christmas. I got everything assembled and decided to try it out. It was a bit noisier than I expected, which may prevent me from using it after the girls go to bed at night… unless I move it into the unfinished part of the basement.
Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is: Elmer Samuel Imes, the second African-American to earn a Ph. D. in Physics and among the first African American scientists to make important contributions to Modern physics.
Elmer Samuel Imes (October 12, 1883 – September 11, 1941) was born in Memphis, Tennessee, attended grammar school in Oberlin, Ohio and completed his high school education at the Agricultural and Mechanical High School in Norman, Alabama. Imes graduated from Fisk University in 1903 with a degree in science.
Upon graduating from Fisk, Imes taught mathematics and physics at Georgia Normal and Agricultural Institute in Albany, Georgia (presently Albany State University) and the Emerson Institute in Mobile, Alabama. Imes returned to Fisk in 1913 as an instructor of science and mathematics. During his tenure there, Imes earned a Master’s degree in science from Fisk University.
In 1918, Imes earned a Ph. D. in Physics at the University of Michigan where he studied under Harrison McAllister Randall becoming the second African American to receive a Ph. D. in Physics since Edward Bouchet, did so from Yale University in 1876. Imes’ research and doctoral thesis led to the publication of Measurements on the Near-Infrared Absorption of Some Diamotic Gases in November 1919 in the Astrophysical Journal. This work was followed by a paper co-authored and presented jointly with Dr. Randall:The Fine Structure of the Near Infra-Red Absorption Bands of HCI,HBr, and HF at the American Physical Society and published in the Physical Review in 1920. His work demonstrated for the first time that Quantum Theory could be applied to radiation in all regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, to the rotational energy states of molecules as well as the vibration and electronic levels. His work provided an early verification of Quantum Theory.
During the period Imes spent in the scientific and materials industry, his work resulted in four patents for instruments which were used for measuring magnetic and electric properties.
In 1939, he conducted research in magnetic materials at the Physics Department at New York University and continued as chair of the physics department at Fisk until his death in 1941.
After the girls were asleep last night, I headed out to meet the guys for Guys’ Night Out. It was a good crowd. And, when mixed with good food, drink and conversation, made for a great way to spend a Tuesday night.
Today, to quote Al Jarreau: “I got my certain and my sure ‘nough on…” In other words: It’s a suit day. Grey herringbone suit, white and purple striped shirt, purple tie, white pocket square, grey socks, black loafers AND… purple LEGO cufflinks. BAM!
And tonight is movie night. (And I still have NO idea what we’re going to watch…)
Chew on This: Food For Thought – Black History Month
Today also marks the start of Black History Month.
Today’s person of note is: Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 – April 8, 1993) was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. Most of her singing career was spent performing in concert and recital in major music venues and with major orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965. Although she was offered contracts to perform roles with many important European opera companies, Anderson declined all of these, preferring to perform in concert and recital only. She did, however, perform opera arias within her concerts and recitals.
Anderson displayed vocal talent as a child, but her family could not afford to pay for formal training. From the age of six, she was tutored in the choir of the Union Baptist Church, where she sang parts written for bass, alto, tenor, and soprano voices. Members of the congregation raised funds for her to attend a music school for a year. At 19 she became a pupil of Giuseppe Boghetti, who was so impressed by her talent that he gave her free lessons for a year. In 1925 she entered a contest with 300 competitors and won first prize, a recital at Lewisohn Stadium in New York City with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid twentieth century. In 1939, when the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to allow her to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her DAR membership in protest and sponsored Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial, before a crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions.
Anderson continued to break barriers for black artists in the United States, becoming the first black person, American or otherwise, to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 7, 1955. Her performance as Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera at the Met was the only time she sang an opera role on stage.
On January 27, 2005, a commemorative U.S. postage stamp honored Marian Anderson as part of the Black Heritage series. Anderson is also pictured on the US$5,000 Series I United States Savings Bond.
The Marian Anderson Award was originally established in 1943 by Anderson after she was awarded the $10,000 Bok Prize that year by the city of Philadelphia. Anderson used the award money to establish a singing competition to help support young singers. Eventually the prize fund ran out of money and it was disbanded in 1976. In 1990 the award was re-established and has dispensed $25,000 annually. In 1998 the prize was restructured with the “Marian Anderson Award” going to an established artist, not necessarily a singer, who exhibits leadership in a humanitarian area. A separate prize, the “Marian Anderson Prize for Emerging Classical Artists” is given to promising young classical singers.
Like last year, I took the day off of work and volunteered at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. And it was good. After that, I stopped at RubySnap and picked up a few cookies before stopping in to say “Hi” to SaraRules! at work and making a couple more stops before heading home. Yes, one of those stops was The Train Shoppe. No, I didn’t get anything. (Besides, I just ordered a new switching engine online a couple of days ago.)
The girls have been a little under the weather. According to the pediatrician, they don’t have colds, but a “respiratory illness” that has the earmarks of a cold, minus the runny noses. All I know is that they’re congested and a little irritable. Hopefully, they’ll be over it soon-ish.
Thursday – 12 January 2012
It’s another NBN Thursday in the valley. There’s sun, but it’s still quite cold outside. But, my morning started out with cuddles from both girls, so I got a good kickoff to the day.
And, speaking of the little ladies, this picture was taken during last night’s “tummy time:”
Vanessa (l) and Diana
(*waits to see how long before this picture appears on my mother’s Facebook page…*)
Last night was also “Pasta and Movie Date Night” at our house. SaraRules! picked up a movie on the way home: Tangled. It was a cute – and rather fun – movie, putting a slightly different spin on the Rapunzel fairy tale.
Before bed, I read a little more of World War Z. I’m still enjoying it. After turning out the light and calling it a day, I was treated to a few hours of zombie-infested dreams. Go figure. But it wasn’t all The Walking Dead. It was more like “The Walking Dead meets Resident Evil (movies) meets S.H.I.E.L.D. meets The X-Men.” Yeah, it was that weird. Suspenseful. Action-packed. Slightly frenetic. And I think it is that combination of things that kept it from being outright scary/fear-inducing.
Stray Toasters
I was listening to Huey Lewis and the News yesterday (thanks, Spotify!) and realized something: They made a lot of fun/amusing videos and it was pretty easy to see that the band just really seemed to have fun playing music.
Tuesday – 03 January 2012
I’m still trying to train my fingers to type “2012” rather than “2011.” (Or “2112,” for that matter.)
It’s the first day back at work in two weeks. I won’t lie: There’s been some struggle in getting back into “work” mode. But, there strides have been made. I’ve even managed to accomplish a thing or two.
Yesterday afternoon and last night were – as I suspected they might be – long. After the girls’ four-month checkup (which went very well), SaraRules! and I headed to Black Water Coffee Company, to say “Hi” to Jim — our former neighborhood coffee shop owner. BWCC is the second location of Pin-up Girl Espresso… which makes it (currently) the only location, at least until IHC finishes construction of a new facility in our neighborhood. It was good to see Jim and to catch up on a few things. And, getting a frozen mocha didn’t hurt, either. As the girls started to rouse, we headed home.
Diana and Vanessa were cranky, thanks in no small part to receiving their immunizations. After trying to get Vanessa to nap around 3:00 PM, she finally nodded off around 4:30. Of course, she refused to lie down, so I wound up with on my shoulder.
On the couch.
For an hour.
Although, I was glad that she slept. She needed it, as did Diana. On the back side of the nap (and before bedtime), they were intermittently happy and fussy. And there was little to no warning as to when their moods would change. Bedtime was a welcome thing. Fortunately, the little ladies headed to The Dreaming without too much ado. They slept until almost 5:00 AM this morning, which was also quite welcome.
After feeding the girls, I went back to bed. For reasons that I have yet to figure out, let alone explain, I had Will2K stuck in my head.
Yeah. Didn’t make it easy to fall asleep. But, I did and when the 6:30 alarm went off… I ignored it. And the 7:00 alarm. And the 7:10 snooze. I finally got up at 7:30. I was good with that.
Stray Toasters
My model railroad layout lost another 48 square feet last night. At this point, I’m not sure that I can still call it a “layout” as opposed to “that sheet of 4×8 that has a bunch of my train stuff on it.” Oh, well. This gives me an opportunity to verify all of the track sections that I have and get a better handle on what it is I want to do with it when I rebuild.
