Je suis parle français
Le semestre été commence. With that en course de français is my main focus for the next few months. I’ve been trying to get a handle on French—a language I haven’t studies since high school.
Today I wrote my shopping list and my to-do list in French.
La liste de courses
gazeux
l’œuf de poule
le pain aux raisins secs
le yaourt
les haricots à œil noir
les haricots noir
la graine de tournesol
l’amande
les fruits rouges—la fraise—les fraises
les fruits à noyau—la ceríse—les ceríses, la nectarine—les nectarines
la pomme—les pommes
la poire—les poires
les agrumes—le citron vert—les citrons verts
la carotte—les carottes
le beurre de caccahouètes
les biscuits
le lait de soja chocolat
le fer
le jus de fruit
La liste fairer
le supermarché—Hitchcock’s & Publix
le pharmacie—CVS
laver le linge
faire le lit
natter/tresser
la station-service—l’essence
étudier/lirer (la leçon)
Baltimore, Maryland
Some years ago I decided to move to Baltimore. Why Baltimore? I couldn’t exactly say, but for whatever reason, I knew that Baltimore would be an adventure, and it was. I moved to an apartment near the harbor and took a job teaching high school English at the newly designated W.E.B. Du Bois High School (formerly Northern High). We had lots of fun analyzing and comparing British poets to Tupac & Nas, translating THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH, and figuring out who really had an accent: me (Florida), Tiffany (Arkansas) or the rest of the class (Marylanders)–I promise you that Tiffany and I were much closer to broadcast English than any Baltimorian in those classes. It was an unique experience. The students probably taught me as much, if not more, than I taught them.
As I was surfing the web today–yes, procrastinating–I came across the photo above. It’s a still taken from the new video for jazz singer, Gregory Porter’s “Be Good (Lion Song)” featuring beautiful Black people all around Baltimore, Maryland. You can see the video directed by Pierre Bennu at Exit the Apple. In addition to my obvious nostalgia about B’more, the song and the video are lovely. Take a look here.
Q
The Book Letter
I really like this idea of a "book letter" in a recent post over at the European Paper Company blog. I’m always looking out for crafty ways to use words. My family and friends should look out for my version of the “book letter” come holidays and birthdays. I couldn’t imagine anything better.
Q
Quote of Note:
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. imagination encircles the world.
–Albert Einstein
Rest in Power, Whitney . . .
As I was driving to work this morning, reviewing high points of the novel in my head, I realized that Whitney Houston would have made an excellent Taffy Brown in the cinematic version of Chasing Coltrane. She was so much of who Taffy is as a gorgeous black woman with an amazing voice. The thought made me very sad until I began to understand that without knowing it at the time or even intending to do so, I put everything I loved about Whitney into Taffy’s character.
Rest in Power, Ms. Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963- February 11, 2012)
There is never any end . …
Leonid Afremov oil painting
There is never any end . . .
There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at.
And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds
so that we can really see what we’ve discovered in its pure state.
So that we can see more and more clearly what we are.
In that way, we can give to those who listen to the essence,
the best of what we are.
—JOHN WILLIAM COLTRANE
from liner notes written by Nat Hentoff for Meditations, 1966
Coltrane in Black & White
This photo is courtesy of Mark Wells from the blog at Smiley & West. Read his excellent profile of John Coltrane here.
My New Year! (Birthday)
Celebrate a new year! The focus is always to write more, but I will also try to tweak my healthy living routines. Meditation has been getting slighted by school, teaching, research, occasional exercise (smile), writing, writing submissions, the niece and nephew, and almost everything else. I must rededicate time to mindfulness. Starting today!
Q
Michele’s Almond & Chocolate Mini-Cakes
In Part II–Cassie Mae’s section of the novel, she is always cooking and often baking a cake for a loved one. Here is the recipe for the cake she makes for Michele.
Ingredients:
Cake
12 ounces of unsalted butter, at room temperature
Flour for dusting the pan
1 pound of almond paste
1 ¾ cups of granulated sugar
¾ cup + 2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
8 large eggs
Cake filling and glaze
4 ounces of 82% extra dark chocolate, melted
6 ounces (12 tablespoons) of unsalted butter, cubed
8 ounces of 70% bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
To bake the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and place the rack in the middle of the oven. Lightly butter the bottom and sides of a half sheet pan (17 x 12 x 1 inch sheet). Line the bottom with parchment, butter the parchment, then flour the parchment and the sides of the pan. Set aside.
Using a stand mixer, attach the paddle, then mix the butter and almond paste on medium speed until the mixture is light and creamy (3 to 5 minutes). Add the sugar and cocoa and blend on low speed. Increase the speed to medium and add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition, until fully incorporated. Continue to mix until lightened (2 to 3 minutes).
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 25 minutes. The surface should be slightly spongy to the touch, but a small skewer inserted in the center will come out clean, and the cake will begin to pull away from the sides of the pan.
Remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack for 5 to 10 minutes. Turn out onto the rack and cool completely.
Place the cake in the refrigerator for 20 minutes or the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes to prepare for cutting.
To fill the cakes:
Make sure the 82% extra dark chocolate is melted. Using a 2 ½-inch round cutter, cut 24 disks from the cooled cake. Brush the top of 12 of the disks with melted chocolate, and top with the remaining 12 disks. Place a cooling rack over a baking sheet. Arrange the cakes on the rack, leaving some room between them. Allow the cakes to return to room temperature before glazing.
To glaze the cakes:
Scatter 6 ounces of cubes butter over the bottom of a medium skillet and top with the chopped chocolate. Place over medium heat and let sit until about three-quarters of the chocolate is melted. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk just to combine and melt the remaining chocolate; whisk gently, to avoid creating bubbles. Transfer the glaze to a container with a spout. Slowly pour glaze over the center of one cake, then use a small spatula to push the glaze over the sides. Smooth the sides to cover, if desired. Repeat for the eleven remaining cakes.
Let the cakes sit at room temperature until the glaze sets, then transfer to a platter or individual plates.
Makes 12 mini cakes.
from The ESSENCE OF CHOCOLATE, John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg
Coltrane’s Historic Home
“Nearly 50 years ago the jazz legend John Coltrane locked himself away in the upstairs room of his home on New York’s Long Island. It was there that he wrote what many consider his masterpiece: A LOVE SUPREME. . . .” Today the house is unoccupied and in disrepair, but there is a grassroots movement to save the home. BBC has joined the efforts to tell the story and preserve the historic home.
You can watch the BBC video and join the movement to save the home at the Coltrane Home website.
Photo by Hozumi Nakadeira circa 1971.
Courtesy of Yasuhiro Fuji.
Pep’s Musical Bar
Pep’s sits on the northwest corner of South and Broad Streets in South Philadelphia. One of the last jazz rooms left in the city, it is the place where musicians go to become jazzmen. In June of 1965 the John Coltrane Quartet plays at Pep’s for one week to a full house. Coltrane’s personal life is falling apart and he has put his sorrows into his version of “The Last Blues”. Tyner sits out this one while Trane and Elvin duel. I can hear them. Elvin is louder than a barreling freight train and Trane is making the tenor scream, but it’s a blues and sometimes crying is loud.
from CHASING COLTRANE, a novel by Anquinetta V. Calhoun
Quote of Note:
Leonid Afremov oil painting
“Your music reflects the times in which you live.” –Dizzy Gillespie
The Red Rooster
illustration courtesy of Erika Pal www.erikapalillustration.com
I was reading a post over at Marsalis Music about hearing versus listening and it reminded me of the novel’s opening and so I decided to share. Q
I can hear the somber chords over a bass pedal point. I search up, down, around for the origin of the sound. For a moment I think it could be coming from the overhead speakers inconspicuously lodged in the curve of the bus’s paneled metal siding. But I soon realize that the Philadelphia City Transit Authority doesn’t have the musical understanding or discretion to shower us with “Naima” composed by Coltrane in ‘59 for his first wife, Nita and released on GIANT STEPS in ‘60. The composition has a restrained melody that rises ever so slightly over the hum of the Rooster’s crowd. A switch is flipped and the version I’m hearing features McCoy Tyner’s melancholy piano solo from his ECHOES OF A FRIEND more than twelve years later, out-doing the somber mood of a John Coltrane Sextet less than a decade earlier with Pharaoh on flute, Alice on piano, Jimmy on bass and Rashied & Rahim keeping the beat. They put it down on the 28th day of May, the year 1966. I was nine years old and hanging out in New York with my pop. We was cool then. I’m cool now, listening to Coltrane on the rickety bandstand at the Red Rooster, lost in the stingy melody until the damn bus hits a pothole. Then I know for sure that the bus isn’t offering up Coltrane or Tyner. I look around. An elderly lady gripping her purse out of habitual fear sits next to me. The seat on the other side of me is empty. Not many in need of a ride during the mid-morning unrush. Coltrane isn’t on the radio. He’s in my head, professing his love for his woman and his music or at least that’s how I see it. That is, until I see her.
The sistah across from me crosses her legs at the knees and looks through me, not at me but through me. I decide to engage her just to see what she’s all about. I already know she’s not my type—her hair, sandy brown and straight and held behind her ears with a robin egg blue band that reminds me of a love long gone at a time when everyone else was working to maintain shining, sparkling Angela Davis fros. Hers is shiny, too, but lifeless, flat, and held down tight by that blue head band. She frowns when I smile and nod and lift my chin to offer her a “What’s up?” She returns her gaze to that place where she can see through me. At Second she stands and almost runs off the bus. I get off too. As she walks down Front toward Delaney Street, I lag behind her a little. She looks with indifference toward Checkmate as he adjusts the height of his chess boards. I know what she’s thinking: why can’t he be somewhere else, take a bath, cut his hair, get a job?
Pulling himself up to a standing position, as tall and as proud as the Marine he will always be, Check follows her gait with his eyes as she tries to speed by. No doubt he is drawn to that pressed linen robin egg blue band stretching from ear to ear as we both watch this sistah rush by. I approach more slowly, but I don’t say a word. Words don’t hold the weight they used to. I am by nature quiet and unassuming. I don’t need to say much unless I’m asked. Checkmate has never needed an invitation. “Hey pretty mama! How you livin’?” He beckons the sistah. She hesitates before she makes up her mind to stop. Then she reaches into the pocket of her headband matching blue handbag and pulls out a handful of coins. She opens her fist palm up and appears to be counting the coins before dropping them in the empty Sanka can on Check’s third board. The one closest to the silver double diamond doors. “Here. Old man,” we hear her say. Then she turns and walks off in more of a hurry. Checkmate grins and I can’t help but laugh. The can is there to hold his extra chess pieces.
As a child my silence was considered thoughtful; as a young man I was often called “serious.” Later, those who know me best will wonder aloud about how loud my voice really is. Nowadays they have other words for serious: brooding, moody, withdrawn, odd, arrogant—as if not speaking incessantly is the same as not participating, and as if speaking is the only form of engagement. My people have forgotten how to hold our tongues and listen and think and listen again. Now the noises outside are enough to drown out everything inside and it’s any wonder anybody can hear anything at all. Still I used to be able to fight through it, to decipher a sound’s origin, a Gibson from a Fender at 100 paces or as far away as sound can travel in the streets at the heart of this independent city. Not anymore, because back then, when I was a young man, chasing the music and the meaning of this life, I was listening to everything, everybody who was saying something that made sense and a little bit of the things that didn’t. Then, very suddenly one morning after a crazy cuttin contest, I realized that I was hearing nothing at all. Before the sistah in the robin egg blue decided to trade her afro pick for a side comb there had been a revolution going on in the streets, in the music, in the minds.
Now? Nothing, or at least I can’t hear much of anything for all the noise and nonsense and I don’t think anyone else can either. Because if they could things would be different around here. This place would be packed, overrun with soldiers, moving to the music, singing, shouting, swaying, dancing or just nodding their heads, tapping their feet while sipping on their favorite drink, smiling at their favorite girl and getting high on singing sweets, never noticing me sitting at the curve of the bar, observing which song makes them bob a little more and complain a little less.
In the dimness there is a flash of sunlight against the mahogany petition with the beveled glass topper every time the door opens. I nod and smile and sometimes raise my glass of cognac in the direction of each newcomer. On this day, the girl in the robin egg blue stands away from the tables. She holds a piece of paper in her hand and I’m curious because the new hostess—they call her Yolie but her name’s Yolanda—introduces the girl to Slim. Says her name is Free and that she’s here for Lovely’s job.
Me and Check, we’re atmosphere—kinda like decoration. He’s outside amongst his upturned Coca-Cola crates soliciting his next victim—a brother awaiting the arrival of his friend or his girl, a young cat too green to know the danger, a seasoned brother feeling good and wanting validation or celebration. I’m in here, tucked into this corner, still trying hard to listen.
from CHASING COLTRANE, a novel by Anquinetta V. Calhoun
All Things Coltrane
The novel is finished and I’ve submitted it to a few agents and publishers and now I must play the waiting game. I do plan to write the next book soon, but I thought I would post some of the many Coltrane-related ideas I’ve come across over the past seven years while working on this novel, and a few new things I find of interest as they cross my path.
Quote of Note:
“Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.” –Ralph Ellison
Kind of Blue
Do you listen to records?
Miles: No. They’re all in here [taps forehead] . . .
What do you see in the future?
Miles: Tomorrow.
(1973)
Pearlie
Pearl Bailey, 1946.
From the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Garden Gardenia
The gardenia or “Cape Jasmine” is best known for its strong floral scent and its place of adornment just above the ear of Ms. Billie Holiday every time she took to the stage. Born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia in 1915, Ms. Holiday grew up in Baltimore and eventually moved to Harlem and became legendary Lady Day, Queen of Song. The gardenia in her hair became her signature. After a tragic life marred by drugs and violence, Billie Holiday died in New York’s Metropolitan Hospital in 1959. This particular photograph was taken in my mother’s backyard. The gardenia plant was a gift from my aunt.
Daily Meditation
Along with dietary changes, I’ve decided to give meditation a try again. Wish me luck!
Q
Final Draft
I have finished! The final draft is done and I’ve put it aside to cool off 
. It’s going to take a few days for me to wrap my head around the fact that I’m finished with Turo’s story. I’ve only been working on this novel for five years–five years that feel like a lifetime–and honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about it or how I’m supposed to feel about it for that matter.
I’ll take a few days to breathe and then make a plan for what to do next. It must be said that I don’t look forward to the next step in the process: landing an agent and selling the novel. I think I’ll spend a few days reading other people’s stuff and then begin thinking about the next novel–FREE or AMQ?
Always,
Q
Defining Black Manhood
What is manhood in this millennium? Male imagery and homophobia in the black community.
“Morehouse seems to be saying, ‘Be you and become you, but there’s a standard of appearance no matter who you are.’” . . . “Let’s challenge our community to be better not only on how we become more inclusive but more effective.”
The New Green
“It shouldn’t just be how you spend your green but how you empower it.”
~Jeff Johnson on TJMS (10/05/2010).
Let’s focus on green strategies for green jobs.
