Category Archives: literature

Slave Culture

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Sterling Stuckey’s Notes on Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America is an impressive survey of the roots of African-American nationalism from the earliest slave period until the mid-twentieth century. The book weaves accounts of African rituals, customs, and spirituality into historical accounts of events in the United States. By drawing on the lives of Simon Brown, Denmark Vesey, David Walker, Henry Highland Garnet, Alexander Crummell, William Hamilton, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Paul Robeson, the book provides access and perspective on the ongoing debate within African-American communities about integration versus nationalism. The author masterfully documents and explains the connections between African and African-American culture, both slave and free, and how they drive the political awareness and action of African-Americans and, to some extent, Africans everywhere.

Memory Lane: Interview with Allen Ginsberg (Between the Sheets)

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This evening, I watched a documentary called Walt Whitman, part of the Voices and Visions series, directed by Jack Smithie, and copyrighted in 1988 by the New York Center for Visual History. The documentary includes numerous excerpts from interviews of Allen Ginsberg, including one snippet where he mentions a sexual lineage that connected him to Whitman through Neal Cassady, Gavin Arthur, and Edward Carpenter (a claim he also apparently made in a Gay Sunshine interview).

I had a flashback to the time I spent with Ginsberg in Cambridge, MA, in 1982, when he told me that I was part of an erotic lineage that connected me to Whitman through him and Carpenter and others I didn’t remember from that time. I now know much more clearly who Neal Cassady is, although Gavin Arthur remains a mystery. One result of a quick Google search identifies Arthur as ” a certain astrologer and San Francisco character, Gavin Arthur (grandson of president Chester A Arthur), who gave lectures at San Quentin while Neal was a prisoner.” Another entry reports that he studied astrology with Ronald Reagan before Reagan started his political career.

I had interviewed Ginsberg for Gay Community News in an issue published on August 21, 1982. The funny part of the interview was how we decided to end it in print, that is, with Ginsberg’s question to me about whether I was going to refer to the conditions of the interview in publication, my question to him about what he meant, and his reply that the interview was conducted when we were in bed together.

A month or so ago, I found a cassette tape containing the whole interview and listened to it for the first time in more than 20 years. I was surprised at how fresh and relevant Ginsberg’s words remained to me and to the current political situation in the U.S.

Perhaps an archive somewhere would be interested in the recording? If so, please contact me. Or perhaps I should just transcribe the whole thing and post it on this blog. The incomplete interview, as published in Gay Community News, is now apparently selling for $22 an issue on the web, so I guess I should scrounge around in the basement to see if I still have any copies, eh?

Roots, Niger Delta, Botany of Desire, and Blood Canticle

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I spent New Year’s Eve watching the entire “Roots” television series, a production inspired by Alex Haley’s book. Apparently, there is a sort of sequel called “Queen.”

I finished my reading and notes on The Trading States of the Oil Rivers; a Study of Political Development in Eastern Nigeria.

I’m still reading Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire and listening to the audio book of Anne Rice’s Blood Canticle, read delightfully by David Pittu.

The Golden Compass

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Yesterday, I finished reading Philip Pullman’s “The Golden Compass,” originally published in the U.K. as “Northern Lights” and the first book in the “His Dark Materials” series. Irish John recommended I read it and I’m very impressed with it. I read the entire book in one evening and part of the following morning.

The story presents a world where humans have daemons that take the shape of animals related to the human’s character. The daemons are variable in type until the child reaches puberty, after which they become fixed in form. The protagonist is a teenage girl raised as an orphan who goes through lots of adventures.

I’ve already reserved the second volume of the series at the public library.