July 2020 - Page 2 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Lydster: creating another Jesus

collage

Jesus I was quite unclear what my daughter’s specific motivation was. Suddenly, she needed to cut up magazines, and sort the pieces by color. Bye bye, old, unread copies of Vanity Fair.

Then she did a couple of drawings on 8.5″ by 11″ paper, one in green, the other in blue. She added digits as though she were creating a paint-by-numbers. And she was, of a sort. She was creating a code for the different colors, and the gradation within the hues. Using the copier, she made the primary image larger.

Our church had disposed of some old hymnals a couple of years ago, and we had three or four copies. One of them died for her art, as she arranged the pages as her background. There was no musical theme involved, BTW.

The living room was quite a mess as she glued pieces on the image she had hand-drawn. Here’s the result of her collage of another Jesus portrayal. It is roughly 30″ by 40″.

Is heaven segregated?

I found an interesting interview from NPR in June 2020. The Rev. Lenny Duncan is a black preacher in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. his 2019 book is Dear Church: A Love Letter From a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US.

A couple quotes: “One of the things I talk about in the book is [the symbolism of Advent] — painting blackness as always in darkness, always as evil and bad, further away from the light of God and all that kind of language we use in our worship.”

And: “I believe that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America wants to be better. They just don’t know how. One of the things that we often underestimate with the power of white supremacy is that the people who are the sickest from it, often do not know that they are infected with it.”

The philosophers of the 18th and 19th century codified that notion. In Philosophy of History (Chapter 2), Voltaire argued that blacks were a separate, lesser species. Europeans felt the need to justify their discriminatory treatment of non-Europeans. So-called “empirical methods” readily allowed them to conclude that Indians and Africans were inferior people.

At some level, my daughter, who was in her confirmation class only last year, must be intuitively aware of all of this. We haven’t had specific conversations about what Jesus looked like. Her rendering of another Jesus is her truth.

Favorites: Harry Belafonte (1961-1964)

The listener actively looks forward to listening to the favorite band’s music more than any other music

J. Eric Smith, a blogger of my acquaintance, tried to answer the question, “So, who’s your favorite band?” Now I could answer The Beatles and be done with it. But like Eric, “I am so musically omnivorous.”

Moreover, there were periods when I was listening to TONS of compilation albums. The Warner Brothers Loss Leaders. A series of Atlantic Records collection of R&B, jazz, and blues. Actually several collections of blues (Chess, Alligator) and rock, pop, jazz, and country.

But I’m up for the challenge anyway. Eric’s rubric:

The listener actively looks forward to listening to the favorite band’s music more than any other music, and does so weekly, if not daily;
The listener seeks to have a complete collection of the favorite band’s work, and is willing to spend a little bit more money than usual to acquire it, with special attention paid to albums or singles that less-enthusiastic fans might never find or hear;
The listener never grows tired of the favorite band and its works, and anytime they come on the stereo or radio, no matter what the song, it is greeted with volume rising and singing along;
The listener seeks to learn more about the favorite band, and will often buy books or magazines or watch television or internet shows related to its members and their music;
The listener makes an effort to see the favorite band in a live setting as often as practically possible.

I’ll start at the very beginning. But 1) I’m not going to create links UNLESS I’ve not done it before, 2) I’m not going to limit it to bands.

The Everly Brothers (- 1960). My father had a bunch of singles. at least a couple of them were the Everly Brothers. So I began to recognize them on the radio.

Harry Belafonte (1961-1964). Most of these are from the My Lord What A Mornin’ album, which I finally bought on CD in the 2010s. From #10-#1:

Mama Look A Boo Boo
Matilda
Jamaica Farewell
March Down to Jordan
Mary’s Boy Child

Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)
Wake Up, Jacob
My Lord What A Mornin’
Banana Boat Song
‘Buked and Scorned

I should make a special note of There’s A Hole in My Bucket, which he performed with the late, great Odetta. I don’t recall hearing it at the time, but it was a song my father used to sing before my sister Leslie and I stole it from him.

BTW, if I had to pick a GROUP for the early 1960s, I’d be hard-pressed. Maybe The Drifters, based entirely on hearing them on the radio.

We should act for Americans with disabilities

30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26

The 30th anniversary of Americans With Disabilities Act is coming up on July 26. That is when President George H.W. Bush signed into law the act, “which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodations, commercial facilities, telecommunications, and state and local government services.”

The law has allowed more people to contribute economically and intellectually to society. In 2019, 19.3 percent of persons with a disability were employed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

For whatever reason, this has been one of those issues that I’ve always had an interest in. When I was working as a librarian, I often took the ADA questions. In the main, the need to make “reasonable accommodations” has become easier with technological advances.

We need to be more accommodating

I am sure I’ve complained about how people make it difficult for those with handicapping conditions to get around, including in my neighborhood. The people who park their cars across the sidewalk, or block the crosswalk, for their own convenience tick me off. They make it difficult for people who are blind or are using wheelchairs, canes, or walkers to traverse.

A blind woman I know needed help doing her laundry recently. Usually, there are machines in the building, which she was quite capable of using. But the landlord is switching them out and the delivery of the new washers and dryers were delayed.

So I walked her pretty much kitty-corner from her house to the laundromat. The first thing I noticed was that drivers are not all that considerate of a woman walking across the street using a cane. On both legs of the trip, automobiles got WAY too close to us. She says it happens to her all of the time.

Then we go into the laundromat. I hadn’t been in one in years. back in the day, the washing machines had specific spaces for the quarters, so you can tell how much it cost. The downside happens when the laundromat owner wants to raise prices.

Now they just have slots for the quarters. But how many? The front loaders were $3.25 each, the top loaders $2.25, according to the digital display. But there would be no way for a sightless person to know that. The dryers were 25 cents for seven minutes, and the start button was whether you wanted the temperature to be high or low.

It’s good for me to experience the world in ways that help me understand what others go through.

Leslie Ellen, to distinguish her

Codfish

My sister Leslie was born less than two years after I was. I have few specific recollections growing up, aside of being in class, in which she was not at least tangentially involved.

One of the truly odd things my parents did was to name my sister after my father. This was occasionally a pain for both of us. For me, since people knew there was someone named after Dad, they assumed it was me. I got cranky when some people, primarily men of our church, would refer to me as Little Les. Eventually, we needed something to distinguish between the two Leslies. Dad was generally Les anyway. My sister became Leslie Ellen.

I seem to recall introducing her to my classmates on the first day of school. Because I started school in February and she in September, we almost never had the same teachers in elementary school. She had one named Miss Coddington in the fifth grade. Miss Codfish, as some of the kids referred to her, really seemed to have it in for my sister. I don’t know if it was racially motivated or if the woman was just a bitter human being. Quite possibly, it was both.

She’s a saint

And while the name “Leslie Ellen” could be a bit weighty, it was convenient when she converted to Catholicism during Holy Week of 2018. While Leslie isn’t a saint name, Ellen/Helena is. Helena “was about sixty-four years of age when she received the light of the Gospel.”

Sadly, one of her oldest friends was quite bothered by Leslie’s conversation. Her reasoning, in the letter I read after Leslie’s bicycle accident, frankly baffled both of us. It was a general evangelical anti-Catholic screed that wasn’t tied to any position of the church, failings by priests, or the like.

Leslie is having another birthday, which is a good thing. After that 2018 bike wreck, every birthday is a bit of a miracle.

30 Best Black Films of the Past 20 Years

Michael B. Jordan was a revelation.

12_years_a_slave_soundtrack Here’s a continuation of a Rotten Tomatoes list of the best black films since 2000.

#30 Loving (2016). A powerful, yet understated story about an interracial couple in Virginia when that was not legal in 16 states across the country.
#29 TONI MORRISON: THE PIECES I AM (2019) – I was looking forward to seeing this, yet I missed it. #28 BLINDSPOTTING (2018) – ditto. #27-#25. Don’t know.

#24 O.J.: Made in America. Ignoring the question of whether this is actually a movie – I saw it over several nights on ESPN – I think it was an important project. A lot of people thought the filmmakers would serve as apologists for Simpson. They were not. And thinking about it through today’s lens, it’s quite possible that if the cops who beat Rodney King in Los Angeles had been convicted, O.J. might have been as well.

#23 TANGERINE – I am not familiar.
#22 The Last Black Man in San Francisco. If linear storytelling is your thing, this will annoy or at least confuse you. But it was worthwhile.
#21 FRUITVALE STATION (2013) – I both wanted to see this movie with Michael B. Jordan, and was afraid to, knowing how the real story ended.
#20 Fences (2016) Denzel stars and directs this adaptation of the August Wilson play. The backyard scenes were a little “stagey” but it worked overall.

The lives of background singers

#19 20 Feet from Stardom. I LOVE this film! Though 13th has made a recent surge, it’s possible I’ve recommended this on FB more than any film on this list. And that was before niece Rebecca Jade was singing backup for Sheila E. and others.
#18 MUDBOUND (2017) This was an Oscar-nominated film, with Mary J. Blige up for two. It was virtually impossible for me to see unless I had Netflix. So I never did.

#17 Amazing Grace. A “found” documentary about Aretha Franklin in the church. Until I reread my review, I didn’t remember how oblivious some of the audience was.
#16 Sorry to Bother You. Mind-blowing. It was filmed in Oakland, CA during the summer of 2017 concurrently with Blindspotting.
#15 THE HATE U GIVE (2018) Another “I should see that” film.

#14 Hidden Figures (2017). It may not have been the “best” film of that year. But it was almost certainly the most enjoyable, one that I could watch again. And educational to boot.
#13 DOLEMITE IS MY NAME (2019) Another movie primarily released on Netflix, so I missed it.
#12 Creed (2015). I am shocked by how much I, and especially my wife, enjoyed this addition to the Rocky franchise. Michael B. Jordan was a revelation.

#11 I Am Not Your Negro (2017). Two things from my review. Someone wrote that the film is “important. And urgent. And almost certainly unlikely to be seen by the people who would benefit from it most.” And it’s sometimes rapid-fire delivery made me want to watch it again on DVD, so I could pause it and absorb the information.
#10 WIDOWS (2018) It is a heist movie, and after seeing the trailer, I was disinclined to see it.

Glory

#9 12 YEARS A SLAVE (2013). Many white people of my acquaintance, including a lot of church folks, said that I really should see it. I don’t WANT to. Nope. They say, “But it has a local angle.” Don’t want to. As Rotten Tomatoes notes, “It’s far from comfortable viewing…”
#8 If Beale Street Could Talk. My wife and I loved the couple at the heart of the story.

#7 Selma. I’ve seen at least a half dozen movies on this list on the MLK holiday weekend, including this. I thought this was a fine film, although I spent a chunk of my review defending the film against criticism of its use of poetic license. And I love the song Glory.
#6 Moonlight. A very good film, but often quite sad.
#5 SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (2018) – I REALLY want to see this movie, still, and I probably will.

#4 GET OUT (2017) a horror/comedy film. Maybe one of these days.
#3 BlacKkKlansman (2018). I recall defending this film quite a bit on FB. The coda was devastating.
#2 US (2019) maybe I’ll see this, although the trailer was quite creepy.

#1 Black Panther. My friend ADD wrote this, which I quoted: “Millions of African-Americans and others… found in the… film an inspirational culture in which they could see themselves and their own history.” And it was, in part, the really cool Wakanda culture, that resonated so much.