Solar Throat Slashed: Part Two with Clayton Eshleman

Show description for Sunday 8/28/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Our guest today on the 5 o'clock hour, Clayton Eshleman (pictured at right), discussing his most recent work, in collaboration with A. James Arnold, Solar Throat Slashed, the unexpurgated 1948 edition of the masterwork by Aimé Césaire.

Soleil cou coupé (Solar Throat Slashed) is Aimé Césaire’s most explosive collection of poetry. Animistically dense, charged with eroticism and blasphemy, and imbued with an African and Vodun spirituality, this book takes the French surrealist adventure to new heights and depths. A Césaire poem is an intersection at which metaphoric traceries create historically aware nexuses of thought and experience, jagged solidarity, apocalyptic surgery, and solar dynamite. The original 1948 French edition of Soleil cou coupé has a dense magico-religious frame of reference. In the late 1950s, Césaire was increasingly politically focused and seeking a wider audience, when he, in effect, gelded the 1948 text—eliminating 31 of the 72 poems, and editing another 29. Until now, only the revised 1961 edition, called Cadastre, has been translated. The revised text lacks the radical originality of Soleil cou coupé. This Wesleyan edition presents all the original poems en face with the new English translations. Includes an introduction by A. James Arnold and notes by Clayton Eshleman.

“Not only do Eshleman and Arnold give us excellent translations of Césaire’s at times syntactically knotty, etymologically abstruse, and semantically bedeviling verse; they also contextualize the poems—with an introduction by Arnold and endnotes by Eshleman—with crucial historical information and lucid discussions of the complexities of the poems’ language.”—Brent Hayes Edwards, author of The Practice of Diaspora

Missed the Show?

MP3 Stream 192kpbs, broadband
MP3 Stream 32kpbs, broadband

View Past Shows

View Upcoming Shows

	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	Charles Mingus Quartet	What Love?	Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus	Candid
	Mahmood Jamal	A Gift of Blood	An Evening of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Mahmood Jamal	Silence	An Evening of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Bud Powell	Blue Pearl	Bud!: The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 3	Blue Note
	Bud Powell	John's Abbey	Time Waits	Blue Note
	Mushtaq Singh	The Respite	An Evening of International Poetry	Alliance Records
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Mushtaq Singh	4 Lines in Urdu Translation	An Evening of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Lee Morgan	All At Once, You Love Her	Candy	Blue Note
	Bill Evans	Tenderly	Everybody Digs Bill Evans	Riverside
	Carmen McRae	How Did He Look?	Bittersweet	Focus
	Carmen McRae	Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry	Bittersweet	Focus
	Carmen McRae	The Meaning of the Blues	Bittersweet	Focus
	Thad Jones	Something To Remember You By	The Magnificnet Thad Jones	Blue Note
	Accabre Huntley	Easter Monday Blues	An Evening of International Poetry	Alliance Records
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Paul Chambers	Untitled (Bebop Blues)	Bass On Top	Blue Note - Japan
	Billie Holiday	A Fine Romance	All or Nothing All	Verve
	Billie Holiday	Cheek to Cheek	All or Nothing All	Verve
	Charles Mingus	Bugs	Complete Candid Recordings	Mosaic
	Cecil Rajendra	The Animal & Insects Act	An Evening of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Gil Evans Orchestra	Stratusphunk	Out of the Cool	Impulse
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Beverly Kenney	A Woman's Intuition	Sings For Playboys	Decca
	Beverly Kenney	You're My Boy	Sings For Playboys	Decca
	Beverly Kenney	What Is Thre To Say	Sings For Playboys	Decca
	Bill Evans	What Is Thre To Say?	Everybody Digs Bill Evans	Riverside
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Bill Evans	April In Paris (excerpt)	Solo Sessions	Milestone
	Interview with Clayton Eshleman by Justin Desmangles	Interview with Clayton Eshleman by Justin Desmangles	Interview with Clayton Eshleman by Justin Desmangles	Interview with Clayton Eshleman by Justin Desmangles
	Bill Evans	April In Paris (excerpt)	Solo Sessions	Milestone

Aime Cesaire: Solar Throat Slashed, Part One with A. James Arnold

Show description for Sunday 8/21/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Our guest today on the 5 o'clock hour, A. James Arnold, discussing his most recent work, in collaboration with Clayton Eshelman, Solar Throat Slashed, the unexpurgated 1948 edition of the masterwork by Aimé Césaire. A. JAMES ARNOLD is an emeritus professor of French at the University of Virginia. He is the lead editor of Césaire's complete literary works in French (in progress) and author of Modernism and Negritude: The Poetry and Poetics of Aimé Césaire.

Soleil cou coupé (Solar Throat Slashed) is Aimé Césaire’s most explosive collection of poetry. Animistically dense, charged with eroticism and blasphemy, and imbued with an African and Vodun spirituality, this book takes the French surrealist adventure to new heights and depths. A Césaire poem is an intersection at which metaphoric traceries create historically aware nexuses of thought and experience, jagged solidarity, apocalyptic surgery, and solar dynamite. The original 1948 French edition of Soleil cou coupé has a dense magico-religious frame of reference. In the late 1950s, Césaire was increasingly politically focused and seeking a wider audience, when he, in effect, gelded the 1948 text—eliminating 31 of the 72 poems, and editing another 29. Until now, only the revised 1961 edition, called Cadastre, has been translated. The revised text lacks the radical originality of Soleil cou coupé. This Wesleyan edition presents all the original poems en face with the new English translations. Includes an introduction by A. James Arnold and notes by Clayton Eshleman.

“Not only do Eshleman and Arnold give us excellent translations of Césaire’s at times syntactically knotty, etymologically abstruse, and semantically bedeviling verse; they also contextualize the poems—with an introduction by Arnold and endnotes by Eshleman—with crucial historical information and lucid discussions of the complexities of the poems’ language.”—Brent Hayes Edwards, author of The Practice of Diaspora

“Since Césaire first came into our view, he has seemed to some of us to be, with Breton and Artaud, one of the three truly unbounded poets of Surrealism—not so much lyrical, as with some other, more readily accessible poets (Eluard and Desnos the finest among them), but as Diderot had it over two centuries ago: the maker of a poetry that was and had to be ‘barbaric, vast and wild.’ It is the genius of the present gathering to rescue from previous editings and literary compromises the full force of Césaire’s remarkable 1948 work, Soleil cou coupé/Solar Throat Slashed. The result—in both the original French and in Eshleman’s and Arnold’s remarkable and no-holds-barred translation—is a reconstituted masterwork of the twentieth century and ample grist for the century to come.”—Jerome Rothenberg, editor of Technicians of the Sacred

---

Missed the show?


MP3 Stream 192kpbs, broadband
MP3 Stream 32kpbs, broadband

View Past Shows

	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	William Parker featuring Leena Conquest	If There's A Hell Below	I Plan To Stay A Believer	AUM - Fidelity
	William Parker Organ Quartet	The Struggle	Uncle Joe's Spirit House	Centering Music
	Wasimxzama Khan Naseri	Kavali	Music In the World of Islam: Voices	Topic Records
	Dunya Yunis	Abu Zeluf	Music In the World of Islam: Voices	Topic Records
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	Extremely Sweet William	This Brings Us To, Vol. 2	Pi
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	Polymorph	This Brings Us To, Vol. 2	Pi
	Henry Grimes & Rashied Ali	Rapid Transit	Spirits Aloft	Porter
	Michael Bisio	Travel Music	Travel Music	michaelbisio.com
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Louie Belogenis Trio	Tiresias	Tiresias	Porter
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	White Wednesday Off the Wall	This Brings Us To, Vol. 1	Pi
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Farmers By Nature	Out of This World's Distortions Grow Aspens and Other Beautiful Things	Out of This World's Distortions	AUM - Fidelity
	Interview with A. James Arnold by Justin Desmangles	Interview with A. James Arnold by Justin Desmangles	Interview with A. James Arnold by Justin Desmangles	Interview with A. James Arnold by Justin Desmangles
	Farmers By Nature	Out of This World's Distortions Grow Aspens and Other Beautiful Things	Out of This World's Distortions	AUM - Fidelity

10 Years That Shook The City

Show description for Sunday 8/14/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Our guest this afternoon on the 5 o'clock hour, Chris Carlsson, author, activist and most recently editor of the newly published collection of essays Ten Years That Shook the City

A collection of first-person and historical essays spans the tumultuous decade from 1968, the year of the San Francisco State College strike, to 1978 and the twin traumas of the Jonestown massacre and the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. This volume provides a broad look at the diverse ways those ten years shook the City and shaped the world we live in today. From community gardening to environmental justice, gay rights and other identity-based social movements, anti-gentrification efforts, neighborhood arts programs and more, many of the initiatives whose origins are described here have taken root and spread far beyond San Francisco.

Missed the Show?

MP3 Stream 192kpbs, broadband
MP3 Stream 32kpbs, broadband

View Past Shows

	Michael Smith	Say Natty / Goliath	An Evening Of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Mushtaq Singh	The Respite / 4 Lines In Urdu Translation	An Evening Of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Art Ensemble Of Chicago	Ja (Bowie)	Nice Guys	ECM
	Art Ensemble Of Chicago	Cyp (Mitchell)	Nice Guys	ECM
	Mahmood Jamal	A Gift Of Blood	An Evening Of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Mahmood Jamal	Silence	An Evening Of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Accabre Huntley	Easter Monday Blues	An Evening Of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Joseph Jarman - Don Moye	Ode To Wilbur Ware (Moye)	Black Palladins	Black Saint
	Jim Agard	Stereotype	An Evening Of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Jim Agard	Graffiti In A British Rail Waiting Room	An Evening Of International Poetry	Alliance Records
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Chico Freeman	Ascent (Freeman)	The Outside Within	India Navigation
	Cecil Rajendra	The Animal And Insects Act	An Evening Of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Linton Kwesi Johnson	Di Great Insohrekshan	An Evening Of International Poetry	Alliance Records
	Joe Henderson	Serenity (Henderson)	An Evening With Joe Henderson	Red
	Bennie Green	Soul Stirrin' (Green)	Soul Stirrin'	Blue Note - Japan
	Ernie Henry	Cleo's Chant (Henry)	Presenting Ernie Henry	Riverside - Japan
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Claude McKay	Introduction To If We Must Die	Anthology Of Negro Poets	Folkways
	Claude McKay	If We Must Die	Anthology Of Negro Poets	Folkways
	Bobby Hutcherson	Ghetto Lights (Hill)	Dialogue	Blue Note
	Charles Mingus	Moanin' (Mingus)	Blues & Roots	Atlantic
	Calvin C. Hernton	Jitterbugging In The Streets	New Jazz Poets	Broadside Records
	Kenny Dorham featuring Ernie Henry	Is It True What They Say About Dixie?	2 Horns 2 Rhythm	Riverside
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Jackie McLean	Parker's Mood (Parker) excerpt	Live At Montmartre	Steeple Chase
	Interview With Chris Carlsson By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Chris Carlsson By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Chris Carlsson By Justin Desmangles	Interview With Chris Carlsson By Justin Desmangles
	Jackie McLean	Parker's Mood (Parker) excerpt	Live At Montmartre	Steeple Chase
	Charlie Parker - Dizzy Gillespie	Shaw 'Nuff (Parker-Gillespie)	Bebop	New World Records
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Bud Powell - Oscar Pettiford - Kenny Clarke	Shaw 'Nuff (Parker-Gillespie)	i grandi del Jazz Bud Powell	Fabri Editori

An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help: On behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians

Friday, August 12, 2011

An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help:

On behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), this statement provides historical context to address widespread stereotyping presented in both the film and novel version of The Help. The book has sold over three million copies, and heavy promotion of the movie will ensure its success at the box office. Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers. We are specifically concerned about the representations of black life and the lack of attention given to sexual harassment and civil rights activism.

During the 1960s, the era covered in The Help, legal segregation and economic inequalities limited black women's employment opportunities. Up to 90 per cent of working black women in the South labored as domestic servants in white homes. The Help’s representation of these women is a disappointing resurrection of Mammy—a mythical stereotype of black women who were compelled, either by slavery or segregation, to serve white families. Portrayed as asexual, loyal, and contented caretakers of whites, the caricature of Mammy allowed mainstream America to ignore the systemic racism that bound black women to back-breaking, low paying jobs where employers routinely exploited them. The popularity of this most recent iteration is troubling because it reveals a contemporary nostalgia for the days when a black woman could only hope to clean the White House rather than reside in it.

Both versions of The Help also misrepresent African American speech and culture. Set in the South, the appropriate regional accent gives way to a child-like, over-exaggerated “black” dialect. In the film, for example, the primary character, Aibileen, reassures a young white child that, “You is smat, you is kind, you is important.” In the book, black women refer to the Lord as the “Law,” an irreverent depiction of black vernacular. For centuries, black women and men have drawn strength from their community institutions. The black family, in particular provided support and the validation of personhood necessary to stand against adversity. We do not recognize the black community described in The Help where most of the black male characters are depicted as drunkards, abusive, or absent. Such distorted images are misleading and do not represent the historical realities of black masculinity and manhood.

Furthermore, African American domestic workers often suffered sexual harassment as well as physical and verbal abuse in the homes of white employers. For example, a recently discovered letter written by Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks indicates that she, like many black domestic workers, lived under the threat and sometimes reality of sexual assault. The film, on the other hand, makes light of black women’s fears and vulnerabilities turning them into moments of comic relief.

Similarly, the film is woefully silent on the rich and vibrant history of black Civil Rights activists in Mississippi. Granted, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the first Mississippi based field secretary of the NAACP, gets some attention. However, Evers’ assassination sends Jackson’s black community frantically scurrying into the streets in utter chaos and disorganized confusion—a far cry from the courage demonstrated by the black men and women who continued his fight. Portraying the most dangerous racists in 1960s Mississippi as a group of attractive, well dressed, society women, while ignoring the reign of terror perpetuated by the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council, limits racial injustice to individual acts of meanness.

We respect the stellar performances of the African American actresses in this film. Indeed, this statement is in no way a criticism of their talent. It is, however, an attempt to provide context for this popular rendition of black life in the Jim Crow South. In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own. The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.

Ida E. Jones is National Director of ABWH and Assistant Curator at Howard University. Daina Ramey Berry, Tiffany M. Gill, and Kali Nicole Gross are Lifetime Members of ABWH and Associate Professors at the University of Texas at Austin. Janice Sumler-Edmond is a Lifetime Member of ABWH and is a Professor at Huston-Tillotson University.

Word Count: 766

Suggested Reading:

Fiction:

Like one of the Family: Conversations from A Domestic’s Life, Alice Childress

The Book of the Night Women by Marlon James

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neeley

The Street by Ann Petry

A Million Nightingales by Susan Straight

Non-Fiction:

Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph

To Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors by Tera Hunter

Labor of Love Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present by Jacqueline Jones
Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics and the Great Migration by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis

Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

Any questions, comments, or interview requests can be sent to: ABWHTheHelp@gmail.com

ABWH Statement The Help (pdf)

To Undertake My Corners Open

Show description for Sunday 8/7/2011 @ 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Now to talk to me about black studies as if it's something that concerned [only] black people is an utter denial. This is the history of Western Civilization. I can't see it otherwise. This is the history that black people and white people and all serious students of modern history of the world have to know. To say it's some kind of ethnic problem is a lot of nonsense. - C.L.R. James, (1969)

O-Jazz-O

by Bob Kaufman

Where the string
At
some point,
Was umbilical jazz,
Or perhaps,
In memory,
A long lost bloody cross,
Buried in some steel cavalry.
In what time
For whom do we bleed,
Lost notes, from some jazzman's
Broken needle.
Musical tears from lost
Eyes.
Broken drumsticks, why?
Pitter patter, boom dropping
Bombs in the middle
Of my emotions
My father's sound
My mother's sound,
Is love,
Is life

pictured at right, Yves Tanguy, Dame a l'Absence, 1942

pictured above, Henry Treadgill, photo by Claudio Casanova

Missed the Show?

MP3 Stream 192kpbs, broadband
MP3 Stream 32kpbs, broadband

View Past Shows

View Upcoming Shows

	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	Henry Grimes & Rashied Ali	This Must Have Always Happened	Going to the Ritual	Porter
	Odean Pope	Scorpio Twins	Plant Life	Porter
	Wordwind Chorus (Q.R.Hand)	The Rap From Living On Dreams	We Are of the Saying	Wordwind Chorus
	Michael Bisio	Zephyr Revisited	Travel Music	michaelbisio.com
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	After Some Time	This Brings Us To (Volume 1)	Pi
	Al Young	Sundays In Democracies	Something About the Blues	Sourcebooks
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	Lying Eyes	This Brings Us To (Volume 2)	Pi
	Farmers By Nature	Sir Snacktray Speaks	Out of This Worlds Distortions	AUM-Fidelity
	Wordwind Chorus (Reginald Lockett)	A Veteran Contemplates the Fate of His Immigrant Students	We Are of the Saying	Wordwind Chorus
	Darius Jones & Matthew Shipp	Bleed	Cosmic Lieder	AUM-Fidelity
	Darius Jones & Matthew Shipp	Ultima Thule	Cosmic Lieder	AUM-Fidelity
	Al Young	Conjugal Visits	Something About the Blues	Sourcebooks
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Michael Bisio	Livin' Large	Travel Music	michaelbisio.com
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	To Undertake My Corners Open	This Brings Us To (Volume 1)	Pi
	David S. Ware	Duality Is One	Planetary Unknown	AUM-Fidelity
	Farmers By Nature	Out Of This World's Distortions Grow Aspens and Other Beautiful Things	Out of This World's Distortions	AUM-Fidelity
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	It Never Moved	This Brings Us To (Volume 2)	Pi
	Wordwind Chorus (Reginald Lockett)	The Movement	We Are of the Saying	Wordwind Chorus
	Odean Pope featuring Marshall Allen	Custody of the American Spirit	Universal Sounds	Porter
	Henry Threadgill Zooid	Extremely Sweet William	This Brings Us To (Volume 2)	Pi
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Corey Wilkes & Abstrakt Pulse	Levitation	Cries From Tha Ghetto	Pi
	Marc Ribot	Spirits	Spiritual Unity	Pi
	Ran Blake & Jeanne Lee	Newswatch	You Stepped Out of a Cloud	Owl
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Art Ensemble of Chicago	Everyday's a Perfect Day	[Sirius Calling]	Pi

I heard Erzulie singing on the waters of night

Show description for Sunday 7/31/2011 @ 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Desmangles



Let me bring some relief to my name,
famous for hiding runaway slaves
and future kings, sons of Europe,
whose marriage, arranged by Laveau,
brought stock to the fortunes of Creoles
and voodoo tyrants alike.

Let me display the roots and tethered vines,
the fetid swamp which covers this secret
with protoplasm, and basalt theory.
Wreckage from a promise kept,
beneath the fire of the fortaleza,
the villa of inquisitional escapees
mattering with Dahomey chiefs,
the ouster of Napoleon,
and the coinage of Négritude,
Césaire's notebooks, leaves
on the brackish ponds of my namesake.

And just below the freedom
of a million castles burned,
a slave masters whips drys
in the window of a museum,
near the blouse of my Corrina.

For a Bluesman's pluck and dash,
a railroad capsizes. The iron rails
of a ship going nowhere
in particular except home.

There, my swamp secret begins,
in the foliage of this poem.

The first breath
in a long song unsung.

Missed the Show?

MP3 Stream 192kpbs, broadband
MP3 Stream 32kpbs, broadband

View Past Shows

View Upcoming Shows

	Artist	Song	Album	Label
	Phineas Newborn Jr.	What Is This Thing Called Love?	Phineas' Rainbow	RCA
	Dave Brubeck	Waltz Limp	Countdown: Time In Outer Space	Columbia
	George Russell	Concerto For Billy The Kid	The Jazz Workshop	RCA
	Eddie Heywood	The Continental	Eddie Heywood 1946-1947	Chronological Classics
	Tommy Flanagan	Ugly Beauty	Thelonica	Enja
	Chick Corea	Eronel	Trio Music	ECM
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Steve Lacy & Mal Waldron	Let's Call This	Let's Call This	Hat Art
	Mary Lou Williams	45 Degree Angle	The Jazz Piano	RCA-France
	John Lewis	Silver	Orchestra U.S.A.	RCA
	Duke Ellington	Primpin' For The Prom	Primpin' For The Prom	CBS-France
	Duke Ellington & Jimmy Blanton	Blues	Duke Ellington & Jimmy Blanton	RCA
	Dexter Gordon	Shiny Stockings	Gettin' Around	Blue Note
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Jelly Roll Morton	King Porter Stomp	Blues And Stomps From Original Piano Rolls	Biograph
	Benny Goodman	King Porter Stomp	Benny Goodman Live	Airshot
	Air	King Porter Stomp	Air Lore	Novus
	Steve Lacy & Mal Waldron	Well You Needn't	Let's Call This	Hat Art
	Chick Corea	Little Rootie Tootie	Trio Music	ECM
	Tommy Flanagan	Off Minor	Thelonica	Enja
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Dizzy Gillespie	Bebop	For Musicians Only	Verve
	Bud Powell	Tempus Fugit	Jazz Giant	Verve
========================== Airbreak ==========================
	Les McCann & Eddie Harris	Comapred To What	Swiss Movement	Atlantic