February 26, 2017

Coupled memory 3: Deborah Sullivan sculptures ~ Itchy & Pussy

~   
One of the joys of being in this exhibition was having the luxury of time to view and study the whimsical sculptures of Deborah Sullivan







photos by Styrous® 


Her adventures of Itchy & Pussy are delightful . . . .   



































 
























 
 








Ummmm . . . 




 Styrous® ~ Sunday, February 26, 2017

February 25, 2017

George Harrison ~ The "quiet" Beatle












       
          
        



1943 ~ 2001





George Harrison, MBE, was born 74 years ago today, February 25, 1943. He was an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and music and film producer who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Hindu mythology and helped broaden the horizons of his fellow Beatles as well as their Western audience by incorporating Indian instrumentation in their music. Although most of the Beatles' songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, most Beatles albums from 1965 onward contained at least two Harrison compositions. His songs for the group included Taxman, Within You Without You, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Here Comes the Sun and Something, the last of which became the Beatles' second-most covered song.      









































 



































 






















Harrison died on November 29, 2001, from lung cancer. He was 58 years old. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India, in a private ceremony according to Hindu tradition. He left an estate of almost £100 million.     







 The Beatles will exist without us. 
                   ~ George Harrison





Net links:        
           
all things Beatles                  
Official website  
Discography         
YouTube links             



Styrous® ~ Saturday, February 25, 2017 

February 20, 2017

20,000 Vinyl LPs 80: Sidney Poitier & Doris Belack ~ Poetry of the Negro









 iPhone photos by Styrous®






Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, front cover detail
 

This is Black History Month (see link below) and today is the birthday of Sidney Poitier; he is 90 years old. WOW! I remember when he began acting. The first film I saw him in was Blackboard Jungle. This film not only introduced me to Poitier but rock 'n roll as well (link below).    

So, I went trotting off to my vinyl LP collection to see how I could honor him and came up with this vinyl gem, Sidney Poitier in Poetry of the Negro, which features Poitier reading poems of the American Negro. Reading with him is Doris Belack who was an American character actress of stage, film and television. She was born on February 26, 1926. She died on October 4, 2011. The album was produced by her husband, Philip Rose, who died on May 31, 2011.  



Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, front cover
photo by Styrous®



Rose met Poitier while producing, A Raisin in the Sun, a 1959 play written by Lorraine Vivian Hansberry. Rose owned a rhythm and blues label, Glory Records, and asked Poitier to record a spoken word album, Poetry of the Negro, with liner notes written by the then unknown Hansberry. 



Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, front cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®


The title of Hansberry’s play is taken from a Langston Hughes poem, called “Harlem” in which the poet asks, “What happens to a dream deferred?/ does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?” In one critic’s words, Hansberry wanted “to write a social drama about blacks that was good art” (npr.org). Because the project was considered risky, investors were scarce, but idealistic record executive Philip Rose was willing to take a chance and produce the play. He knew he had an asset in the star power of his friend, Sidney Poitier, Hollywood’s first black leading man, whom he met after the actor’s phenomenal success as a young juvenile delinquent in Blackboard Jungle (1955) which featured the song, Rock Around the Clock (link below).   



Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, back cover
photo by Styrous®



Hansberry was born May 19, 1930, in Chicago, where her father was a prominent real-estate broker and political activist who successfully challenged the segregated city’s restrictive real estate covenants. These laws denied equal housing to blacks, but Mr. Hansberry illegally moved his family to a white neighborhood and then successfully challenged the laws all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court stuck down the covenants in Hansberry v. Lee, 1943. By the early 1950s, she was writing essays and reviews for leftist journals and was one of an avant-garde circle of black intellectuals. In 1953, she married a Jewish writer and activist, Robert Nemiroff, whom she met on a picket line. At 26, disgusted with the stereotyped portrayals of blacks on stage, she wrote A Raisin in the Sun, produced in 1959. It was the first play by a black woman produced on Broadway, and Hansberry was the first black author to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, defeating fellow nominees Eugene O’Neill, Archibald MacLeish and Tennessee Williams. Hansberry, erudite and outspoken, wrote only two complete plays before her career was cut short when she died of cancer at 34.  



The poets & their poems 
with links to their work


Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, back cover detail
photo by Styrous®





Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, back cover detail
photo by Styrous®





Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, back cover detail
photo by Styrous®





Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, back cover detail
photo by Styrous®





Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, side 1
photo by Styrous®





Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP label, side 1
photo by Styrous®



M. Carl Holman
Debate of the Dark Brothers


Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP, side 2
photo by Styrous®





Sidney Poitier ~ Poetry of the Negro
vinyl LP lable, side 2
photo by Styrous®




Sidney Poitier With Doris Belack ‎– Sidney Poitier Reads Poetry Of The Negro
Label: Glory Records ‎– GLP-1
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1969
Genre: Jazz, Non-Music, Stage & Screen
Style: Poetry, Spoken Word

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A1     The Creation     4:15
A2     Mother To Son     2:00
A3     When Melinda Sings     3:06
A4     Debate Of Dark Brothers     1:06
A5     To John Keats, Poet At Springtime     3:15
A6     At Candle Lightin' Time     2:39
A7     Yet I Do Marvel     3:01

Side 2:

B1     An Ante - Bellum Sermon     4:36
B2     Ere Sleep Comes Down To Soothe The Weary Eyes     4:16
B3     I, Too     00:37
B4     When You Have Forgotten Sunday     1:55
B5     The Debt     00:52
B6     Epigram     00:43
B7     We Wear The Mask     1:08
B8     Blues At Dawn     00:35
B9     Lift Every Voice     2:25

Credits:

    Percussion, Piano – Specs Powell




Net links:
    
IMBD bio          
Sidney Poitier Filmography                 
Bill Haley ~ Rock Around the Clock            
Black History articles               



Happy birthday, Sidney!


        
Styrous® ~ Monday, February 20, 2017


~


~

February 19, 2017

People

~      
Articles ~   

Adiós mis amigos . . .         
Black History     
In Memoriam               

People ~

Lon Clark       
Larry Harvey ~ The Burning Man       
J. Edgar Hoover   
Nina Horn         
John Galen Howard       
Howard Hughes       
Kim Kardashian ~ True Reflections                 
John Fitzgerald Kennedy           
Frederick Meyer       
Harvey Milk     
Juanita Musson       
Richard Nixon          
John W. Reid, Jr.         
Bernard E. Simonson, Jr. ~ The Story Teller          
Ed Sullivan       
Donald J. Trump        
     

Green links in the articles lead to more information about the article.




~
~








Black History Month ~ articles

To celebrate Black History Month I made a list of the many people I have mentioned in my blog over the years who have contributed to its history.   

Muhammad Ali ~ The Greatest              
Harry Belafonte                       
Chuck Berry ~ Maybellene            
Edythe Boone
Betty Davis       
Earth, Wind & Fire           
Roy Eldridge    
Ella Fitzgerald       
Aretha Franklin       
Dizzy Gillespie   
Joe Harriott     
Jimi Hendrix       
Billie Holiday     
Gwen Ifill     
Al Jarreau              
B. B. King     
Eartha Kitt    
The Main Ingredient           
Motown Story          
Oakland Indie Awards       
Barack & Michelle Obama          
Osibisa     
Sidney Poitier            
Leontyne Price ~ A Christmas Offering         
Prince           
Diana Ross & the Supremes           
Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained      
Bessie Smith   
Sweets Ballroom 
Vanity         
Dionne Warwick               
Bobby Womack           
             
             
                  
Styrous® ~ Sunday, February 19, 2017











Prince articles/mentions

~

Prince ~ June 7, 1958 - April 21, 2016     
Around The World In a Day           
Batdance       
Purple Rain                   
Purple Rain LaserDisc      
Raspberry Beret        
        
        
mentions:
Vanity & Action Jackson        
        
        
       
       
      
             
~
~



Barry McGee articles

~
Barry McGee @ the BAM/Introduction         
BAM/The Exhibition                      
BAM/The Reception            
BAM review by Artforum           
Sneaker Hot Potatoes         
         
         
           


~

~







February 17, 2017

20,000 Vinyl LPs 79: Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained

Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained                                                                           
vinyl LP front cover detail                                                                       
front cover detail photo by Styrous®                                                                                            


This is Black History Month, also known as African-American History Month, in America for remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. it is an annual observance in the United States and Canada in February,

I feel this album best honors the black struggle in history as well as reflects what is happening right now, today.  


 
Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained
vinyl LP front cover
 cover design by Bill Tucker
photo of front cover by Styrous®


Judge Julius Hoffman ordered “Chicago Eight” defendant Bobby Seale gagged and chained to his chair during his trial. Seale and his seven fellow defendants (David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Thomas Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and John Froines) had been charged with conspiracy to cross state lines with intent to cause a riot during the violent anti-war demonstrations in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.   

Hoffman gave the order to gag Seale after he repeatedly shouted accusations and insults at the judge and prosecution and disrupted the court proceedings. In November, Seale’s conduct forced the judge to try him separately. Seale was sentenced to 48 months in prison for 16 acts of contempt. Seale was then charged with killing a Black Panther Party informant in New Haven, Connecticut; the contempt charges were eventually dismissed and the murder trial ended with a hung jury.   


Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained
vinyl LP back cover
 cover design by Bill Tucker
photo of back cover by Styrous®


Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton were heavily inspired by the teachings of human rights leader and activist Malcolm X, who was assassinated in 1965. The two joined together in October 1966 to create the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which adopted the slain activist's slogan "freedom by any means necessary" as their own.      



Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained
vinyl LP back cover detail
 cover design by Bill Tucker
back cover detail photo by Styrous®


Seale and Newton together wrote the doctrines "What We Want Now!" which Seale said were intended to be "the practical, specific things we need and that should exist" and "What We Believe," which outlines the philosophical principles of the Black Panther Party in order to educate the people and disseminate information about the specifics of the party's platform. These writings were part of the party's Ten-Point Program, also known as the "The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense Ten-Point Platform and Program," a set of guidelines to the Black Panther Party's ideals and ways of operation. Seale and Newton decided to name Newton Minister of Defense and Seale became the Chairman of the party. During his time with the Panthers, he underwent surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as part of its COINTELPRO program, which conducted covert (and at times illegal) projects surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting and disrupting domestic political organizations.       



Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained
vinyl LP gatefold cover
 cover design by Bill Tucker
back cover detail photo by Styrous®



In 1968, Seale wrote, Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton, published in 1970. The book describes the evolution of the Black Panthers and the continuous struggle for human liberation, and derives from tape recordings made by Seale between 1968 and 1970. Its purpose was to give a better insight into the Black Panthers, essentially providing an understanding of what the party does, who is involved, and how they help the freedom movement. It shows the chronological development of the Panther Party while delivering a background on the oppression of Afro-Americans in an unjust society.    


Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained
vinyl LP gatefold interior
 cover design by Bill Tucker
back cover detail photo by Styrous®


Bobby Seale was one of the original "Chicago Eight" defendants charged with conspiracy and inciting a riot in the wake of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Bobby Seale, while in prison, stated, "To be a Revolutionary is to be an Enemy of the state. To be arrested for this struggle is to be a Political Prisoner."

The evidence against Seale was slim, as he was a last-minute replacement for activist Eldridge Cleaver and had been in Chicago for only two days of the convention.      


Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained
vinyl LP, side 1
detail photo by Styrous®
 
On November 5, 1969, Judge Hoffman sentenced him to four years in prison for 16 counts of contempt, each count for three months of his imprisonment because of his outbursts during the trial, and eventually ordered Seale severed from the case, leading to the proceedings against the remaining defendants being renamed the "Chicago Seven". The trial of the "Chicago Eight" was depicted in the 1987 HBO television movie Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8, whose script relied heavily upon transcripts from the court proceedings.   


Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained
vinyl LP, side 2
detail photo by Styrous®


While serving his four-year sentence, Seale was put on trial again in 1970 in the New Haven Black Panther trials. Several officers of the Panther organization had murdered a fellow Panther, Alex Rackley, who had confessed under torture to being a police informant. The leader of the murder plan, George Sams, Jr., turned state's evidence and testified that Seale, who had visited New Haven only hours before the murder, had ordered him to kill Rackley. The trials were accompanied by a large demonstration in New Haven on May Day, 1970, which coincided with the beginning of the American college student strike of 1970. The jury was unable to reach a verdict in Seale's trial, and the charges were eventually dropped. The government suspended his convictions and Seale was released from prison in 1972.   


Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained
vinyl LP, side 3
detail photo by Styrous®



The action of Judge Julius Hoffman to have Seale bound and gagged, was commemorated in the song Chicago written by Graham Nash and mentioned in the poem and song H2Ogate Blues by Gil Scott-Heron (eerily pertinent today). Memphis Slim also interpreted the event with his blues song, Chicago Seven (links to music on YouTube below).    



Bobby Seale ~ Gagged & Chained
vinyl LP, side 4
detail photo by Styrous®


Bobby Seale ‎– Gagged And Chained (The Sentencing Of Bobby Seale For Contempt)
Label: Certron ‎– CSS2-2001
Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1970
Genre: Non-Music
Style: Interview

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A1     Bobby Seale Speaks Live     2:33
A2     Beginning Of Trial     15:10

Side 2: Trial Of Bobby Seale    
Side 3: Trial Of Bobby Seale    
Side 4: Trial Of Bobby Seale    

Companies, etc.

    Manufactured By – Certron Corporation Music Division
    Copyright (c) – Certron Corporation

Credits:

    Producer – Dennis F. Shanahan

Notes:

Gatefold.

Printed in U.S.A.

"A dramatic, historical re-enactment of the Chicago Conspiracy Trial, November 5, 1969, as it relates to Bobby Seale and the sentencing of Seale for contempt by Judge Julius Hoffman".
Barcode and Other Identifiers

    Matrix / Runout (Stamped Side A ): CSS-22001-A-1
    Matrix / Runout (Stamped Side B): CSS-22001-B-1
    Matrix / Runout (Stamped Side C): CSS-22001-C-1
    Matrix / Runout (Stamped Side D): CSS-22001-D-1
    Other (Cat# Disc 1): CSS2-2001-1
    Other (Cat# Disc 2): CSS2-2001-2


Net links:
          
Graham Nash, Chicago on YouTube            
Memphis Slim, Chicago Seven on YouTube       
Gil Scott-Heron, H2Ogate Blues on YouTube              
            
              
             
Styrous® ~ Friday, February 18, 2017