Here’s a new segment of Destination Harlem TV. In this excerpt I talk about the immigrant history of Harlem, the Great Migration, and the beginnings of the Harlem Renaissance. Check out the website to catch up on the previous full Episode 2 if you missed it before, and to connect with the show to get updates about forthcoming episodes.
Destination Harlem TV is now online! I will be appearing on the show as the history segment host. In this first episode I give some background on the early history of Manhattan and Harlem, with much more to come in the next episode. You can watch the first episode and all future episodes at http://www.destinationharlem.net/
“Destination Harlem TV showcases the wonderful people and places that make Harlem what it is today as well as the history that is shaping its future. Episodes will showcase several aspects of Harlem such as Dining, Nightlife, Interviews, History and Community.”
Check it out, and enjoy!
Today felt like the first real day of spring here in NYC. It was the kind of day that allows me to lower my defenses and finally accept that spring is really here. Being a native Southerner I am always on guard against the late season winter blasts that sometimes happen up North. My defensive strategy against the winter doldrums is never to get my hopes up about warm weather until we are well into April. Yes, I know The Purple One reminded us that “Sometimes it Snows in April,” but I think we may finally be in the clear on the East Coast. And so, I celebrate with two versions of one of my favorite Sun Ra tunes, “Springtime Again.” This is a song that I would offer up as an invitation for those who may have been led to believe that Ra’s music was all noise and cacophony. This is one of his most beautiful melodies, and there are many more strange and beautiful songs just like this in the Sun Ra discography.
So now for something a little different: Here’s a link to a recent episode of Toni On! New York, a local travel program in NYC, which features a couple of minutes of me talking about Harlem history for Black History Month:
The show usually features Seth Kamil of Big Onion Walking Tours giving some background on the history of different areas where the show is filmed. For this one he asked me to fill in and talk about Harlem. My part is mostly in the first segment, but the whole show is very well done and worth watching. I liked that it features some great local Harlem businesses including Harlem Heritage Tours, Make My Cake bakery, Amy Ruth’s Restaurant, Dinosaur Bar-B-Q, and the historic Apollo Theater.
Big Onion Walking Tour of Historic Harlem – February 2012. (Photo by Millard Cook)
A few years ago, I noticed a book published about September 11, 2001 titled To Wound the Autumnal City. I haven’t read that book, but as a Samuel R. Delany fan I certainly recognized the title. It is the opening line from Delany’s epic science fiction novel Dhalgren (1975). Looping the last line of the novel back to the first line creates this sentence:
“Waiting here, away from the terrifying weaponry, out of the halls of vapor and light, beyond holland and into the hills, I have come to to wound the autumnal city.”
A social reading of Dhalgren started up a few days ago and continues through November. This appears to be an extension of the #OccupyGaddis social reading from this summer.
I was intrigued by the plans for this Dhalgren reading but I didn’t think that I would have time to participate, what with several other deadlines bearing down on me. But on Monday I pulled my ragged paperback of Dhalgren off the shelf and put it in my backpack thinking I might get a chance to dig in to it at some point. I pulled the book out on my commute and starting reading. Now,for the past two days I have spent my train rides between Manhattan and Brooklyn reading the novel.
I have also been reading the tweets about it on Twitter under the hashtag #AutumnalCity. (I am not on Twitter, and have no interest in joining it, not even for this.) There is a Goodreads group where you can find more information on the reading and how it works and participate in discussions there.
I remember first trying to read Dhalgren back in 2001 when I was still living in Ann Arbor. I’m pretty sure I bought this tattered yellowing paperback that I have now from the Dawn Treader bookshop. I remember feeling that reading it was a chore, not without moments of pleasure, but certainly “difficult.” I made it about 2/3 of the way through, then left it and never came back to it. I’ve read tons of Delany’s writing since then, but never made it back to finishing Dhalgren.
I’ve been surprised at how easily I have slipped into the flow of reading it this time. I’m sure the subsequent decade of reading and writing about Delany’s work has something to do with this. I’m up to page 60 so far, and I have already recognized some of the overlapping scenes from his short book Heavenly Breakfast, about living in a rock-commune in the East Village in the 1960s. I also recall the peyote hallucination in his memoir The Motion of Light in Water, an incident which, I believe, was meant to “reveal” the source of one of the images from Dhalgren; a group of kids walking down the street projecting holograms of dragons and other mythical beasts.
I can’t promise I will blog about it more as the reading goes on, but I will be keeping an eye on what other people are writing about it. And I wanted to do my part to spread the word so others could join in. I have a million other things to work on right now, but reading one of the best books by my favorite author, in my favorite city, during my favorite season of the year, was too much to pass up.
You can follow the twitter discussion about it here: http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23AutumnalCity
Update:
I meant to re-post the schedule but the Goodreads site was down. Here it is:
“The schedule starts September 7 and asks you to read about 10 pages per day.”
Sept. 7: Start
Sept. 26: page 200
Oct. 16: page 400
Nov. 5: page 600
Nov. 26: done!
THE BLACKADEMIC LIFE: THE BLOG 