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Mae West (born Mary Jane West; August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades. She was known for her lighthearted, bawdy double entendres and breezy sexual independence, and often used a husky contralto voice. She was active in vaudeville and on stage in New York City before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film industry.

West was one of the most controversial movie stars of her day; she encountered many problems, especially censorship. She once quipped, "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it." She bucked the system by making comedy out of conventional mores, and the Depression-era audience admired her for it. When her film career ended, she wrote books and plays, and continued to perform in Las Vegas and the United Kingdom, on radio and television, and recorded rock 'n roll albums. In 1999, the American Film Institute posthumously voted West the 15th greatest female screen legend of classic American cinema.

Mary Jane West was born on August 17, 1893, in Brooklyn (either Greenpoint or Bushwick, before New York City was consolidated in 1898). She was delivered at home by an aunt who was a midwife. She was the eldest surviving child of John Patrick West and Mathilde "Tillie" (later Matilda) Delker (originally Doelger; later Americanized to "Delker" or "Dilker"). Tillie and her five siblings emigrated with their parents, Jakob (1835–1902) and Christiana (1838–1901; née Brüning) Doelger from Bavaria in 1886. West's parents married on January 18, 1889, in Brooklyn, to the pleasure of the groom's parents and the displeasure of the bride's parents and raised their children as Protestants, although John West was of mixed Catholic–Protestant descent.

West's father was a prizefighter known as "Battlin' Jack West" who later worked as a "special policeman" and later had his own private investigations agency. Her mother was a former corset and fashion model. Her paternal grandmother, Mary Jane (née Copley), for whom she was named, was of Irish Catholic descent and West's paternal grandfather, John Edwin West, was of English–Scots descent and a ship's rigger.

Her eldest sibling, Katie, died in infancy. Her other siblings were Mildred Katherine West, later known as Beverly (December 8, 1898 – March 12, 1982), and John Edwin West II (sometimes inaccurately called "John Edwin West, Jr."; February 11, 1900 – October 12, 1964). During her childhood, West's family moved to various parts of Woodhaven, as well as the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn. In Woodhaven, at Neir's Social Hall (which opened in 1829 and is still extant), West supposedly first performed professionally.

West was five when she first entertained a crowd at a church social, and she started appearing in amateur shows at the age of seven. She often won prizes at local talent contests. She began performing professionally in vaudeville in the Hal Clarendon Stock Company in 1907 at the age of 14. West first performed under the stage name "Baby Mae", and tried various personas, including a male impersonator.

She used the alias "Jane Mast" early in her career. Her trademark walk was said to have been inspired or influenced by female impersonators Bert Savoy and Julian Eltinge, who were famous during the Pansy Craze. Her first appearance in a Broadway show was in a 1911 revue A La Broadway put on by her former dancing teacher, Ned Wayburn. The show folded after eight performances, but at age 18, West was singled out and discovered by The New York Times. The Times reviewer wrote that a "girl named Mae West, hitherto unknown, pleased by her grotesquerie and snappy way of singing and dancing". West next appeared in a show called Vera Violetta, whose cast featured Al Jolson. In 1912, she appeared in the opening performance of A Winsome Widow as a "baby vamp" named La Petite Daffy.

She was encouraged as a performer by her mother, who, according to West, always thought that anything Mae did was fantastic. Other family members were less encouraging, including an aunt and her paternal grandmother. They are all reported as having disapproved of her career and her choices. In 1918, after exiting several high-profile revues, West finally got her break in the Shubert Brothers revue Sometime, opposite Ed Wynn. Her character Mayme danced the shimmy and her photograph appeared on an edition of the sheet music for the popular number "Ev'rybody Shimmies Now".

Eventually, she began writing her own risqué plays using the pen name Jane Mast. Her first starring role on Broadway was in a 1926 play she entitled Sex, which she wrote, produced, and directed. Although conservative critics panned the show, ticket sales were strong. The production did not go over well with city officials, who had received complaints from some religious groups, and the theater was raided, with West arrested along with the cast. She was taken to the Jefferson Market Court House, (now Jefferson Market Library), where she was prosecuted on morals charges, and on April 19, 1927, was sentenced to 10 days for "corrupting the morals of youth". Though West could have paid a fine and been let off, she chose the jail sentence for the publicity it would garner. While incarcerated on Welfare Island (now known as Roosevelt Island), she dined with the warden and his wife; she told reporters that she had worn her silk panties while serving time, in lieu of the "burlap" the other girls had to wear. West got great mileage from this jail stint. She served eight days with two days off for "good behavior". Media attention surrounding the incident enhanced her career, by crowning her the darling "bad girl" who "had climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong".

Her next play, The Drag, dealt with homosexuality, and was what West called one of her "comedy-dramas of life". After a series of try-outs in Connecticut and New Jersey, West announced she would open the play in New York. However, The Drag never opened on Broadway due to efforts by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice to ban any attempt by West to stage it. West explained, "The city fathers begged me not to bring the show to New York because they were not equipped to handle the commotion it would cause." West was an early supporter of the women's liberation movement, but said she was not a "burn your bra" type feminist. Since the 1920s, she was also an early supporter of gay rights, and publicly declared against police brutality that gay men experienced. She adopted a then "modern" psychological explanation that gay men were women's souls in men's bodies, and hitting a gay man was akin to hitting a woman. In her 1959 autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It, West strongly objected to hypocrisy while, for surprising and unexplained reasons, also disparaging homosexuality: "In many ways homosexuality is a danger to the entire social system of Western civilization. Certainly a nation should be made aware of its presence — without moral mottoes — and its effects on children recruited to it in their innocence. I had no objection to it as a cult of jaded inverts... involved only with themselves. It was its secret, anti-social aspects I wanted to bring into the sun. As a private pressure group it could, and has, infected whole nations." This perspective, never elaborated upon by Mae West in other books or interviews seems inconsistent with the Mae West persona. In her 1975 book Sex, Health, and ESP, Mae West writes on page 43, "I believe that the world owes male and female homosexuals more understanding than we've given them. Live and let live is my philosophy on the subject, and I believe everybody has the right to do his or her own thing or somebody else's -- as long as they do it all in private!"

West continued to write plays, including The Wicked Age, Pleasure Man and The Constant Sinner. Her productions aroused controversy, which ensured that she stayed in the news, which also often resulted in packed houses at her performances. Her 1928 play, Diamond Lil, about a racy, easygoing, and ultimately very smart lady of the 1890s, became a Broadway hit and cemented West's image in the public's eye. This show had an enduring popularity and West successfully revived it many times throughout the course of her career. With Diamond Lil being a hit show, Hollywood naturally came courting.

In 1932, West was offered a contract by Paramount Pictures despite being close to 40. This was an unusually late age to begin a film career, especially for women, but she was not playing an ingénue. She nonetheless managed to keep her age ambiguous for some time. She made her film debut in Night After Night (1932) starring George Raft, who suggested West for the role. At first she did not like her small role in Night After Night, but was appeased when she was allowed to rewrite her scenes.[45] In West's first scene, a hat-check girl exclaims, "Goodness, what beautiful diamonds", and West replies, "Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie." Reflecting on the overall result of her rewritten scenes, Raft is said to have remarked, "She stole everything but the cameras."

She brought her Diamond Lil character, now renamed "Lady Lou", to the screen in She Done Him Wrong (1933). The film was one of Cary Grant's first major roles, which boosted his career. West claimed she spotted Grant at the studio and insisted that he be cast as the male lead. She claimed to have told a Paramount director, "If he can talk, I'll take him!". The film was a box office hit and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. The success of the film saved Paramount from bankruptcy, grossing over $2 million, the equivalent of $140 million today. Paramount recognizes that debt of gratitude today, with a building on the lot named after West.

Her next release, I'm No Angel (1933), teamed her with Grant again. I'm No Angel was also a box office hit and was the most successful of her entire film career. In the months that followed the release of this film, reference to West could be found almost anywhere, from the song lyrics of Cole Porter, to a Works Progress Administration (WPA) mural of San Francisco's newly built Coit Tower, to She Done Him Right, a Betty Boop cartoon, to "My Dress Hangs There", a painting by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Kahlo's husband, Diego Rivera, paid his own tribute: "West is the most wonderful machine for living I have ever known – unfortunately on the screen only." To F. Scott Fitzgerald, West was especially unique: "The only Hollywood actress with both an ironic edge and a comic spark." As Variety put it, "Mae West's films have made her the biggest conversation-provoker, free-space grabber, and all-around box office bet in the country. She's as hot an issue as Hitler."

By 1933, West was one of the largest box office draws in the United States and, by 1935, West was also the highest paid woman and the second-highest paid person in the United States (after William Randolph Hearst). Hearst invited West to San Simeon, California. "I could'a married him", West explained, "but I got no time for parties. I don't like those big crowds." On July 1, 1934, the censorship of the film Production Code began to be seriously and meticulously enforced, and West's scripts were heavily edited. She would intentionally place extremely risqué lines in her scripts, knowing they would be cut by the censors. She hoped they would then not object as much to her other less suggestive lines. Her next film was Belle of the Nineties (1934). The original title, It Ain't No Sin, was changed due to the censors' objections. Despite Paramount's early objections regarding costs, West insisted the studio to hire Duke Ellington and his orchestra to accompany her in the film's musical numbers. Their collaboration was a success; the classic "My Old Flame" (recorded by Duke Ellington) was introduced in this film. Her next film, Goin' to Town (1935), received mixed reviews, as censorship continued to take its toll in eroding West's best lines.

Her following effort, Klondike Annie (1936) dealt, as best it could given the heavy censorship, with religion and hypocrisy. Some critics called the film her magnum opus, but not everyone felt the same way. Press baron and film mogul William Randolph Hearst, ostensibly offended by an off-handed remark West made about his mistress, Marion Davies, sent a private memo to all his editors stating, "That Mae West picture Klondike Annie is a filthy picture... We should have editorials roasting that picture, Mae West, and Paramount... DO NOT ACCEPT ANY ADVERTISING OF THIS PICTURE." At one point, Hearst asked aloud, "Isn't it time Congress did something about the Mae West menace?" Paramount executives felt they had to tone down the West characterization or face further recrimination. This may be surprising by today's standards, as West's films contained no nudity, no profanity, and very little violence. Though raised in an era when women held second-place roles in society, West portrayed confident women who were not afraid to use their sexual wiles to get what they wanted. "I was the first liberated woman, you know. No guy was going to get the best of me. That's what I wrote all my scripts about."

Around the same time, West played opposite Randolph Scott in Go West, Young Man (1936). In this film, she adapted Lawrence Riley's Broadway hit Personal Appearance into a screenplay. Directed by Henry Hathaway, Go West, Young Man is considered one of West's weaker films of the era, due to the censor's cuts.

West next starred in Every Day's a Holiday (1937) for Paramount before their association came to an end. Again, due to censor cuts, the film performed below its goal. Censorship had made West's sexually suggestive brand of humor impossible for the studios to distribute. West, along with other stellar performers, was put on a list of actors called "Box Office Poison" by Harry Brandt on behalf of the Independent Theatre Owners Association. Others on the list were Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire, Dolores del Río, Katharine Hepburn and Kay Francis. The attack was published as a paid advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter, and was taken seriously by the fearful studio executives. The association argued that these stars' high salaries and extreme public popularity did not affect their ticket sales, thus hurt the exhibitors. This did not stop producer David O. Selznick, who next offered West the role of the sage madam, Belle Watling, the only woman ever to truly understand Rhett Butler, in Gone with the Wind, after Tallulah Bankhead turned him down. West also turned down the part, claiming that as it was, it was too small for an established star, and that she would need to rewrite her lines to suit her own persona. The role eventually went to Ona Munson.

In 1939, Universal Studios approached West to star in a film opposite W. C. Fields. The studio was eager to duplicate the success of Destry Rides Again starring Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart, with a comic vehicle starring West and Fields. Having left Paramount 18 months earlier and looking for a new film, West accepted the role of Flower Belle Lee in the film My Little Chickadee (1940). Despite the stars' intense mutual dislike, Fields's very real drinking problems and fights over the screenplay, My Little Chickadee was a box office hit, outgrossing Fields's previous film, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939) and the later The Bank Dick (1940). Despite this, religious leaders condemned West as a negative role model, taking offense at lines such as "Between two evils, I like to pick the one I haven't tried before" and "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"

West's next film was Columbia's The Heat's On (1943). She initially did not want to do the film, but after actor, director and friend Gregory Ratoff (producer Max Fabian in All About Eve) pleaded with her and claimed he would go bankrupt if she could not help, West relented as a personal favor. Censors by now, though, had curtailed the sexual burlesque of the West characterization. The studio had orders to raise the neck lines and clean up the double entendres. This was the only film for which West was virtually not allowed to write her own dialogue and, as a result, the film suffered.

Perhaps the most critical challenge facing West in her career was censorship of her dialogue. As on Broadway a decade before, by the mid-1930s, her risqué and ribald dialogue could no longer be allowed to pass. The Heat's On opened to poor reviews and weak performance at the box office. West was so distraught after the experience and by her years of struggling with the strict Hays censorship office, that she would not attempt another film role for the next quarter-century. Instead, West pursued a successful and record-breaking career in top nightclubs, Las Vegas, nationally in theater and on Broadway, where she was allowed, even welcomed, to be herself.

After appearing in The Heat's On in 1943, West returned to a very active career on stage and in swank clubs. Among her popular new stage performances was the title role in Catherine Was Great (1944) on Broadway, in which she penned a spoof on the story of Catherine the Great of Russia, surrounding herself with an "imperial guard" of tall, muscular young actors. The play was produced by theater and film impresario Mike Todd (Around The World in 80 Days) and ran for 191 performances and then went on tour.

When Mae West revived her 1928 play Diamond Lil, bringing it back to Broadway in 1949, The New York Times labeled her an "American Institution – as beloved and indestructible as Donald Duck. Like Chinatown, and Grant's Tomb, Mae West should be seen at least once." In the 1950s, West starred in her own Las Vegas stage show at the newly opened Sahara Hotel, singing while surrounded by bodybuilders. The show stood Las Vegas on its head. "Men come to see me, but I also give the women something to see: wall to wall men!" West explained. Jayne Mansfield met and later married one of West's muscle men, a former Mr. Universe, Mickey Hargitay.

When casting about for the role of Norma Desmond for the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder offered West the role. Still smarting from the censorship debacle of The Heat's On, and the constraints placed on her characterization, she declined. The theme of the Wilder film, she noted, was pure pathos, while her brand of comedy was always "about uplifting the audience". Mae West had a unique comic character that was timeless, in the same way Charlie Chaplin did. After Mary Pickford also declined the role, Gloria Swanson was cast.

In subsequent years, West was offered the role of Vera Simpson, opposite Marlon Brando, in the 1957 film adaptation of Pal Joey, which she turned down, with the role going to Rita Hayworth. In 1964, West was offered a leading role in Roustabout, starring Elvis Presley. She turned the role down, and Barbara Stanwyck was cast in her place. West was also approached for roles in Frederico Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits and Satyricon, but rejected both offers.

In 1958, West appeared at the live televised Academy Awards and performed the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Rock Hudson, which brought a standing ovation. In 1959, she released an autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It, which became a best seller and was reprinted with a new chapter in 1970. West guest-starred on television, including The Dean Martin Show in 1959 and The Red Skelton Show in 1960, to promote her autobiography, and a lengthy interview on Person to Person with Charles Collingwood, which was censored by CBS in 1959, and never aired. CBS executives felt members of the television audience were not ready to see a nude marble statue of West, which rested on her piano. In 1964, she made a guest appearance on the sitcom Mister Ed. Much later, in 1976, she was interviewed by Dick Cavett and sang two songs on his "Back Lot U.S.A." special on CBS.

West's recording career started in the early 1930s with releases of her film songs on shellac 78 rpm records. Most of her film songs were released as 78s, as well as sheet music. In 1955, she recorded her first album, The Fabulous Mae West. In 1965, she recorded two songs, "Am I Too Young" and "He's Good For Me", for a 45 rpm record released by Plaza Records. She recorded several tongue-in-cheek songs, including "Santa, Come Up to See Me", on the album Wild Christmas, which was released in 1966 and reissued as Mae in December in 1980. Demonstrating her willingness to keep in touch with the contemporary scene, in 1966 she recorded Way Out West, the first of her two rock-and-roll albums. The second, released in 1972 on MGM Records and titled Great Balls of Fire, covered songs by The Doors, among others, and had songs written for West by English songwriter-producer Ian Whitcomb.

After a 27-year absence from motion pictures, West appeared as Leticia Van Allen in Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge (1970) with Raquel Welch, Rex Reed, Farrah Fawcett, and Tom Selleck in a small part. The movie was intended to be deliberately campy sex change comedy, but had serious production problems, resulting in a botched film that was both a box-office and critical failure. Author Vidal, at great odds with inexperienced and self-styled "art film" director Michael Sarne, later called the film "an awful joke". Though Mae West was given star billing to attract ticket buyers, her scenes were truncated by the inexperienced film editor, and her songs were filmed as though they were merely side acts. Mae West's counterculture appeal (she was dubbed "the queen of camp"), included the young and hip, and by 1971, the student body of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) voted Mae West "Woman of the Century" in honor of her relevance as a pioneering advocate of sexual frankness and courageous crusader against censorship.

In 1975, West released her book Sex, Health, and ESP (William Allen & Sons, publisher), and Pleasure Man (Dell publishers) based on her 1928 play of the same name. Her autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It, was also updated and republished in the 1970s.

Mae West was a shrewd investor, produced her own stage acts, and invested her money in large tracts of land in Van Nuys, a thriving suburb of Los Angeles. With her considerable fortune, she could afford to do as she liked. In 1976, she appeared on Back Lot U.S.A. on CBS, where she was interviewed by Dick Cavett and sang "Frankie and Johnny" along with "After You've Gone." That same year, she began work on her final film, Sextette (1978). Adapted from a 1959 script written by West, the film's daily revisions and production disagreements hampered production from the beginning. Due to the near-endless last-minute script changes and tiring production schedule, West agreed to have her lines signaled to her through a speaker concealed in her hair piece. Despite the daily problems, West was, according to Sextette director Ken Hughes, determined to see the film through. At 84, her now-failing eyesight made navigating around the set difficult, but she made it through the filming, a tribute to her self-confidence, remarkable endurance, and stature as a self-created star 67 years after her Broadway debut in 1911 at the age of 18. Time magazine wrote an article on the indomitable star entitled "At 84, Mae West Is Still Mae West".

Upon its release, Sextette was not a critical or commercial success, but has a diverse cast. The cast included some of West's first co-stars such as George Raft (Night After Night, 1932), silver screen stars such as Walter Pidgeon and Tony Curtis, and more contemporary pop stars such as The Beatles' Ringo Starr and Alice Cooper, and television favorites such as Dom DeLuise and gossip queen Rona Barrett. It also included cameos of some of her musclemen from her 1950s Las Vegas show, such as the still remarkably fit Reg Lewis. Sextette also reunited Mae West with Edith Head, her costume designer from 1933 in She Done Him Wrong.

West was married on April 11, 1911 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Frank Szatkus (1892–1966), whose stage name was Frank Wallace, a fellow vaudevillian whom she met in 1909. She was 17. She kept the marriage a secret, but a filing clerk discovered the marriage certificate in 1935 and alerted the press. The clerk also uncovered an affidavit in which she had declared herself married, made during the Sex trial in 1927.

In August 1913, she met Guido Deiro (1886–1950), an Italian-born vaudeville headliner and star of the piano-accordion. Her affair, and possible 1914 marriage to him, as alleged by Diero's son Guido Roberto Deiro in his 2019 book Mae West and The Count, went "very deep, hittin' on all the emotions". West later said, "Marriage is a great institution. I'm not ready for an institution yet."

In 1916, when she was a vaudeville actress, West had a relationship with James Timony (1884–1954), an attorney nine years her senior. Timony was also her manager. By the time that she was an established movie actress in the mid-1930s, they were no longer a couple. West and Timony remained extremely close, living in the same building, working together, and providing support for each other until Timony's death in 1954.

West remained close to her family throughout her life and was devastated by her mother's death in 1930. In 1930, she moved to Hollywood and into the penthouse at The Ravenswood apartment building where she lived until her death in 1980. Her sister, brother, and father followed her to Hollywood where she provided them with nearby homes, jobs, and sometimes financial support. Among her boyfriends was boxing champion William Jones, nicknamed Gorilla Jones (1906–1982). The management at her Ravenswood apartment building barred the African American boxer from entering the premises; West solved the problem by buying the building and lifting the ban.

She became romantically involved at age 61 with Chester Rybinski (1923–1999), one of the muscle men in her Las Vegas stage show – a wrestler, former Mr. California, and former merchant sailor. He was 30 years younger than she, and later changed his name to Paul Novak. He moved in with her, and their romance continued until her death in 1980 at age 87. Novak once commented, "I believe I was put on this Earth to take care of Mae West." West was a Presbyterian.

In August 1980, West tripped while getting out of bed. After the fall she was unable to speak and was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, where tests revealed that she had suffered a stroke. She died on November 22, 1980, at the age of 87.

A private service was held at the church in Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills, on November 25, 1980; (the church is a replica of Boston's Old North Church.) Bishop Andre Penachio, a friend, officiated at the entombment in the family mausoleum at Cypress Hills Abbey, Brooklyn, purchased in 1930 when her mother died. Her father and brother were also entombed there before her, and her younger sister, Beverly, was laid to rest in the last of the five crypts less than 18 months after West's death.

For her contribution to the film industry, Mae West has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street in Hollywood. For her contributions as a stage actor in the theater world, she has been inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Mae West among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

#mae west #golden age of hollywood #classic hollywood #classic cinema

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Ben Webster

Benjamin Francis Webster (March 27, 1909 – September 20, 1973) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He is considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. Known affectionately as "The Brute" or "Frog", he had a tough, raspy, and brutal tone on stomps (with growls), yet on ballads he played with warmth and sentiment. He was indebted to alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, who, he said, taught him to play his instrument.

Early life and career

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, he studied violin in elementary and taught himself piano with the help of his neighbor Pete Johnson, who taught him the blues. In 1927-1928 he played for silent movies in Kansas City and in Amarillo, Texas.

Once Budd Johnson showed him some basics on the saxophone, Webster began to focus on that instrument, playing in the Young Family Band (which at the time included Lester Young), although he did return to the piano from time to time, even recording on the instrument occasionally.

In his first biography (‘Ben Webster / In A mellow Tone’, Van Gennep/The Netherlands, 1992, published as ‘Ben Webster / His Life and Music’ with Berkeley Hills Books/USA in 2001), author Jeroen de Valk (assisted by Ben’s cousin Harley W. Robinson) traces back his ancestry to his great-great grandmother, a woman from Guinea who reportedly was brought to America as a slave in the early 19th century. Her son managed to escape from slavery. Ben’s father, who worked as a porter on Pullman trains, separated from his mother before his son was born. Ben was raised by his grand-aunt, Agnes Johnson, to whom he referred as his ‘grandmother’. His mother Mayme worked as a school teacher. He had to play the violin as a kid but hated the instrument, as other kids called him ‘sissy with the violin’. He had his first piano lessons by his second cousin, Joyce Cockrell. He changed to the tenor saxophone after hearing Frankie Trumbauer’s solo on the C-Melody saxophone in 'Singing The Blues', but soon Coleman Hawkins became a major influence. Webster was married for a couple of years in the early 40s to Eudora Williams. He never had a family of his own and lived with his mother and grand-aunt off and on until their passing in 1963.

Kansas City was a melting pot from which emerged some of the biggest names in 1930s jazz. Webster joined Bennie Moten's band in 1932, a grouping which also included Count Basie, Hot Lips and Walter Page. This era was recreated in Robert Altman's film Kansas City.

Webster spent time with quite a few orchestras in the 1930s, including Andy Kirk, the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in 1934, then Benny Carter, Willie Bryant, Cab Calloway, and the short-lived Teddy Wilson big band.

With Ellington

Ben Webster played with Duke Ellington's orchestra for the first time in 1935, and by 1940 was performing with it full-time as the band's first major tenor soloist. He credited Johnny Hodges, Ellington's alto soloist, as a major influence on his playing. During the next three years, he played on many recordings, including "Cotton Tail" and "All Too Soon"; his contributions (together with that of bassist Jimmy Blanton) were so important that Ellington's orchestra during that period is known as the Blanton–Webster band. Webster left the band in 1943 after an angry altercation during which he allegedly cut up one of Ellington's suits. Another version of Webster's leaving Ellington came from Clark Terry, a longtime Ellington player, who said that, in a dispute, Webster slapped Ellington, upon which the latter gave him two weeks notice.

After Ellington

After leaving Ellington in 1943, Webster worked on 52nd Street in New York City, where he recorded frequently as both a leader and a sideman. During this time he had short periods with Raymond Scott, John Kirby, Bill DeArango, and Sid Catlett, as well as with Jay McShann's band, which also featured blues shouter Jimmy Witherspoon. For a few months in 1948, he returned briefly to Ellington's orchestra.

In 1953, he recorded King of the Tenors with pianist Oscar Peterson, who would be an important collaborator with Webster throughout the decade in his recordings for the various labels of Norman Granz. Along with Peterson, trumpeter Harry 'Sweets' Edison and others, he was touring and recording with Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic package. In 1956, he recorded a classic set with pianist Art Tatum, supported by bassist Red Callender and drummer Bill Douglass. Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster with fellow tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins was recorded on December 16, 1957, along with Peterson, Herb Ellis (guitar), Ray Brown (bass), and Alvin Stoller (drums). The Hawkins and Webster recording is a jazz classic, the coming together of two giants of the tenor saxophone, who had first met back in Kansas City.

In the late 1950s, he formed a quintet with Gerry Mulligan and played frequently at a Los Angeles club called Renaissance. It was there that the Webster-Mulligan group backed up blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon on an album recorded live for Hi-Fi Jazz Records. That same year, 1959, the quintet, with pianist Jimmy Rowles, bassist Leroy Vinnegar, and drummer Mel Lewis, also recorded "Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster" for Verve Records (MG V-8343).

In Europe

Webster generally worked steadily, but in late 1964 he moved permanently to Europe, working with other American jazz musicians based there as well as local musicians. He played when he pleased during his last decade. He lived in London and several locations in Scandinavia for one year, followed by three years in Amsterdam and made his last home in Copenhagen in 1969. Webster appeared as a sax player in a low-rent cabaret club in the 1970 Danish blue film titled Quiet Days in Clichy. In 1971, Webster reunited with Duke Ellington and his orchestra for a couple of shows at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen; he also recorded "live" in France with Earl Hines. He also recorded or performed with Buck Clayton, Bill Coleman and Teddy Wilson.

Webster suffered a cerebral bleed in Amsterdam in September 1973, following a performance at the Twee Spieghels in Leiden, and died on 20 September. His body was cremated in Copenhagen and his ashes were buried in the Assistens Cemetery in the Nørrebro section of the city.

Legacy

After Webster's death, Billy Moore Jr., together with the trustee of Webster's estate, created the Ben Webster Foundation. Since Webster's only legal heir, Harley Robinson of Los Angeles, gladly assigned his rights to the foundation, the Ben Webster Foundation was confirmed by the Queen of Denmark's Seal in 1976. In the Foundation's trust deed, one of the initial paragraphs reads: "to support the dissemination of jazz in Denmark". The trust is a beneficial foundation which channels Webster's annual royalties to musicians in both Denmark and the U.S. An annual Ben Webster Prize is awarded to a young outstanding musician. The prize is not large, but is considered highly prestigious. Over the years, several American musicians have visited Denmark with the help of the Foundation, and concerts, a few recordings, and other jazz-related events have been supported.

Webster's private collection of jazz recordings and memorabilia is archived in the jazz collections at the University Library of Southern Denmark, Odense.

Ben Webster used the same Saxophone from 1938 until his death in 1973. Ben left instructions that the horn was never to be played again. It is on display in the Jazz Institute at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ.

Ben Webster has a street named after him in southern Copenhagen, "Ben Websters Vej".

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Ben Webster among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Discography

As leader / co-leader

King of the Tenors [AKA The Consummate Artistry of Ben Webster] (Norgran, MGN-1001, 1953)

1953: An Exceptional Encounter [live] (The Jazz Factory, 1953) – with Modern Jazz Quartet

Music for Loving (Norgran MGN-1018, 1954) AKA Sophisticated Lady (Verve, 1956), and Music With Feeling (Norgran MGN-1039, 1955) – reissued as a 2-CD set: Ben Webster With Strings (Verve 527774, 1995; which also includes as a bonus: Harry Carney With Strings, Clef MGC-640, 1954)

The Art Tatum - Ben Webster Quartet (Verve, 1956 [1958]) – with Art Tatum

Soulville (Verve, 1957)

The Soul of Ben Webster (Verve, 1958)

Ben Webster and Associates (Verve, 1959)

Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster (Verve, 1959)

Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson (Verve, 1959)

Ben Webster at the Renaissance (Contemporary, 1960)

The Warm Moods (Reprise, 1961)

Wanted to Do One Together (Columbia, 1962) – with Harry Edison

Soulmates (Riverside, 1963) – with Joe Zawinul

See You at the Fair (Impulse!, 1964)

Stormy Weather (Black Lion, 1965) – recorded at The Jazzhus Montmartre, Copenhagen

Gone With The Wind (Black Lion, 1965) – recorded at The Jazzhus Montmartre, Copenhagen

Meets Bill Coleman (Black Lion, 1967)

Big Ben Time (Ben Webster in London 1967) (Philips, 1968)

Webster's Dictionary (Philips, 1970)

No Fool, No Fun [The Rehearsal Sessions, 1970 with The Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra] (Storyville Records STCD 8304, 1999)

Ben Webster Plays Ballads [recordings from Danish Radio 1967–1971] (Storyville SLP-4118, 1988)

Autumn Leaves (with Georges Arvanitas trio) (Futura Swing 05, 1972)

Gentle Ben (with Tete Montoliu Trio) (Ensayo, 1973)

My Man: Live at Montmartre 1973 (Steeplechase, 1973)

Ballads by Ben Webster (Verve, Recorded 1953-1959, released 1974, 2xLP)

As a sideman

With Count Basie

String Along with Basie (Roulette, 1960)

With Buddy Bregman

Swinging Kicks (Verve, 1957)

With Benny Carter

Jazz Giant (Contemporary, 1958)

BBB & Co. (Swingville, 1962) with Barney Bigard

With Harry Edison

Sweets (Clef, 1956)

Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You (Verve, 1957)

With Duke Ellington

Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band (RCA, 1940–1942 [rel. 2003])

With Dizzy Gillespie

The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (Bluebird, 1937–1949 [rel. 1995])

With Lionel Hampton

You Better Know It!!! (Impulse, 1965)

With Coleman Hawkins

Rainbow Mist (Delmark, 1944 [1992]) compilation of Apollo recordings

Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster (Verve, 1957)

Coleman Hawkins and Confrères (Verve, 1958)

With Woody Herman

Songs for Hip Lovers (Verve, 1957)

With Johnny Hodges

The Blues (Norgran, 1952–1954, [rel. 1955])

Blues-a-Plenty (Verve, 1958)

Not So Dukish (Verve, 1958)

With Richard "Groove" Holmes

"Groove" (Pacific Jazz, 1961) – with Les McCann

Tell It Like It Tis (Pacific Jazz, 1961 [rel. 1966])

With Illinois Jacquet

The Kid and the Brute (Clef, 1955)

With Barney Kessel

Let's Cook! (Contemporary, 1957 [rel. 1962])

With Mundell Lowe

Porgy & Bess (RCA Camden, 1958)

With Les McCann

Les McCann Sings (Pacific Jazz, 1961)

With Carmen McRae

Birds of a Feather (Decca, 1958)

With Oliver Nelson

More Blues and the Abstract Truth (Impulse!, 1964)

With Buddy Rich

The Wailing Buddy Rich (Norgran, 1955)

With Art Tatum

The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Volume Eight (Pablo, 1956)

With Clark Terry

The Happy Horns of Clark Terry (Impulse!, 1964)

With Joe Williams

At Newport '63 (RCA Victor, 1963)

#03/27 #09/20

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classic-shoujo · 3 months

Text

Mayme Angel (1979) by Yumiko Igarashi

#mayme angel #yumiko igarashi #70s manga #70s shoujo manga #メイミー・エンジェル #.

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whumpslist · 8 months

Note

What was your whump awakening?

Hello Anon,

I've answered this question a while ago, in this post.

To briefly answer your inquiry:

* the VERY FIRST whump awakening: Captain James Kirk (William Shatner), episode 2.10 “Journey to Babel”;

* the FIRST ANIME one: Hiroshi Shima (Steel Jeeg), episode 26.

I'll add my FIRST MANGA whump now: Johnny Hardley of "Mayme Angel" manga by Yumiko Igarashi. In the edition I first read, he was named Ronny, so he will always be Ronny to me.

#ask whumpslist #whump awakening #vintage whump #Mayme Angel #Johnny Hardley #Yumiko Igarashi #whumpslist gifs #whump #whumps #manga #my firsts #Ronny Hardley

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a-mountain-ash · 6 years

Text

A Very Winchester Mystery

A special little ficlet for @ain-t-bovvered‘s 800 follower “Tales of the Winchesters” project! I visited the Winchester Mystery House a couple years back and couldn’t resist. Even tossed in a little personal easter egg from my time there because it was too good and I swear the ghosts played a little prank on me. Also, I’m sure the WIL CFO is perfectly decent person, but I needed someone to commit the crime :P

We know who the Winchesters are. We're not talking the originals, of course, though I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility for them to be related. We are ghosts, after all, so the realm of possibility is quite large. We mean the new Winchesters. The brothers. The ghost slayers.

You see, the thing about this place that we inhabit is that it's very popular. Everyone comes here. Demons, ghouls, vampires, werewolves. They enjoy a little bit of whimsy as much as the next fellow. Some people even drag their own personal ghosts with them, pulled along by their attachment to some piece of jewelry or other. Those times are when we get the good gossip.

The Winchesters almost got me last week, but I got away because my daughter here was catching a flight for this vacation she's on. I guess that Dean boy doesn't do planes.

Sam and Dean smoked my aunt's bones a few year's back when she was haunting me. Now I'm a ghost, too. Irony, amiright?

'Pretty sure I'm half way to angry spirit, and I'm afraid the Winchesters are gonna nab me before my boy stands at the alter in a couple months. You guys have any tips on how to stay on the good path?' 'Sure Fred, find some good friends if you can. We have poker nights once a week to vent. Congratulations on the engagement!'

And that, my good listener, is why we are a little bit worried. To give you some background, the Winchester Mystery House is a big thing. People spend real money to come walk through Sarah's wacky rooms and miniature stairwells. Personally, at this point in our ghostly existences, we don't totally understand the appeal, but the point still stands that people are here constantly. They're always with a tour guide, but every now and again, people get away from the group and we have to set them straight. Nicely of course. We weren't lying when we told Fred to find some friends. Being together all these years has really helped us stay on the straight and narrow.

What you have to understand is that we all want to be here, and not for revenge. Absolutely none of us were trapped here and if we really wanted to, we could probably find a way to get a reaper to come take us up, though none of us knows how. Sarah Winchester was the most excellent of ladies. During our lives, she took care of us and our families well and we are simply repaying the favor in death. We keep the property safe, defending it from harm, and keeping the still hidden rooms clean until the property managers finally find them. Occasionally we play a little mischief on tourists who get off the beaten track, like that time some sisters missed a sign and found their ways into a private area and we shut the gate on them. They got out fine, but they knew what happened, and stayed on the path after that.

Anyway, it all started a few weeks ago when apparently somebody in the higher-ups of Winchester Investment LLC decided to get greedy. We don't really understand how that whole situation works because we only know what we hear or see in the newspaper, but we know enough. WIL is in charge of this whole operation and they run it for the descendants of John and Mayme Brown, the couple who bought the house after Sarah died, may she rest in peace. One night, someone tried setting the estate on fire. Nothing of this scale had ever occurred before and we may have lost our cool, just a bit. It happened again a week later. Needless to say, the Winchesters and their angel friend Castiel were all here now, and we were going to have to try really hard to get them to see what was happening here before they found a way to burn us all.

As it happened though, the Winchesters were surprisingly willing to listen to reason. It might be because we steered them into a room with only two doors, one of which lead to a 15 foot drop off and the other of which we blocked off with 20 or so ghosts strong, but you know, technicalities. They listened.

"Cas, what just happened?" Dean asked.

Oh my goodness, he was gorgeous! Those eyes. Mabel would definitely want to see him. She hadn't seen a cute tourist in weeks.

"Obviously the ghosts are preparing to kill us, Dean. I didn't think that would require an explanation."

The angel was a funny one. We've heard tell of them coming down to earth, but none have come to the house. They must think they're above fun, but we all knew this one is a little different.

"Yeah, yeah Cas. Thanks for the pep talk. I mean, how many of them are there. You can see them, right?"

"Ah, of course. There are currently 19 of them in the room. I believe there are a few more outside the door, but I don't have x-ray vision so you'll have to bear with me."

We really could have appeared to them then, but it was far too good a show to end it straight away. The tall one, Sam, looked like he'd swallowed a whole lemon while he looked between his brother and the angel. Castiel and Dean were so focused on talking about us that it was entirely impossible they'd forgotten about us. Watching them waffle and bicker before us in their FBI suits, it was hard to believe the vast quantity of stories we'd heard all the years before.

"Alright, well what are we going to do about it?" Sam finally asks practically. "We can't go shooting salt rounds inside a century old work of art and we don't have enough salt for that many ghosts at once."

At this point, we were seriously confused about how they'd acquired the reputation they had. That said, the threat of shots being fired at dear Sarah's carefully chosen wallpaper was enough to make a few of us show ourselves. When our best diplomats, Mr. Jones, Margaret, and John, materialized before them, their reactions (or lack thereof) were disappointing though not surprising. After all, with decades of ghost hunts under their belts, nothing should really shock them anymore.

"I would strongly recommend that you do not fire inside our home." Margaret spoke first, in her best friendly intimidation voice. She practiced it daily in front of Sarah's looking glass.

Despite her warning, Dean raised his gun anyway. Effie giggled invisibly at the glorious eye rolling his actions earned him from both Castiel and Sam. The older Winchester swung his gun in her direction. Admittedly, it was fairly impressive how good his aim was from sound alone. Had he fired, he would have hit her squarely in the head.

"God, Dean, what did she just say?" Sam was definitely the reasonable one of the two.

"Yeah, yeah. I heard her. Ghosts say lots of crap, though. Just being on the safe side."

"We will definitely not be allowed back inside if we damage this home, Dean. Even if they do think we're FBI."

"Ugh, fine." Dean lowered his weapon as Castiel placed a firm hand on his shoulder. "What are we supposed to do then?"

"Listen to us, you goon." Mr. Jones spoke then, finally seeing his in. He was a gruff older man, his skin tanned despite his deathly pallor from hours in the sun picking fruit in Mrs. Winchester's orchards. He had died very suddenly one day when a branch had snapped and his ladder had fallen with him at the top.

"We're listening." Sam said quickly before Dean could speak again.

"We're good spirits. None of us are vengeful. We chose to stay here after our deaths, even after Mrs. Winchester passed, in order to protect her property. This place was a good home to many of us and she cared for our families like her own. We just help maintain the property and keep the visitors safe."

"Then why the recent deaths?" Castiel asked.

"Someone is sending people to try and burn the estate to the ground. We believe it must be someone at the organization trying to collect insurance money or something." John spoke now. "One of our younger ghosts, Elmer, lost his temper the first time. The second time, it was Charlie. We aren't vengeful spirits, but protecting this place is our purpose and someone is trying to destroy it."

"You can see we're very much in possession of our faculties, even after almost a century. More for some. But this home must be protected. If it is lost, we truly will go insane." Margaret had dropped her ominous tone in favor of something friendlier.

"Won't you disappear?" Dean asked. "Isn't it the house that you're attached to?"

"No. We are connected to the entire estate, down into the soil that we tended and farmed. We cannot be burned with this house, but if the house burns we will have nothing grounding us to our purpose and then we truly will become vengeful."

"We can't have you killing people, even if they are arsonists." Castiel answered.

"Then help us!" Effie appeared suddenly. She had always gotten impatient with too much talk. "We can't have this house destroyed and you can't have us killing more people. You must be able to do something."

And they could.

With our help concealing the security cameras and silencing the alarms, they snuck back onto the property after hours. We used Castiel as a communication conduit and when we found yet another man entering the property with gasoline and matches we alerted him and they called in an anonymous tip that someone was attempting to burn the estate. Rather than kill the man, we detained him until the authorities arrived and took him away.

A week later, the CFO of WIL was brought in for questioning and one of the Mayme descendants themselves took his position. Every once in a while, when the world isn't ending, the Winchesters take a day or two to come visit us. Castiel always brings the best gossip.

#supernatural #season 10 #dean winchester #castiel #Sam Winchester #winchester mystery house #talesofthewinchesters #tales of the winchesters

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lucids · 4 years

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The Free Black Women’s Library Celebrates Black Authors and Readers

December 26, 2019 by We Need Diverse Books

The Free Black Women's Library Celebrates Black Authors and Readers We need Diverse Books - Ola Ronke Akinmowo

Bonding Over Bell Hooks, Beyoncé, and Black Womanhood — The Sisterhood of Traveling Books

THROUGH THE FREE BLACK WOMEN’S LIBRARY, OLA RONKE AKINMOWO HOPES TO NOT ONLY CELEBRATE BLACK WOMEN WRITERS BUT ALSO NURTURE A WELCOMING COMMUNITY SPACE By Asha Sridhar

Between finding a home for her expanding library, teaching yoga and bagging fellowships, Ola Ronke Akinmowo, the Brooklyn-based founder of the Free Black Women’s Library has been busy forging a positive narrative about black women. Her traveling library of 2000-odd books, all written by black women, tell stories of love, hope, trauma and most importantly, resilience.

In a freewheeling conversation over a cup of tea, she discusses the origins of her library, her childhood reading experiences and the importance of diversity in books.

“I wanted to do something that felt nourishing, healing, and interesting, something that different people could connect to and plug into, and I wanted black women and black girls to be the focus,” she says. More often than not, the conversation around the lives of black women, she feels, tends to have a tragic or pathological element to it, framing them as victims or a problem that needs to be fixed. “I wanted to do something that will shift that narrative and shift that idea to something more positive and encouraging.”

OUR STORY, OUR VOICE Be it in films, on television or the Internet, black women characters are often portrayed as struggling or being abused or criminalized, she points out. “And, all of these things are true, but I wanted to do something that shifted that idea. There is something very specific that happens when we are controlling the story and we get to frame the narrative and tell the story from our point of view in our own voice. That already puts us in a position of power.”

HOW IT ALL STARTED Her two passions—literature and celebrating black womanhood—culminated in her first installation in 2015. She laid out around 100 books on a brownstone stoop in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, eager and unsure of how people would react to it. She’s not looked back since.

Her initial set of books came from her personal collection as well as friends whom she e-mailed, telling them about her new project. “People just started sending me books, and people have been sending me books ever since,” she says. “That was almost five years ago and I get multiple books in the mail every week, from publishers, writers, teachers, strangers from all over the world who found out about the library on Instagram or Facebook, or an article.”

The pop-up library is set up once every month at a new venue. At first, the idea of her library seems deceptively simple—you can take a book from the library by trading it for another one written by a black woman. Talk to Akinmowo and she’ll tell you how it’s not as easy as it sounds. Even people who claim to be bibliophiles are often stumped when they have to bring in books written by black women.

SHIFTING YOUR VANTAGE POINT One day, Akinmowo, opened the pages of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. As a black woman, black girl, she remembers identifying with it immediately. The very first page of the book spoke to her, quite unlike the works of authors she had read previously—Chaucer, Hemingway, Melville or even Sylvia Plath. “I feel like it just turns on a different part of your brain, and once that part of you is turned on, it can’t be turned off.”

What started as a personal discovery of books by incredible black women such as Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde, and Bell Hooks among many others, is now a flourishing literary art project, spawning others of its kind around the country. “I want to amplify the voices of these writings so that more people know and understand that there’s all this intelligence out here, all this creativity out here.”

The library, she notes, gives people access to books and writers they may have never heard of. “It also helps people understand that it’s important to expand your worldview and one of the easiest ways to do that is to read books by different types of people. If you are only reading one thing, you are only going to get one perspective.”

People, she senses, are receptive to that idea. “I think people want more diversity. People want change. They want things to be mixed up. People don’t want to see status quo anymore. People are hungry for something different.”

TO MARKET, TO MARKET African-American women, she asserts, spend a lot of money on books. “Statistics show that we are a huge market when it comes to literature,” she says, adding that once publishing companies figure that out, it will be to their benefit. They are already playing a more active role in catering and marketing to them, she says, creating books and imprints specifically for them.

For black women, reading books written by them, for them and with them in mind, can also be an act of resistance. “There are different aspects of reading,” she explains. There’s the politics of reading: Making a conscious choice to read specific books by specific people. And, there’s the pleasure of reading. “I feel like black women as readers are coming from both those points. We are being politicized and we are also choosing books for political reasons. But, also there’s the pleasure of reading a book and seeing yourself in the story. And, because this is a capitalist economy, I think the publishing industry is just going to take advantage of that by giving us more.”

STARTING YOUNG Her visitors include not just women, but also young girls. Having hardly encountered diverse characters herself as a young reader, she observes how there are many more options now. “Right now, there are so many amazing books out there for children of color,” she notes. With a little research, she says, you should be able to find books written by black authors and authors of color for children of every age group. That, however, does not mean there is enough. “I also think you can have more. I don’t think we can ever have too much. But there’s definitely a lot out there.” Though she’s not counted, she estimates having between 500-600 children’s and young adult books in her library.

“It’s exciting for a little brown girl to see a book where there’s a little brown girl in it, maybe riding the subway or making lunch for her mom.” When the young girl realizes that the book has been written by someone like her, it’s really affirming, she points out. Other than fiction, creative non-fiction as a genre can be both engaging and empowering, she feels. Complete with illustrations, children learn about the lives of powerful historical figures such as Harriet Tubman or Sojourner Truth in a way that doesn’t feel like a lecture, she says.

“Not only do they get to see themselves as writers and creators, they [also] get to see that there’s a large diversity of interest. They learn about the fact that their blackness is not just about one thing. Blackness is not a monolith. There are different ways to be black, and there’s different ways to express your black culture and be proud of your black selves. You can do it through music, sport, fashion, activism, art, performance, science. They’re getting to see all those different layers, and they can plug into wherever their interest lies,” she explains.

It shatters the idea that black people don’t do this or that. Talking about how it opens up opportunities for black children and children of color, she says it shows children how someone did it in the past. “You can do it like that too or maybe you’ll come up with your own way.”

LOVE, LABOR, AND LEGACY As she works to secure a grant to set up a permanent location for her library, and maybe even get a bookmobile, her idea has now snowballed into a movement, with Free Black Women’s Libraries cropping up in cities such as Los Angeles and Detroit among other places.

She credits iconic African-American librarians such as Dorothy B. Porter and Mayme Agnew Clayton for inspiring her and says she is only continuing their legacy. “There’s a long list of black women librarians that I look up to, who have done what I’m doing right now. But, for them, it was even more significant because when they were doing it, there was no social media, no Internet. They were just digging through. Part of what I hope is that I’m making my ancestors proud by doing this work,” she says.

“When I think about the sweat and the labor of moving the books from one place to another, I think about them,” she says, “doing this at a time when blackness was seen as something that was ignorant and illiterate, and reading and writing was illegal or not allowed or considered wrong, just wrong. Black librarians are amazing.”

* * * * * *

Ola Ronke Akinmowo’s recommendations for young readers:

Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson

My Life as an Ice-Cream Sandwich by Ibi Zoboi

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

* * * * * *

Asha Sridhar is a freelance writer based out of Jersey City. She loves wandering through old historic buildings, bustling streets and anything that closely resembles a bookshop.

Source: https://diversebooks.org/the-free-black-womens-library-celebrates-black-authors-and-readers

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dalissy · 5 years

Photo

Mayme Angel (1979) by Yumiko Igarashi

My scans

#Mayme Angel #yumiko igarashi #Shoujo #Vintage Shoujo #70s manga #80s manga #shoujo manga #classic shoujo #retro manga #scans

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jtq1844 · 5 years

Text

One day into this and I’m already behind ...

Where did the day go? So much for taking this opportunity to build in some writing discipline into my life. I actually have a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Antioch University -- Los Angeles, 2017). It started out as “an external goal” in 2015, something to try after we moved as empty-nesters up to Washington State from Santa Cruz. The program is “low residency,” meaning it is mostly online. I had had a few stories published already, so I had reason to think it was doable. I like story-telling. I like writing. What I discovered was that, while I have some writing competency, I don’t exactly have a passion for it.

Here is one of the CNF essays from my official portfolio to amuse you until I compose a more heartfelt and informative post for tomorrow … er, I mean, today … um. You know what I mean.

-=-=-=-

Sister Clorina, Saint Blaise and Doubting Thomas by Jean Tschohl Quinn

It can take years to come to an understanding about something. Alternatively, an understanding can barrel into consciousness like a grand and glorious epiphanic elephant. Sometimes, both happens. I love paradox. I adore the celestial AND. It is in this sort of epiphany, decades in the making, that I found Bahá'u'lláh.

Sister Clorina hated me. No. That’s too strong. She simply did not like any girls not named Mary. She didn’t like me in particular because she had suddenly been “demoted” to second grade from fourth grade where my sister Mary was -- sweet, clever, pious and faithful. How could I compete? My best friend then was named Mary too. Mary Wirhanowicz was also sweet, clever, pious and faithful. I hold no grudge against the average Mary. They’ve got the whole Blessed Virgin Mother expectation thing to deal with and had no choice in the matter because that was their collective given name. It is, apparently, a lot of pressure. There is the occasional exception of the BVM standard when there are multiple Marys in a single classroom. Some of them get an out if they had, say, a younger sibling who called them something else and the teacher approved for clarity’s sake. One of my grandmothers was one of those. There were several Mary’s in her one-room schoolhouse in Nova Scotia. Her younger brothers and sisters called her Mayme already and so she was dubbed in the classroom and life in general. To this day, I consider her the sanest person I’ve ever met. However, in my second grade classroom, Sister Clorina felt she had reason to suspect me as nefarious. First, I was not named Mary. Second, I was “philosophical.”

Her move down to second grade was precipitated by Sister Marie Madison’s hasty withdrawal from the convent life after only a month with our class. We were informed that we had simply “driven her crazy.” Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. (That’s not quite accurate; it was post-Vatican-II. We didn’t actually learn any Latin.) The girls of the class all knew the blame rested solely on the antics of Vince Wederath, Brian Doherty, and Eddie Marx. They were the bad boys. Maybe Tim Relihan too. We were sure of it. Twelve or so years after the fact, I bumped into Eddie on a bus as I headed home from college for a weekend of free laundry and food. He was still proud of his part in the good sister’s loss of faith. We choose our triumphs; this apparently was one of Eddie’s.

Sister Clorina emanated a stern energy. I cannot tell you whether she was tall or short from my second-grader memory, but I do recall her immense energy. Sometimes, she’d fill in on the organ at Mass when the ridiculously cherubic Sister Acquitaine was overwrought or under the weather. Sister Acquitaine was the music teacher. She felt my brother Kevin’s musical talent was extraordinary -- it is – and so she kept him in at recess for violin lessons because we already had a violin that Grampa Hanson had picked up at St. Vinnie’s for $7 in 1967. Kevin did not like missing recess. He abandoned the violin at his earliest possible convenience. I still have and play that violin, mainly because no one else had a use for it. I have always felt that I have a right only to that which is of no use to anyone else. It’s a youngest child thing. In second grade, I even went so far as to claim my favorite color as moss green because I felt sorry for it.

In any case, Sister Clorina as a substitute organist kept the tempo “up” much to the consternation of the older folks. My family liked it that way; it was zippy. She would shout over her shoulder, “Hymn number 8.” Only I thought she was saying “Hit number 8” like Casey Kasem might, so I thought we were going to sing Winchester Cathedral or Last Train to Clarksville depending on the week. I somehow knew never to expect Wild Thing.

I had high hopes as Sister Clorina glowered over us in the hall outside the classroom. I reached for her hand, trying to be the brown-noser I knew myself to be. She sniffed and tucked her arm inside her surplus. Her disdain for me was immediate.

First grade had been a long line of substitute teachers after Mrs. Conti-Morgan left to give birth after an entirely crabby last month. She and Mrs. Lambert, a squat dynamic storyteller, in the fifth grade were the only lay teachers in the school. Second grade looked like the beginning of a whole new world. I was finally going to be close enough to a nun to touch one.

After Sister Marie Madison bailed on us in the second-grade, I suspect Sister Clorina took the move from her already beloved fourth grade class to our clearly evil second grade as a demotion. The smaller four and fifth grade classes would be combined with the incredible Mrs. Lambert at the helm. My sister Mary was immediately named co-chair with Mrs. Lambert of their mutual admiration society. Mary has that mysterious charm that immediately made her teacher’s pet. Every time.

My year with Sister Clorina should have been a good one. She did Science. We studied the classic simple machines: lever, incline plane, screw, pulley, wedge, and wheel and axle. She even pointed out that a screw is really just an incline plane wrapped around a pivot point. This was good stuff. We learned about meteorology and taxonomy. Why wasn’t it working? For one thing, she had no joy once Mary Wirhanowicz got really sick and was gone for weeks. I brought homework to Mary and back to school regularly. Did I get any credit for helping the BVM wannabe? No I did not. Looking for credit is always a sure way to not get any. I was dead last in the rankings of teacher’s pet, even behind Renee Kucze and she NEVER adhered to the dress code.

Mary eventually recovered and returned to class. My only hope was merit by association. No luck. Christmas rolled around and the requisite study of the Nativity. We learned about the Magi, those astrologers from the East. The question was obvious, so I asked it, “If they understood how important Jesus was before He was even born, shouldn’t we be studying their Religion?” Sister Clorina never called on me again.

Second grade crawled on. I was dying to ask about the blessing of the throats on Saint Blaise Day, February 3, but I couldn’t ask Sister Clorina. I thought the hubbub was kind of cool -- how we’d line up and have blest candles criss-crossed about our necks with a little prayer for health offered – but still didn’t understand it. My mom, who was much more informed and cynical than I could have realized then, knew a little about it. One of the miracles attributed to Saint Blaise was miraculously saving someone from choking. His “day” was the day after Candlemas, February 2, when families traditionally brought in all their candles to be sanctified.

“While this is completely pointless in the 20th century,” she postulated, “imagine what candles meant to a family three hundred, five hundred, seven hundred years ago.” Having them blest would be a prudent gesture to Christians throughout Old Europe and the Byzantine Empire, she hoped I would agree. In my limited comprehension, however, I continued to attempt reconciliation of all of this with Groundhog Day. Maybe the flicker of candles cast interesting shadows on any groundhogs popping out of holes on the same day.

By Lent, I knew better than to ask questions. During the required Tuesday-after-school Stations of the Cross, I languished with questions. It’s not three days between the afternoon of Good Friday and dawn of Easter Sunday. It’s two. Much later, I learned that the Jewish day starts at sundown, so it was definitely only two days. I did not dare ask. And the renaming of Simon to Peter, the rock. What was that about? That was a whole lot of palaver over one little verse and the power that Saul/Paul grabbed anyway. I didn’t get it and couldn’t ask.

At Pentecost, I remember sitting amiably in the pew, gently kicking at the kneeler after the Gospel Reading, followed by a rambling homily about Doubting Thomas. He misses a visit from the post-Resurrection Christ and demands physical proof. Christ does come to revisit and offers Thomas a chance to “probe the nail holes.” Thomas believes even though there’s no record of him poking his fingers anywhere – seriously not in a single one of the four Gospels -- just being with Him again is sufficient. Christ then adds “blessed are they that have not seen but still believe.”

Yes, I committed to myself – kick, kick, kick -- I will never be like Doubting Thomas, needing proof like that. To this day, I have never witnessed any firsthand wowza moment. Some friends of mine have hosted these remarkable, spiritual ongoing events where miracles of joy, epiphany and synchronicity are a regular occurrence for years. Long-lost friends reunite. Extraordinary fund-raising. Mysterious healings. You name it. Whenever I show up, it’s invariably an “off night.” My friend who has witnessed it all invariably shrugs and says, “I don’t know what happened this time. Maybe it was the traffic.” I trust their reality. I have to, because I wasn’t there.

I was still mindlessly kicking the kneeler. Why didn’t they recognize Christ as Jesus when meeting Him after the Resurrection? Seriously, they don’t recognize Him at first. Why would that be? What was the big deal about a physical resurrection anyway? The Old Testament was full of them. I could get the importance of a spiritual one – I thought: Peter … Rock … denied Him and the hiding … rock rolled away … blah, blah, blah … Didn’t Jesus call His followers His body? I was not about to ask questions. The symbolism worked so much better than literal story. Don’t ask; don’t tell. Just get through second grade.

By the end of that year, Father Podolak, that gentle, rambling soul who would eventually preside over my wedding years later, announced that the school would be closing at June. My sister and I were devastated. My brothers and older sisters were already going off to junior high and senior high school, mercifully saved from attending more Catholic school by the cost of tuition times six. Mary and I lay in bed with the blankets kicked off, feeling entombed by the muggy heaviness of Wisconsin in the summer bemoaning our fate, a public school education with their loose morals and strange ways. Of this we were sure. No potentially free music lessons from Sister Acquitaine; no exciting tales about WWI in Italy from Mrs. Lambert; no stern preparation for junior high from Sister Rhodelia whose great contribution to our family was her encouragement to my parents that my shy, nervous, older sister Jackie would achieve every regular thing, just in her own time. We were off to public school and weekly Catholic CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. I kid you not).

How wrong we were! At the public school, we got free music lessons on any instrument we chose from hip young musicians; one for band instruments, the other for strings (my choice, obviously). And Mrs. Grossman taught us singing. She really liked how Mary (either one) and I sang together. By the following Christmas, my sister now a fifth grader and I a third grader sang in front of an audience of hundreds a harmonized duet of Mel Torme’s A Christmas Song. Afterwards Brian Doherty spoke directly to me, probably the only time he ever did, “You have guts. Double guts.” Respect. I don’t remember seeing him after that.

We also had a regular dedicated art teacher, Miss Sanford. She got a nose job the following summer and nobody recognized her when she returned. The best part was, my third grade teacher, Miss Nawrocki. She looked like a Barbie doll. She wore wigs of different colors and lengths. She got married halfway through the year and became Mrs. Raniewicz. Dang. We had just conquered spelling capital-N A W R O C K I. She directed a class musical. I had lunch with her a couple of years ago. She is still awesome, although significantly shorter than I thought. Public school was fine. Better than fine. It was great. To heck with you, Sister Clorina.

Around ninth grade, Confirmation rolled around. It was time for me to publicly commit to God and His Church, whatever that meant. Among the somewhat arbitrary options for going through a Catholic Confirmation is taking a new name. It has little or no intrinsic meaning within Western cultures, but the vestigial tradition hangs on. My 15-year-old self was interested in saving the world by becoming a medical doctor – didn’t happen: boys, booze, and a reading disability derailed that vague idea during the first semester of college – so I chose the name “Blaise” as my Confirmation name. I had mistakenly thought he was the patron saint of physicians. I was a piss-poor researcher back then too. So many of his miracles had to do with healing, particularly having to do with throat ailments and choking. Who am I kidding? I claimed the name Blaise because the choice was due the week after the whole Candlemas/Saint Blaise weirdness -- exactly forty days after Christmas. What was this thing with forty days anyway?  Noah in the Ark, Jesus in the desert, Buddha under the Bodi Tree, the Prophet Mohammad in a cave.  There’s Lent.  There are periods of mourning, of fasting or of thanksgiving in most belief systems.  

In any case, my choice of Blaise, a male name, upset a fair few people, so I had to write a couple of letters to some persnickety council of some kind. The request was okayed … with reservations. The actual Confirmation was forgettable other than choir director being in a car accident on the way there, so the choir – which included my mother, my sister Mary, Mary Wirhanowicz and me – had to wing it.

“So why was the name Blaise so important to you?” Father Podolak asked me months later.

“Well, if this spirituality stuff doesn’t work out, ‘Blaze’ is a good name for a stripper.” The words were out of my mouth before I ran them through my brain. I kept walking.

The next time I saw Fr. P, he said, “Jean, do you know how we make holy water?”

“You bless it?” I stammered.

“No, you boil the Hell out of it.” He smiled apologetically and gently clarified, “That was a joke.”

I chatted with a priest at a wedding I was hired to sing for a few years later, I mentioned the parish I grew up in. The priest said, “Ah! Bill Podolak, a kind man.”

“Yes, indeed.” I was running out of things to say.

“… not a dynamic speaker.”

“No, indeed.” We laughed, all too cruelly I believe.

In spite of my bad research skills, Saint Blaise continues to intrigue me. Having been martyred by being beaten to death with iron combs used for wool combing and carding, Saint Blaise has since been associated with any trade having to do with wool since the Middle Ages, not the healing arts. So, after all the hubbub about me picking a male saint’s name, perhaps it works for me. After all, what is my essay-writing but glorified wool-gathering?

The year after my Confirmation, I lived in Tunisia through a foreign exchange program the same summer that Monty Python’s Flying Circus filmed Life of Brian a mere 100 kilometers away. I did not find out until just after my return to the US, by watching an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Eric Idle. His monologue was about the long, sad love songs Tunisians sing with such relish and the ubiquity of jasmine there. Mr. Idle’s monologue went over like a fart in church as the saying goes. My family, however, laughed spasmodically as they recalled the similar stories from my letters home. Dad with his ever-present bowl of popcorn balanced on his chest, fell off the couch chortling. Mr. Idle’s underappreciated monologue notwithstanding, my summer in Tunisia changed my perceptions of just about everything. I had lived with a Moslem family in a Moslem neighborhood in a Moslem village. They valued education and kindness, respect and humor, the individual and the collective. The child peeking out of the doorway to see the American girl may have looked like an advertisement for C.A.R.E., but I came to know that her family loved her abundantly, fed her regularly if frugally, and had dreams and hopes for her. Neshua, the daughter of my host family closest to my age, and I were invited to several homes. Some of those invitations were offered because I was a curiosity to the village. In most of the humbler homes, there was a carpet in the works, a large frame taking up a wall in their main living space. A color plot hung taped to one of the loom’s posts. I learned to knot and trim the wool according to the plot, to shift the heddle and weft shuttle, to tamp work with the kleleh to compact the threads. We sat together, partly in fellowship, partly to contribute to the household. One little girl elbowed her way next to me knotting two to my one and announce that she would teach me the Arabic alphabet. “C’est très important” for me to learn how to read Arabic. I never did, except for “Coca-Cola” which I suspect had more to do with it being on large red billboards.

I was quite full of myself. Eventually the lessons of that summer, about the oneness of Religion, not the Arabic alphabet, sunk in. No longer would the coat of we’re-right/they’re-wrong Christianity fit me properly.

Eventually, I was off to college where at some point I made out with a guy who decided to become a priest. I think there may be something more to process about that. Maybe not. I ended up eventually working in Washington DC and met my future husband Mike at a Trivial Pursuit party in the apartment complex we both lived in. We were both Arabic-speaking (although mine was pretty patchy), left-handed (which has its own complications in Middle Eastern countries), green-eyed Catholics. It was Kismet. Oh, and we both preferred to drink milk with pizza. Like I said, Kismet. We went through all the Catholic wedding hoops and started our family when I got pushed onto a spiritual journey by a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses. While the JW logic never worked for me, I will forever be grateful to Betty and LaVonne for starting me on the journey. Here I will skip chapters full of synchronicities that only Baha’is would find amusing, we attended some meetings referred to as Firesides after moving to San Jose, California a few years later.

The speaker one evening expounded on the subject of Progressive Revelation. In brief, Progressive Revelation encompasses the idea that Religion is unfolding over time as humanity becomes ready for a fuller understanding of the true nature of Reality. The speaker went on to offer examples of how Judaism begot Christianity and primarily affected Europe in its initial reach and development. Likewise, Hinduism begot Buddhism which moved out to Asia. Islam is also Abrahamic but was couched in Zoroastrian customs as well. It spread into North Africa, the Middle East, Oceania. The Baha’i Faith was revealed just as the world needed to start thinking globally, in the mid-19th century. Any corruption of Religion has to do with mankind messing with it, not with the purity of the original Message. This made some sense to me, but I didn’t know anything about Zoroaster. The speaker recognized my raised eyebrow-of-confusion and explained.

The moment the speaker explained that the primary understanding of Zoroastrianism in the West would be the Zodiac. He also mentioned that the priesthood was referred to as the Magi, as in the “astrologers from the East.” In that moment, all the disparate thoughts from the time I was seven onward coalesced in my mind’s eye like a jigsaw puzzle completing itself. I wiggled in my seat in excitement, trying not to disturb the tiny middle-aged woman of Asian descent or the black man next to me who had fallen asleep. He was snoring full out and no one was perturbed by it. His wife, a white woman at least a head taller than he was, later explained that he had had a stroke during brain surgery a few years before and often fell asleep. The oneness of God, the oneness of Humanity, the oneness of Religion all made sense to me. In that blink of an eye, I saw the interlocking of fact and legend, of the Magi and the Baby, of tradition and skepticism. I was back with Sister Clorina, Saint Blaise, and my family in Tunisia.

It was both in an instant and over the course of my lifetime up to that point that I came to this understanding. A few weeks after that night, Mike and I together declared our Faith in Bahá'u'lláh, that is to say, became adherents to the Baha'i Faith. We have found our lives infinitely richer because of that choice, so have our children (so they tell me). It is not easy to always keep in mind that each and every person that exists or did exist or will exist is unique and beloved by God, or that our individual Free Wills can send us in all different directions, or that "This is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future" as Bahá'u'lláh says. In fact, it's mostly challenging. Building Heaven on Earth is not for sissies. However, I know it is the right thing for me to pursue.

I still do not get my faith confirmed by fantastical measures. I’d love to see a crowd of people collectively gung their foreheads with the heels of their hands that the oneness of Humanity is a fact and the work it will take for every person to feel loved and beloved as the family we are will be worth the effort and sacrifice. I’d love to see someone healed miraculously. I still get the sense that I won't ever witness events like that first hand.

Occasionally, I do witness people who die with grace or see a smile generated from a purely motivated kindness perpetrated on an unsuspecting grump. It is things like that -- tiny, lovely indications that my spiritual path is worth toddling upon – with which I chose to be satisfied. I promised myself so long ago that it would be enough.

Sister Clorina was only in my life for six months over fifty years ago. She still pops into my head, usually when I am accused of being “too sensitive” about something. I’d love to prove to you that she’s not important to me now, but you’ll just have to take that on faith.

#Tunisia #saintblaise #doubtingthomas #bahai #baha'u'llah #SisterClorina

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