In the wake of Jonas Mekas’ death, First is reposting Bruce Jackson’s tribute to the great film preservationist James Card.
Leper’s Block
I fumbled my idioms
adjectives were shocked
you could hear the adverbs grinning
all around that writer’s block
None Dare Call it a Sex Scandal
The Groveland Four’s Story Bends Toward Justice
Last week, Florida’s governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, accepted the unanimous recommendation of the state’s clemency board and issued pardons to the “Groveland Boys”—four African Americans—Earnest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin—who were wrongly accused of raping a white women seventy years ago. Back then, they became victims of Jim Crow injustice and, in particular, of a Southern sheriff, Willis McCall, who made “Bull Connor look like Barney Fife.” To quote Gilbert King who uncovered quashed evidence collected by the FBI of McCall’s crimes against the Groveland Four, including the extra-judicial killing of Samuel Shepherd and attempted murder of Walter Irwin. King’s book, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America (2012) informed a citizens’ movement that pressed Florida’s officials to act.
Devil in the Grove (Redux)
In 2013 I published an essay (sparked by Obama’s public responses to the killing of Trayvon Martin) that took in Gilbert King’s Devil in the Grove–the book behind last week’s pardons of the Groveland Four. What follows is a Devil-centric excerpt from that 2013 post.
Against “Affirmation”
Nathan Osborne’s empathetic angles on yearnings of this generation of “teentwenties” reminded your editor to check 4thWaveNow–a website that provides a forum for parents and other allies who resist the credo of “affirmation” that pushes young people with gender trouble to pursue medical “solutions” to their problems.
Preface: What I Want to Be
The summer of 1957, when I was sixteen, I had entered the 18-and-unders, at the USTA sponsored Clay Court Championships at the Newton Tennis & Squash Club, in hopes of ending a four tournament out-in-the-first-round losing streak.
TV Diary III: “My Brilliant Friend”
Laurie Stone posted on My Brilliant Friend–the TV adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novels—as each episode appeared. Here are her responses to the final shows of the season…
Rebecca Roanhorse Reimagines The Future of Dinétah
Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse, (pp. 304) Saga Press, NY, NY; hardcover, © 2018
After Action Report & Alliance Memories
“Tom ate trouble for desert.” That was Sarah Martin—former head of the Grant Houses’ tenant association—lauding her late comrade Tom DeMott at his Memorial, which was held at St. Mary’s Church in Harlem on December 1rst.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving was Joel DeMott’s first movie. It was screened at Tom DeMott’s Memorial on Dec. 1 (nearly 50 years after she made it). Tommy–Jo’s first roommate/fan–would be beaming now if he revisited her visions of him and the DeMott fam. Click on “Read More” to watch Thanksgiving. Use the following password: Amherst
Homegoing & Tom DeMott’s Hidden Obit
I gave the following talk and reading from my brother Tom’s prose at his Memorial after we screened Thanksgiving—our sister Joel’s movie (unsynched but fully in the flow) of a DeMott family celebration ca. 1970. I jumped off from the rapturous sequence in the movie where Jo used a great Motown track “Truly Yours” to soundtrack images of little sister Megan dancing and Tom listening/looking like a rock dream—saved (barely) from male model fineness by his broken nose…