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“We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.” – Japanese Proverb

Chris Rock’s Nat X character is right; February is too short for Black History. I have lived in the Charleston, South Carolina, area for most of my life and in the last 20 years, I have found more and more opportunities to study local history from an African-American perspective.  My awareness of African-Americans as key players in local and national history really started when I saw an exhibit at the Charleston Museum in the 1990′s highlighting the significance of African-American labor in historical South Carolina.  It showcased the multitude of skilled labor jobs held by African-Americans in antebellum Charleston; wood carving, carpentry, bricklaying, fishing and oystering, etc. I came to realize that all or almost all of the beautiful buildings and furnishings that make Charleston so appealing as a tourist destination were in large part produced by slaves. Sounds like a big “Duh”, but I grew up in the “60s and early ’70s going to plantation tours and candlelight house tours where slave labor was barely mentioned.

After seeing this exhibit, I could clearly envision black hands building the entire city and all the outlying plantation homes, chapels of ease, etc. It was like turning on a light.  My previous concept had been that enslaved people were just forced to farm rice, indigo, and cotton and to cook and take care of homes and children.   I became aware of these black pioneers and colonists as key foundations of the society and I began to see their cultural legacy more clearly.

Edward Ball’s book, Slaves in the Family, provided another clue to this hidden past that really intrigued me; the historical fact that enslaved people engaged in day-to-day travel around the community on their owners’ business, the men going up and down the local rivers on boats. I had never before pictured African-Americans moving around the community on a regular basis prior to emancipation. I always thought of them as confined to their owners’ homes and property.  An account that I recently read of Harriet Tubman hiding in plain sight from a former owner while on one of her “undercover missions” also underscored this fact.  She hid behind a newspaper knowing that the former owner had no idea she could read. Reading, by the way, was one of the most supremely subversive acts a slave could commit in many pre-war Southern states including South Carolina.

Ball also talked about the place in Charleston where slaves were sent for “correction”, which meant being beaten, tortured, and possibly maimed by having toes cut off among other things.The Sugar House, also known as the Charleston Workhouse, was where these corrections probably took place.  The Sugar House has no historical markers.  I recently visited the site where it stood.  I found the location in the book, Charleston, Charleston by Walter J. Fraser.  It was next to the old City Jail on what was then called Mazyck Street, now Magazine Street.  Knowledge of the treatment of captured runaway slaves while incarcerated in the Sugar House was a prime factor in Sarah Grimke’s decision to leave behind a life of wealth and privilege for a more spiritually fulfilling life as a Quaker abolitionist activist in the North.

This February while planning a Black History Month event at my library celebrating the history of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry , I learned that Harriet Tubman was with the 54th Massachusetts at the Union assault on Battery Wagner in 1863.  She also led a Union raid into “enemy territory” in the Lowcountry in that same year (around Hampton County) and is the first American woman to lead an armed assault. Before last month, I had no idea that Harriet Tubman had even been in South Carolina, much less made military history here.  I always have room to learn something new. Other things on my Black History “to do” list are visiting the recently renovated Old Slave Mart Museum on Chalmers Street and learning more about the Reconstruction-era Cainhoy Riot and other significant post Civil War events in local African-American history.

The Charleston Museum exhibit that sparked my interest 20 years ago also included Denmark Vesey’s drum. I found it to be a powerful symbolic object, even if Vesey was just a scapegoat, as some believe, and not the freedom fighter of popular history.  For me, the drum symbolizes the call to action to examine historical facts as closely as possible and not try to sanitize or pretty them up.  There is nothing warm or fuzzy about most of Black History, just accounts of individuals struggling alone or in groups, trying to make headway against injustice and human rights abuse, real stories that are more inspiring than any fiction.  It is important to make sure those stories get told.

I am in my second year of  messing with Twitter and I just can’t seem to get comfortable with it. I tweet so infrequently that I linked my Twitter to my Four Square account.  Unfortunately, the only thing I really use Four Square for is noting when I go to the gym, which is at best two or three times a week.

I feel pretty comfortable posting on Facebook where I actually know the people I am “friends” with or have some kind of connection with them through mutual friends or a legitimate organization that we both belong to.  Strange, random people and businesses make up most of my few Twitter followers so I am hesitant about tweeting any personal stuff.  It also seems kind of redundant since I already do that on FB.

For some reason, I still want to try to use Twitter so I decided I would try something else.  I am going to try tweeting “Booktweets”, mini-reviews of books I like and include links to Library Thing and World Cat.  I have my Twitter account linked with FB so the Booktweets will show up there as well.  My goal is to tweet a book review daily and see how it goes.

While on a Hunger Games hiatus (I am currently number 62 on the waiting list for Mockingjay), I have been convinced by the high praise of fellow lovers of YA fiction to start the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Claire.  I am just a bit past the 2/3 point on Book 1, City of Bones.  Pretty engaging stuff, nicely done with assorted magical beings with a goth-y touch and … angels.  Interested to see if I have reached the “sticking point” and persevere.

What gets me really amped right now, bookwise, is the upcoming release of the English translation of Haruki Murakami’s lastest work, 1Q84.  I have to wait until September of next year to get my hot little hands on that.  It has been out in Japan for a while and was super popular when it was released.

Also listening to the audio of David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  I bet this book will be fabulous, when translated into Japanese.  Not that it is not awesome in English.  Loved the galley and have a copy of the published book to read but I’m glad I chose the audio.  I thought “Zoet” was pronounced “Zoh-et” instead of “Zweet”. I looked up the meaning of the word in Dutch and it actually means “sweet” so that makes sense.

The Mortal Instruments also has a little Japanese anime sensibility to it. I can easily see the characters in a manga-style action/adventure fighting demons, a stock plot line of anime/manga, and there are several references to anime and manga in the book.  Nice to have good things to entertain me while I wait for Murakami’s book to be released.  I even have William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s The Difference Engine to read, too.  I don’t think I’ll be bored.

Just finished book two of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Game series, Catching Fire and it had such a great cliff-hanger ending that I can not wait to get my hands on book three, Mockingjay.  I am 101 on the waiting list at the library so I will just keep reading through Cory Doctorow’s fantastic sci-fi.  I am currently reading his latest YA novel, For the Win, as well as Terry Pratchett’s last book in the Tiffany Aching quartet, I Shall Wear Midnight. I am also waiting to get my hands on Sapphique, Catherine Fisher’s second book in the Incarceron series.  I am number one on the list for that one so it is only a matter of time.

On the downside, I gave up on China Mieville’s Kraken about half-way through a couple of weeks ago.  Had a lot of fantasy elements that I love; London, magic, adventure, etc, but was just not my cup of tea.  It was a bit dark and winding without going anywhere quickly enough for my liking.  I am interested in the Lovecraft meme but this book just didn’t hit the right notes for me so I set it down in favor of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, a nice ray of sunshine.

I really would love to find another book that could make me feel as literarily (a word of my own invention) satisfied. as Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.  If I could say that I loved one book best of all, it is very likely that that would be the one.  Still, there are so many books that I haven’t read yet or finished that I know I can’t decide just now.  I’ll have to keep on reading.

I finally watched the end of Ugly Betty, IMHO one of the best TV series ever made.  I was a little disenchanted with the ending, where Betty meets up with Daniel, her old boss, in London where she is starting her new life.  There seemed to be an implication that they could embark on a romantic relationship. This just didn’t ring true to me.  Betty is way too smart and fresh to end up with such an emotionally needy, flawed character as Daniel.  Besides, Daniel just took a break from his on and off relationship with Amanda, Betty’s former nemesis now friend.  Betty is not the type of girl to hook up with a friend’s ex.
Daniel and Amanda ending up together; okay that would make sense.  Daniel and Betty… no way!  They never had any romantic chemistry during the whole series so why on earth would they suddenly click at the very end.  You need sustained Mr. Darcy-like romantic tension in a story to make that kind of ending feel exciting and plausible.
I think it would have been better if Betty had run into Matt Hartley, her last steady beau, at the end of the story rather than Daniel.  The idea of Betty Suarez ending up with Daniel Meade is kind of like… Harry ending up with Herminone.

I am currently doing what I consider one of my better programs for kids using several books about Rapunzel.  I serendipitously happened on this theme, completely oblivious that Disney was in the process of releasing a Rapunzel of its own, Tangled, which I hope to see later today.  I actually picked this story because of my library’s abundance of copies of Paul Zindel’s beautiful, Renaissance-style, Caldecott-winning take on this Grimm (grim) classic which contains lots of horrible stuff; baby selling/abduction, the weird co-dependent relationship between the old witch and Rapunzel, child neglect, attempted murder, separated families, etc.   I am pairing the Zindel with Rachel Isadora’s Eric Carle-inspired African version and doing a split reading of a bit from one and then a bit from the other till the tale is told to it’s happily-ever-after-a-lot-of weird-and-disturbing-stuff finish.  I conclude my program with the more light-hearted parody version, Falling for Rapunzel by Leah Wilcox, where the prince ends up riding off into the sunset with Rapunzel’s maid, leaving Rapunzel free to style her hair without interruption.

I finally watched some of the popular MTV show, 16 and Pregnant, and something about it reminds me of the darkness of the Rapunzel story.  Maybe there is a link between our cultural fascination with Rapunzel’s tragedy and the stories of the teen-aged moms and their boyfriends/husbands/dads-to-be on 16 and Pregnant.  IMHO Rapunzel’s story would make a pretty good episode.

Think about it.  Rapunzel’s guardian/abductor, the evil sorceress, does not recognize or respect the vows of two teenage lovers and kicks Rapunzel out of the house/tower once she finds out that Rapunzel is pregnant and then tries to do in the prince when he shows up to visit his wifey.  At least the Prince doesn’t cheat on Rapunzel like the dad in one episode of the show that I watched.  But then the Prince was blind because he cried so much or got thorns in his eyes depending on which version you read.  A person now-a-days that cried that much would probably be treated for depression.

Lots of the Grimm stories are fairly unpleasant, cautionary tales directed principally at young women.  According to Valerie Paradiz’s book, Clever Maids, this is because Jacob and Wilhelm’s principle sources for their stories were their sister, Lotte, and her friends, who told these stories as they sat together sewing, the classic work of women (check out Women’s Work:  The First 20,000 Years by Dr. Elizabeth Wayland Barber for more on that).  Lotte ended up stuck at home caring for her brothers (a total of 5 guys) after their parents died.  Lotte is the real Cinderella because taking care of a houseful of guys was a lot of work for a woman in those days and supposedly Lotte was less than thrilled to be stuck doing it.  Maybe she really did hope that one day a prince would show up and take her away for real.  At least the girls of 16 and Pregnant have more opportunities open to them than Lotte did, even if their lives would probably be easier if they had waited to become parents when they were older.  Hopefully, like Rapunzel, they will have happy endings, too.  Bringing those babies to Story Time at their local library would be a great start.

I attended the second Barcamp Charleston yesterday. Had a full day, consuming about a week’s worth of fully caffeinated coffee and 7 diverse, educational, entertaining, and inspirational workshop/sessions. Session #6, A Button By Any Other Name: Symbolic Imagery in Interface Design inspired me to redo my blog; new template, change of layout, clutter reduction, etc. The presenter, Giovanni DiFeterici, a web designer and artist, gave a wonderful talk about use of symbols and art, layout arrangement, and other graphic elements of web design. My blog is not as stripped as some of the ones he used as examples, but I am satisfied that it feels a bit fresher.

Session #5, the Google Q and A session also gave me some ideas about my blog. Bottom line: post more frequently. Mostly the Google session was about what goes on at Google’s Berkeley County data center. Apparently knowledge of Linux and data management are key skills for potential employees. Not in my skill set so I don’t see a job at Google in my future.

Tim Burton likes tweaking old stories and sending them off on a different trajectory than the unaltered original versions. Like his version of Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow, Burton’s take on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is par for the course. Burton’s tale is of a teen-aged Alice, who returns to a Wonderland that she visited previously as a tween but has forgotten. This Alice is on the verge of marriage, the societally preferred fate of all respectable upper class Victorian ladies. Wonderland intervenes and empowers Alice to break off her engagement to a young man that she obviously has no chemistry with and to leave her family and explore the world as a liberated, single lady.

In Burton’s tale, Johnny Depp, as the Mad Hatter, acts as a sort of impish animus, spurring Alice on and encouraging her. They are deeply connected and Alice must save him to save herself. Burton’s Hatter is highly reminiscent of Drop Dead Fred, played by the wonderful, Rik Mayall, of the Young Ones, in the eponymous 1991 film which also starred Phoebe Cates as Lizzie. Lizzie, who has lost her sense of self in a bad marriage, is very like Burton’s Alice and also has an overbearing mother who pushes her to remain in the marriage. Fred, Lizzie’s imaginary childhood friend, returns to save her by pushing Lizzie to stand up for herself and break free from her abusive, cheating husband and her controlling mother.

This Alice is also a love letter from Burton to Helena Bonham-Carter, who plays the Red Queen in Alice. She is Burton’s companion and the mother of his children, who famously has her own London home side-by-side with his. Burton’s Alice character is very like Lucy Honeychurch, the character Bonham-Carter portrayed in her 1985 breakout role in the lovely, oh-so-British, Merchant-Ivory film of E.M. Forster’s novel, Room With a View. In the story, Lucy breaks off her loveless engagement to the supremely superficial, close-minded Cecil Vise (Daniel Day-Lewis) because she has fallen in love with her “room with a view” guy, free-thinking George Emerson (Julian Sands). Room With a View ends with Lucy married to George. Burton’s Alice goes further by simply breaking the engagement. Alice at the close of the film is free to live her life rather than going from an involvement with one man to an involvement with another.

Tim Burton’s choice of a “modern” ending for Alice also brings to mind another wonderful Victorian period-piece from Australia; Gillian Armstrong’s 1979 film, My Brilliant Career. The main character, Sybylla, another well-brought up girl whose family has money issues, in this film based on the novel by Miles Franklin, chooses to be a writer over becoming the wife of a rich man who truly loves her. Perhaps Burton agrees with Virginia Woolf as well as E.M. Forster, that women not only need a “room with a view” but also a room of one’s own in order to reach their full creative potential.

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I returned to my day-to-day life from the 2010 American Library Association Convention a week ago and am still processing all the heady stuff that I was immersed in for 5 fabulous days.  First off, DC is just as hot and sweaty as Charleston. Next year the convention will be in NOLA and maybe it will be hotter but probably not much.

I picked up a lot of good info and ideas.  I was very excited to learn that a new Haruki Murakami book has been released and will be coming out in English in September of next year (approx).   I was disappointed that someone stole the two copies of the new David Mitchell book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet from the Random House table.  I was hoping to buy one before I left DC but sadly they disappeared sometime on Sunday, apparently.

One of the more interesting workshops I attended was on “hip hop” or urban literature.  This workshop had a panel of librarians, authors, and professors and one of the main things I came away with is that this genre is still undefined and a bit too fluid for my liking.  The authors on the panel appeared to all be writers of  YA fiction about African-American teens in urban settings.  To me this kind of writing is more YA than “urban” if “urban” includes writers like Kwan.  Kwan is more like Mickey Spillane to me, a kind of urban noir that is about folks with issues and criminal lifestyles and how they got that way, sexy crime thrillers.  The YA urban books are more “Up the Down Staircase” with African-American kids instead of inner city white kids. Then there is Zane.  Zane is a completely different genre; soft-core erotica/chick lit.  Zane reminds me of Fear of Flying by Erica Jong, which was just as hot when it was published. Zane has been more successful than Jong in following up on the popularity of her initial books, IMHO. Zane’s characters may be AA and they may live in a city but her fiction is a completely different thing from the Kwan-style thug life action dramas.  The only thing these types of books have in common is AA characters and a liberal dose of sex. The settings and life-styles of the characters are so different that I think it is way too much over-generalizing to stuff them into an “urban” fiction box.  You might as well just put them in an African-American fiction box because that is the biggest thing they have in common.

I really wish that there had been some writers like Zane and Kwan on the panel.  It would have been interesting to hear them speak.  I got the impression that some of the YA authors were a little irritated to be stuffed into the urban pigeonhole because some of their writing is focused on showing alternatives to the choice of thug-lifestyle that is glamorized in the adult novels of writers like Kwan.

All in all, it was really interesting because it showed how diverse current AA lit trends are despite the limits of the urban label.  Genre naming is supposed to be helpful to the reader.  Here’s hoping that some more succinct labels become popular that better identify these strains of AA fiction.  Cheers!