Joan Crawford's straight, narrow and lonely back. We are following her through the corridors of a moving train. She is looking for someone, or she is trying to escape from someone. She is eventually interecepted by, I think, Clark Gable.
I am fascinated by the movement on, and of, the screen, that movement which is soemthing like the heaving and swelling of the sea (though I have not yet been to the sea): and which is also something like the light which moves on, and especially beneath, the water.
I am about seven. I am with my mother, or my aunt. The movie is Dance, Fools, Dance.
7.) James Baldwin's The Devil Finds Work
Gordon Parks, Harlem Neighborhood, Harlem, New York, 1952. © The Gordon Parks Foundation.
8.) Gordon Parks: 100 Years runs through January 6, 2013 at the International Center of Photography in New York City in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of his birth. The exhibit includes a large-scale photo mural and a slideshow of more than 50 photographs taken throughout Mr. Parks' career.
"I tried to write poems like the songs they sang on Seventh Street - gay songs, because you had to be gay or die; sad songs, because you couldn't help being sad, you kept on living and you kept on going." Without having become much more confident about his ability to judge the quality of his new poems, Hughes nevertheless persisted at his craft. "I always put them away new for several weeks in a bottom drawer," he would recall. "Then I would take them out and re-read them. If they seemed bad, I would throw them away."
9.) The Life of Langston Hughes, Volume 1, 1902-1941: I, Too, Sing America by Arnold Rampersad
Romare Bearden's Family, ca. 1975, Screenprint on white wove paper, Anonymous gift in memory of William P. Miller, Jr., 1989 89.5. Art © Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
10.) Romare Bearden: Southern Recollections at the Newark Museum through August 19, 2012, features eleven works, many for the first time, including collage, printmaking, painting and watercolor - spanning the 1940s through the 1980s by the iconic artist.
Shivering behind the column, I tried to think of a story that would let me believe that my father hadn't lied to me when he gave me the coat. Why James would go to so much trouble to deceive me this way? It wasn't like I hadn't known all my life that I wasn't his main daughter. If he had just admitted to buying the damn jacket in a store, I would have been prepared, in a way, for the possibility that there was one for Chaurisse, too. Why had he burst into my home in the middle of the night letting me believe that he had seen this coat on the poker table, spread over a pile of chips, and thought of me, and only me?
11.) Silver Sparrow, the third novel by Tayari Jones, my slanket-loving, Lemon-Ginger-martini making friend is out in paperback. It's the story of two sisters - the public and the secret daughter of a bigamist - who have more in common than they think.
Diana Vreeland in Elsa Schiaparelli, Harper's Bazaar, April 1937. Photograph by Louise Dahl-Wolfe. Louise Dahl-Wolfe Archive / © 2012 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents
12.) Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. If it involves fashion at the Met, I'm going to show up. Inspired by Miguel Covarrubias's "Impossible Interviews" for Vanity Fair in the 1930s, this exhibition features "impossible conversations" between two Italian designers from different eras, Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, via videos with simulated conversations directed by Baz Luhrmann. There are also more than one hundred designs and accessories by both designers on display.
Erica Kennedy. Photo: AP/Jim Cooper
13.) Erica Kennedy's Bling and Feminista - Erica was not only a great writer,she was a cool person. So down to earth where you'd expect her to be so glamorous.When Bling was released, I was so excited for her and I was a voracious reader of anything she wrote on her blog, The Feminista Files, or for any other publication. Her second novel, Feminista, was also a delight. Erica died in June 2012 at the age of 42. In 2004, she told The Philadelphia Inquirer, "I just want to be home in sweats and glasses, writing." That is exactly how I am going to remember her.
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