“He was born in New Orleans in 1901, on the toughest block in town, his mother was a whore,” Teachout says, “and at the end of his life, everybody in the world knew who he was.”

Louis Armstrong. Eh. I know a few tidbits about him, but I’m not curious enough to pick up a biography. Hadn’t really considered a need for more knowledge. Until now. I like bios. Why not this one too? Here’s a little something I pieced together from the Los Angeles Times Books section on Terry Teachout’s new book Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong. It sparked my interest, maybe it will do something for you too:

Reporting from New York – In 1947, jazz great Louis Armstrong got himself a new gadget — a tape recorder, fresh out on the consumer market. It was a big, boxy machine that he set up in concert halls and jazz joints to record his six-piece All Stars so he could listen to each show in his hotel room and thin out the weak spots for the next gig. Before long, however, this work tool became a plaything . . .”He started leaving it on and making audio vérité tapes of chunks of his life — dinner parties, getting high in the dressing room after a gig, trying to get his wife into bed,” says Teachout, national drama critic for the Wall Street Journal. “He saved all these tapes. There are 650-odd of them.”

While the tapes have been available to scholars since 2002, Teachout is the first biographer to make full use of them, says Michael Cogswell, director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens, N.Y. And although Teachout says the tapes don’t contain any major revelations, they infuse “Pops” with the insights of an eavesdropper. “Armstrong, although he was very self-aware, was also a very unself-conscious man,” Teachout says in his art-filled apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “He knew what he was. He knew he was a very important figure in the history of American art. And so he saved everything that he could. But in making these tapes, he’s entirely unself-conscious. He just records parts of his life. . . . He is the only major jazz musician who has left behind a very large volume of documents of this kind.”

He also left behind a wealth of photographs. One uncredited shot in the book captures the portly Armstrong in a messy hotel room, wearing nothing but white briefs, his trumpet lying in an open case in the foreground and the tape recorder perched on a table in the back. . .

The book has revelations for those unfamiliar with Armstrong’s life and career. Teachout believes that few outside the jazz-studies world recognize Armstrong’s talent as a writer — he was the author of two memoirs. Nor do people know that he was “threatened with murder” by the Chicago mob, that lip damage led him to add more of what became his signature gravelly vocals to his performances or that “it really wasn’t so much his musicmaking but his film career that made him a real star.” Then there was Armstrong’s womanizing — four marriages and “numerous dalliances in between and during” — and his daily joint, a habit that in 1931 led to a nine-day jail stint in Los Angeles after he got caught lighting up between sets outside Frank Sebastian’s Culver City Cotton Club.

“Most people, I suspect, don’t know that he smoked marijuana every day,” Teachout says, although he acknowledges that a jazz musician using drugs wouldn’t really astonish anyone. “But people who know about Armstrong in the general way that most of us know about Armstrong, I think they’re going to be surprised.” (Read more . . . )

Might be worthy of a browse. Happy reading y’all.

I said I’d been through a time of happy transitions. This includes the ‘love and relationships’ category of my life. The new boyfriend, told me that I should expect a surprise in the mail. He said it was something we could both watch.

I’ve never in my life seen Song of the South. All I could ever say to reference the movie is that its locked in the Disney vault forever. And maybe I can even sing Zip-a-dee-doo-da for you while showing all my teeth the entire time. Today I had an opportunity to finally watch the film. In the words of Remus, “Bless My Heart.” It’s not a favorite, now that I’ve seen it. It is definitely worth bringing up in those Hollywood-is-racist-(or is it?) type conversations. Here’s what I found on Snopes.com:

Song of the South consists of animated sequences featuring Uncle Remus characters such as Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Fox, and Br’er Bear, framed by live-action portions in which Uncle Remus (portrayed by actor James Baskett, who won a special Oscar for his efforts) tells the stories to a little white boy upset over his parents’ impending divorce. Although some Blacks have always been uneasy about the minstrel tradition of the Uncle Remus stories, the major objections to Song of the South had to do with the live action portions. The film has been criticized both for “making slavery appear pleasant” and “pretending slavery didn’t exist”, even though the film (like Harris’ original collection of stories) is set after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery…

The NAACP acknowledged “the remarkable artistic merit” of the film when it was first released, but decried “the impression it gives of an idyllic master-slave relationship”. Disney re-released the film in 1956, but then kept it out of circulation all throughout the turbulent civil rights era of the 1960s. In 1970 Disney announced in Variety that Song of the South had been “permanently” retired, but the studio eventually changed its mind and re-released the film in 1972, 1981, and again in 1986 for a fortieth anniversary celebration. Although the film has only been released to the home video market in various European and Asian countries, Disney’s reluctance to market it in the USA is not a reaction to an alleged threat by the NAACP to boycott Disney products. The NAACP fielded objections to Song of the South when it premiered, but it has no current position on the movie. Perhaps lost in all the controversy over the film is the fact that James Baskett, a black man, was the very first live actor ever hired by Disney. Allegedly, though, Baskett was unable to attend the film’s premiere in Atlanta because no hotel would give him a room. (Read more: Snopes.com)

As the boyfriend states, “it was good, but it was coonery.” You gotta watch it and form your own opinions. No shame involved. Happy reading, y’all.

Don’t call it a comeback. I needed a little transition time these past few months. Grad school wasn’t real life. A whole lot of changes and adjustments have occurred. I’m in a very happy place. Haven’t wanted to read much though. Sometimes I get caught up in the foolishness of television. And every now and then I pick up a cookbook or some non-fiction.

I have a renewed interest in music biographies. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed Cadillac Records so much that I decided to learn more about Muddy Waters. I even checked out his “Best of…” collection to help me become even more familiar with the artist. I mean, if you read a music biography, you gotta get the music to go with it, right? Muddy Waters biography made me wonder about Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf. And since we’re on the topic of blues bios, maybe you’ll consider adding a blues bio to your list:

Escaping the Delta by Elijah Wald – Robert Johnson’s story presents a fascinating paradox: Why did this genius of the Delta blues excite so little interest when his records were first released in the 1930s? And how did this brilliant but obscure musician come to be hailed long after his death as the most important artist in early blues and a founding father of rock ‘n’ roll? Elijah Wald provides the first thorough examination of Johnson’s work and makes it the centerpiece for a fresh look at the entire history of the blues. He traces the music’s rural folk roots but focuses on its evolution as a hot, hip African-American pop style, placing the great blues stars in their proper place as innovative popular artists during one of the most exciting periods in American music. He then goes on to explore how the image of the blues was reshaped by a world of generally white fans, with very different standards and dreams. The result is a view of the blues from the inside, based not only on recordings but also on the recollections of the musicians themselves, the African-American press, and original research. Wald presents previously unpublished studies of what people on Delta plantations were actually listening to during the blues era, showing the larger world in which Johnson’s music was conceived. What emerges is a new respect and appreciation for the creators of what many consider to be America’s deepest and most influential music. Wald also discusses how later fans formed a new view of the blues as haunting Delta folklore. While trying to separate fantasy from reality, he accepts that neither the simple history nor the romantic legend is the whole story. Each has its own fascinating history,and it is these twin histories that inform this book.

Moanin’ at Midnight by James Segrest – This fluid, fascinating and thoroughly researched biography is a long overdue tribute to one of the two giants of post-WWII Chicago-style electric blues music. Music writers Segrest and Hoffman do a superb job of capturing the many facets of Wolf’s long career, making it a worthy companion to Robert Gordon’s recent book on the other Chicago blues giant, Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters. But while Waters was controlled and sexy, Segrest and Hoffman show, in contrast, how Wolf was ferocious, angry and unpredictable, a large man with a powerful, raspy voice and a keen intelligence. Born Chester Burnett in Mississippi in 1910, Wolf, as the authors show, endured “crushing poverty” and almost constant physical abuse, the source of much of the anger in his music. The authors nicely detail the important musicians who influenced Wolf, from Charlie Patton, the acknowledged master of country blues who taught Wolf to play the guitar, to Reggie Boyd, the brilliant but obscure guitar teacher who encouraged Wolf’s desire to expand his already enormous musical vision. Best of all, the authors wonderfully describe Wolf’s inimitable style on the many recordings he made in Chicago for Chess Records, such as “Smokestack Lightnin,” Wolf’s masterpiece: “Over a hypnotic guitar figure and a driving rhythm that subtly accelerates like a locomotive, Wolf sang a field holler vocal, interspersed with falsetto howls like a dread lupine beast just down the road at midnight.”

One music biography will lead you to another. Trust me. And sooner or later the folks at the bookstores and library will know you by name.

I’ll be back. In the meantime…happy reading y’all.

Speaking of books turned movie, according to BV Entertainment Newswire:

. . . filmmaker Will Packer has designs to adapt Steve Harvey’s best-selling book ‘Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man’ for the big screen. An official announcement isn’t expected to be serviced to film industry media until next week, but the mastermind behind black blockbusters such as ‘Stomp The Yard’ and ‘Obsessed’ and Screen Gems have reportedly acquired the film rights to the Amistad/Harper Collins book, which has been atop the New York Times Best Sellers list for the past six months. “It’s pretty amazing,” Harvey, a first-time author, told BlackVoices.com about the book’s meteoric success back in February. “It really has to be some amount of favor from God, because I have no experience at writing a book,” he continued. “It ain’t like I’ve been there, done that. It’s got to be favor from God. It’s gotta be something that he has planned for me bigger than I could see, because I just wanted to write a book so the women on my show could quit asking me to write a book.” (Read more)

I originally found news concerning Omar Tyree’s upcoming film adaptations from Shadow and Act. However, upon further research, I discovered Tyree’s announcement via his blog:

I know, I know, I know, many of you guys would just loooove to see Flyy Girl as my first movie. The only problem is, most of the readers who love Flyy Girl so much have never bothered to read many of my other books. So if I gave them Flyy Girl first as a movie, would they even bother to see my otherfilms? Because if I can’t trust them to read the other books, then whyshould I trust them to see the other films? And they have all had PLENTY of time toread my other books. And they ALL GOOD READS!

So for the first film, since I want to have a film CAREER and not just one movie deal, we decided very strategically to go with the Leslie franchise first, where we can possible do 3 films with a character that folks willlove and want to see much more of. But if you guys have not read Leslie the book,you have no idea what you’re missing.

Therefore, a New Orleans-based suspense vehicle like Leslie would get us “out-of-the-box” of typical African-American films that may immediately destroy new types of ideas if I were to do the obvious Flyy Girl first. Andsince we know everyone is waiting for Flyy Girl anyway, we decided do it when we have more experience and power to do it RIGHT and have plenty of marketing money to push it. But you often have to beg on the first movie, so we’drather do that on an exciting trilogy film like Leslie. (Read more)

I’ve read 3.5 books by Tyree (in the 90s – lol). I wouldn’t consider myself a fan, but I would definitely be interested in viewing the film versions. Happy reading, y’all.

You can convince me to see just about any movie if you tell me it’s based on a book. If I read the book first, then I tend to enjoy the movie more. However, if I see the film first, I might buy the book…but I usually never get around to reading it. Take The Namesake, for example. Loved the movie, but still haven’t read the book (its on the shelf collecting dust). The Moral Compass? Couldn’t get into the movie. Refuse to read the book (its on the shelf collecting dust). Wicked? Enjoyed the book and I’m finally going to see the musical this fall. The Ruins? Really liked the movie (surprisingly) and became even more intrigued by the excerpt found below.

So, here are the trailers and book excerpts for flicks that are coming to theaters soon or that you may have missed. What do you recommend?

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (EXCERPT)

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. In newspaper photos of missing girls from the seventies, most looked like me: white girls with mousy brown hair. This was before kids of all races and genders started appearing on milk cartons or in the daily mail. It was still back when people believed things like that didn’t happen.

In my junior high yearbook I had a quote from a Spanish poet my sister had turned me on to, Juan Raman Jimanez. It went like this: “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” I chose it both because it expressed my contempt for my structured surroundings a la the classroom and because, not being some dopey quote from a rock group, I thought it marked me as literary. I was a member of the Chess Club and Chem Club and burned everything I tried to make in Mrs. Delminico’s home ec class. My favorite teacher was Mr. Botte, who taught biology and liked to animate the frogs and crawfish we had to dissect by making them dance in their waxed pans. (Read more)

Comment: I read this book a few years ago and loved it. I honestly feel like I’ve waited forever for the film version. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of Mark Walhberg’s acting skills, so I am a bit concerned about him playing the father. Sigh.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (EXCERPT)

Teddy Daniel’s father had been a fisherman. He lost his boat to the bank in ‘31 when Teddy was eleven, spent the rest of his life hiring onto other boats when they had the work, unloading freight along the docks when they didn’t, going long stretches when he was back at the house by ten in the morning, sitting in an armchair, staring at his hands, whispering to himself occasionally, his eyes gone wide and dark.

He’d taken Teddy out to the islands when Teddy was still a small boy, too young to be much help on the boat. All he’d been able to do was untangle the lines and tie off the hooks. He’d cut himself a few times, and the blood dotted his fingertips and smeared his palms.

They’d left in the dark, and when the sun appeared, it was a cold ivory that pushed up from the edge of the sea, and the islands appeared out of the fading dusk, huddled together, as if they’d been caught at something. (Read more)

Comment: I haven’t heard anything about this book or movie until now, but I am secretly STAN for Leonardo DiCaprio. I can’t think of one role that I’ve disliked him in—The Beach, Catch Me if You Can, Titanic, Revolutionary Road…yeah…I like DiCaprio.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (EXCERPT)

When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. His hand rose and fell softly with each precious breath. He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none. In the dream from which he’d wakened he had wandered in a cave where the child led him by the hand. Their light playing over the wet flowstone walls. Like pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast. Deep stone flues where the water dripped and sang. Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth and the hours and the days of it and the years without cease. Until they stood in a great stone room where lay a black and ancient lake. And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked and translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head from side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark.

Comment: I downloaded the audiobook version from iTunes and couldn’t focus long enough to get into it. I guess I’ll have to actually READ the book.

Derby Girl (film titled Whip It) by Shauna Cross (EXCERPT)

All I have to do is get around the track five times. I can do this.

I line up, the whistle blows, and I immediately stumble as I take off. I keep skating, fighting my wobbles, and get around the track one time with relative ease (yes!). But then something clicks on the second lap. I lean low into the track, push as hard as I can and—bingo!—I go flying out of the turn at speeds the other girls haven’t even touched. For a second, it feels like I might not be able to control the speed, but I bend my knees lower, and manage to go even faster. From there on, the track is mine, I attack it with all I have . . .

At practice, the humiliation factor decreases as my skating improves. Even though I’m covered in bruises aka “derby kisses” I feel surprisingly proud of what I’m learning to do (it’s so weird; I’m kind of like a jock). I even sneak out late at night to covertly practice my T-stops and power slides in the driveway, determined to catch up to the other girls.

I love the way the wind whips through my hair as I fly through the turns, sitting low, leaning into the track for maximum speed. My life feels like it has been so slow for so long, it’s fun to finally be going fast.

Comment: Did you see Eve in the trailer? Nice cast on this one.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (EXCERPT)

Clare: It’s hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he’s okay. It’s hard to be the one who stays.

I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.

I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I’m tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that’s been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?

Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow? (Read more)

Comment: I have walked past this one in bookstores on several occasions. I can’t say that I ever bothered to read the summary or flip through the pages. Now that the film is coming out, I hate that I ignored this book for so long. I’m really interested now.

Five Roundabouts to Heaven (Film titled Married Life) by John Bingham (EXCERPT)

I had been looking forward all day to the visit. Indeed, I had been looking forward to it ever since we had planned our trip to the south of France, and I had arranged the route so that we would pass through Orléans. It was a visit that I had wanted to make for a long time, a kind of pilgrimage to a shrine of happiness now suitably veiled in the rosy mists of youth.

Nineteen years is a long time. One cannot remember everything, and the tendency on occasions such as this is to remember only the happiness. The weather seems always to have been warm and sunny, the days filled with love and laughter, the nights throbbing with the notes of the nightingales in the woods, and, in my case, with the blithe croaking of the amorous frogs in the moat around the château.

If I concentrate hard enough, I can, of course, recall that there were minor irritations and frictions, but it is true to say that they never lasted long. We were all too young, too filled with the joy of living; and perhaps the mild and gentle air of the wooded Sologne country was itself an antidote to prolonged bitterness.

Even the pangs of youthful jealousy have a curious sweetness in retrospect, for with the near approach of middle age the emotions, in matters of the heart, tend to be flattened, and the ecstasies and agonies toned down. (Read more)

Comment: Don’t like the excerpt, but the film has hope.

House by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker (EXCERPT)

He stood motionless in the entryway, staring at his own shadow splayed before him like a stain upon the floor. He studied the patina of dust, sampled the stench of mold and rat urine, listened to a beam settling one more fraction of an inch toward the center of the earth.

This room bore so little evidence of the events that had led to the dawn. From this vantage point, it was just one more abandoned house. Interesting.

But the rest of the house told the truth.

Beneath his boots, the floorboards lay shoulder to shoulder like the buried dead, cupped with creeping moisture, edges buckling, obscured by gray dust and fallen flakes of white paint.

Across the foyer, at the base of a wall, the rose-printed wallpaper fluttered. Behind one of the roses, something scratched, pushed, gnawed, and clawed until a black, whiskered nose burst through. With a wad of shredded wallpaper in its jaws, the rat wriggled through the hole, then rested on its haunches and met his eyes. Neither found the other’s presence alarming. The rat skittered along the baseboard and disappeared around a corner.

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk (EXCERPT)

In the summer of 1642 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, a teenage boy was accused of buggering a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves, and a turkey. This is real history on the books. In accordance with the Biblical laws of Leviticus, after the boy confessed he was forced to watch each animal being slaughtered. Then he was killed and his body heaped with the dead animals and buried in an unmarked pit.

This was before there were sexaholic talk therapy meetings.

This teenager, writing his fourth step must’ve been a whole barnyard tell-all.

I ask, “Any questions?”

The fourth-graders just look at me. A girl in the second row says, “What’s buggering?”

I say, ask your teacher.

Every half hour, I’m supposed to teach another herd of fourth-graders some shit nobody wants to learn, like how to start a fire. How to carve an apple-head doll. How to make ink out of black walnuts. As if this is going to get any of them into a good college.

Besides deforming the poor chickens, these fourth-graders, they all walk in here carrying some germ. It’s no mystery why Denny’s always wiping his nose and coughing. Head lice, pinworms, chlamydia, ringworm–for serious, these field trip kids are the pint-sized horsemen of the apocalypse.

Comment: I like the trailer…

Blindness by Jose Saramago (EXCERPT)

The amber light came on. Two of the cars ahead accelerated before the red light appeared. At the pedestrian crossing the sign of a green man lit up. The people who were waiting began to cross the road, stepping on the white stripes painted on the black surface of the asphalt, there is nothing less like a zebra, however, that is what it is called. The motorists kept an impatient foot on the clutch, leaving their cars at the ready, advancing, retreating like nervous horses that can sense the whiplash about to be inflicted. The pedestrians have just finished crossing but the sign allowing the cars to go will be delayed for some seconds, some people maintain that this delay, while apparently so insignificant, has only to be multiplied by the thousands of traffic lights that exist in the city and by the successive changes of their three colours to produce one of the most serious causes of traffic jams or bottlenecks, to use the more current term.

The green light came on at last, the cars moved off briskly, but then it became clear that not all of them were equally quick off the mark. The car at the head of the middle lane has stopped, there must be some mechanical fault, a loose accelerator pedal, a gear lever that has stuck, problem with the suspension, jammed brakes, breakdown in the electric circuit, unless he has simply run out of gas, it would not be the first time such a thing has happened. The next group of pedestrians to gather at the crossing see the driver of the stationary car wave his arms behind the windshield, while the cars behind him frantically sound their horns. Some drivers have already got out of their cars, prepared to push the stranded vehicle to a spot where it will not hold up the traffic, they beat furiously on the closed windows, the man inside turns his head in their direction, first to one side then the other, he is clearly shouting something, to judge by the movements of his mouth he appears to be repeating some words, not one word but three, as turns out to be the case when someone finally manages to open the door, I am blind.

Comments: I don’t care for Julianne Moore. Since she’s in the film…I’m a little suspect. Really hate a few of her films.

The Ruins by Scott Smith (EXCERPT)

They met Mathias on a day trip to Cozumel. They’d hired a guide to take them snorkeling over a local wreck, but the buoy marking its location had broken off in a storm, and the guide was having difficulty finding it. So they were just swimming about, looking at nothing in particular. Then Mathias rose toward them from the depths, like a merman, a scuba tank on his back. He smiled when they told him their situation, and led them to the wreck. He was German, dark from the sun, and very tall, with a blond crew cut and pale blue eyes. He had a tattoo of an eagle on his right forearm, black with red wings. He let them take turns borrowing his tank so they could drop down thirty feet and see the wreck up close. He was friendly in a quiet way, and his English was only slightly accented, and when they pulled themselves into their guide’s boat to head back to shore, he climbed in, too.

They met the Greeks two nights later, back in Cancun, on the beach near their hotel. Stacy got drunk and made out with one of them. Nothing happened beyond that, but the Greeks always seemed to be turning up afterward, no matter where they went or what they were doing. None of them spoke Greek, of course, and the Greeks didn’t speak English, so it was mostly smiling and nodding and the occasional sharing of food or drinks. There were three Greeks—in their early twenties, like Mathias and the rest of them—and they seemed friendly enough, even if they did appear to be following them about. (Read more)

Comments: I really want to read this book. Love the excerpt. Enjoyed the movie (especially after witnessing silly tourists firsthand in Mexico last summer).

In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke (EXCERPT)

The sky had gone black at sunset, and the storm had churned inland from the Gulf and drenched New Iberia and littered East Main with leaves and tree branches from the long canopy of oaks that covered the street from the old brick post office to the drawbridge over Bayou Teche at the edge of town. The air was cool now, laced with light rain, heavy with the fecund smell of wet humus, night-blooming jasmine, roses, and new bamboo. I was about to stop my truck at Del’s and pick up three crawfish dinners to go when a lavender Cadillac fishtailed out of a side street, caromed off a curb, bounced a hubcap up on a sidewalk, and left long serpentine lines of tire prints through the glazed pools of yellow light from the street lamps.

I was off duty, fired, used up after a day of searching for a nineteen-year-old girl in the woods, then finding her where she had been left in the bottom of a coulee, her month and wrists wrapped with electrician’s tape. Already I had tried to stop thinking about the rest of it. The medical examiner was a kind man. He bagged the body before any news people or family members got there.

I don’t like to bust drunk drivers. I don’t like to listen to their explanations, watch their pitiful attempts to affect sobriety, or see the sheen of fear break out in their eyes when they realize they’re headed for the drunk tank with little to look forward to in the morning except the appearance of their names in the newspaper. Or maybe in truth I just don’t like to see myself when I look into their faces. (Read more)

I’m headed to Redbox to see if I can find a few of these. When I do posts like this I get a little confused. Should I spend time catching up on my reading or movies? I guess the answer is obvious. READ! But in this day and age of technology, why spend a few hours or days on a storyline that I can pick up in 2 hours or less? Kidding….kinda?

There are plenty more of these books/movies to post, but if you can’t wait until next time, please visit my favorite movies based on books website, chasingthefrog.com.

Happy reading, y’all—but if you aren’t going to read, at least read a book based movie. I give you permission.

Don’t expect me to post a black book excerpt every Saturday, even if it does sound like a good idea. *wink* Here’s a look at Larry Tye’s New York Times Best Seller Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend (published in June 2009):

Chapter One - Coming Alive

“I was no different from any other kid, only in Mobile I was a nigger kid.”

Satchel Paige entered the world as Leroy Robert Page. He was delivered at home into the hands of a midwife, which was more help than most poor families could afford in 1906 in Mobile, Alabama. His mother, Lula, was a washerwoman who already spent her nights worrying how to feed and sustain the four daughters and two sons who had come before. Five more would follow. Leroy’s father, John, alternated between the luxuriant lilies in the gardens he tended uptown and the corner stoops on which he liked to loiter, rarely making time to care for his expanding brood. With skin the shade of chestnut and a birthplace in the heartland of the former Confederacy, the newborn’s prospects looked woeful. They were about to get worse.

The hurricane that battered Mobile Bay just two months after Leroy’s birth started with two days of torrential rains carried in on the back of a driving northeast wind. By the next morning ten-foot-high surges had dispatched oyster and fishing vessels to the bottom of the sea. Tornado-like squalls ripped from their roots southern pines, blew tin roofs off Greek Revival homes, and made it look as if birds were flying backward. At historic Christ Church only the choir loft was left standing. The lucky escaped by fleeing to third-floor attics or climbing tall trees; 150 others were consigned to watery graves. One area hit especially hard was the Negro slum known as Down the Bay, where the Pages lived.

Their home was a four-room shack called a shotgun, because a shot fired through the front door would exit straight out the back. That is the path storm waters took when they burst through Down the Bay’s alleys on the way to more fashionable quarters. Rental units like the Pages’ were ramshackle and fragile, with no flood walls to protect them from the nearby sea and no electricity to ease their recovery. The Page cottage remained standing but the thin mattresses the children shared and their few furnishings needed airing out. That cleanup would have to wait: Lula’s white employers insisted she be at their homes early the next morning to mop up the storm damage. The kids would wait, too, the way they did every day when Mama headed to work, with the older ones watching over baby Leroy and the rest of the young ones. (Read more)

Happy reading, y’all.

I use to sell snacks out of my bookbag in high school. Until the day a teacher turned me in for disrupting her class, my top selling snack were those tasty Famous Amos cookies. I probably ate just as many bags as I sold—and I never shared. If you wanted some, you better have your $1 ready (I overcharged because I had no competitors).  Recently, BlackNews.com reported that Wally Amos is back in business with a new cookie line.

After several decades away from the gourmet cookie business, (an industry that Amos is credited with creating), writing books, working as a motivational speaker, even hosting a PBS TV Literacy Series, and baking gourmet muffins (“Uncle Wally’s”), among other things, the very active Mr. Amos decided that he really wanted to get back to his first love, baking and selling the absolutely best tasting cookies anywhere. And that is just what he is doing again. As Amos recently said, “I am absolutely delighted to be baking my delicious handmade cookies again for my millions of friends and fans.”

Using his “original recipe” with pure butter, Watkins pure vanilla extract, lots of chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, and other natural ingredients, Wally went to work building a new bakery in Kailua, a small town on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu, his home for the last 32 years. Wally appropriately named the new cookie business Chip & Cookie after two boy and girl Hawaiian characters that had been created years before by his wife, noted artist and print maker, Christine Harris-Amos. A second Chip & Cookie store has already opened in Honolulu on Waikiki Beach at the Royal Hawaiian Center, 2nd floor, upstairs behind the Apple Store. When you place an order at www.chipandcookie.com, your cookies will be handmade and fresh baked in Hawaii, then shipped out the same day via air using USPS Priority Mail. Orders usually reach the East Coast in 3-4 days and the West Coast in 2-3 days.

Widely known as a passionate longtime advocate of early childhood literacy, Wally created an organization he called the Read It LOUD! Foundation several years ago to encourage parents to read aloud to their children for 10 minutes each day, especially from birth through age six. Wally’s new cookie business, Chip & Cookie, LLC proudly supports the work of the Read It LOUD! Foundation by donating 10% of net profit to the Foundation. Wally so strongly believes in the benefits of early childhood literacy that he is often found reading to children in the dedicated reading areas set aside in each Chip & Cookie cookie store, complete with kid size chairs and dozens of his (and the kids) favorite children’s books. (Read full article)

Mr. Amos is an advocate for literacy? You don’t say. And he writes books too? Wow. You know I had to do a little Amazon research to see exactly what he’s published thus far. Shamefully, this is what I found:

WATERMELON MAGIC is talk from the soul using watermelons as a metaphor for life. Watermelons symbolize the slurpy happiness of life for Wally Amos (formerly known as “Famous Amos”). From his life experiences, Wally sees many parallels between humans and watermelons. Just as the vine connects watermelons and the umbilical cord connects mother and child, we are all connected by spirit. Wally shares his personal path to wisdom and tells how he never lost his humor, joy, and positive outlook on life in the process. He shows us how to overcome adversity and make healthy choices – how to reframe and rethink challenging situations in positive, optimistic, and uplifting terms. A master storyteller, Wally believes we all have a choice in our own happiness – no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve been through – and his stories will touch you at the very depth of your soul. If these ideas and beliefs speak to you, grab them like slices of watermelon, devour them, and have fun! Look out for the seeds, and live life to the fullest!

Why Wally? I am not impressed or pleased. I can’t imagine taking a regular photograph holding up a watermelon slice or a piece of fried chicken with a big smile on my face. Forget about that “meaphor for life” nonsense. I say no. And if you aren’t feeling me on this, let me post a few photos for you:

I’m just saying…Wally Amos you know better. I understand taking a positive twist on something, but this ain’t that. Get ya mind right. Happy reading,y’all.

Tyrese Gibson delves into the world of comic books with his new release Mayhem. Although he acknowledges the other contributing authors in interviews, I think its interesting that only his name appears on the cover. No big deal I guess. Comic Book Resources notes:

Gibson is diving headfirst into the four-color world with “Mayhem!”, a brand new three-issue series from Image Comics launching in August. With the assistance of writers Mike Le and Will Wilson and artist Tone Rodriguez, the “Transformers” star is rolling up his sleeves and getting his hands in the ink of the comic book industry. For a star of Tyrese’s caliber, his hands-on approach to the medium might surprise some; after all, how hard would it be for Tyrese to slap his name on the comic book and call it a day?

“That’s not Tyrese,” Mike Le, co-writer of “Mayhem!” and vice president of Tyrese’s HQ Entertainment, told CBR News about the star’s involvement in the series. “I’ve known Tyrese for a long time and he has his hands on every project his name is on. He is one of the best ideas guys I’ve ever met, and [is] just an amazing person to brainstorm with. Like the rest of the team, Tyrese is extremely excited about ‘Mayhem!’” (Read full article)

I’m always excited about lead black comic book characters. I’d love to flip through a copy of this. Happy reading, y’all!

I like to read biographies on occasion.  As a matter of fact, I just picked up Donald Bogle’s Brown Sugar: Over 100 Years of America’s Black Female Superstars. I’m sure the following celebrity is included:

In his new biography, Stormy Weather, James Gavin offers a fascinating study of a complicated woman and the complicated times that shaped her. Gavin interviewed Horne, now 92, only once, in 1994, a few years before she withdrew into reclusion. But through conversations with key figures and probing research, he delivers a portrait of a very human artist who is as compelling for her foibles as her accomplishments. Key to that portrait is Horne’s family background, which includes an adored but absent father, a jealous mother and an activist grandmother who forbade Lena from playing with white children but also harbored disdain for lower-class blacks. That girl evolves into a beautiful young woman who performs for white audiences in clubs where black performers are kept segregated and black fans shunned, and a Hollywood starlet who yearns to defy racial stereotypes as she sees prime roles go to white actresses. Yet the frustration and bitterness afflicting Horne — qualities mined in some of her most triumphant performances, notably 1981’s Broadway smash Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music— aren’t just written off to prejudice and a troubled youth. Gavin documents critics’ qualms and Horne’s own doubts about her abilities; her films, concerts and recordings are zestfully dissected. (Read Full Article or Read an Excerpt)

Happy reading, y’all.

For the E. Lynn Harris fans who still patiently await a film/theatrical adaptation of his books, BET.com reports:

So will we finally see Harris’ work on the silver screen? Well, the answer literally was being played out a few weeks ago until the day the bestselling author died. Despite fainting on a train en route to Tinseltown to solidify his book-to-movie dreams, Harris typed that he was “soldiering on” in a text message to an assistant. Once he arrived in Los Angeles, he met with producer Tracey Edmonds just hours before he died.

One insider reports that Harris “basically blessed the project” for the film adaptation of “Invisible Life,” his first novel, which shot Harris to fame in 1994.  There are reportedly also two finished scripts, one which focuses on the college years and the other on the New York City years of characters Raymond, Nicole and Basil.

Other finished scripts include “Not A Day Goes By” and “I Say A Little Prayer.” In September, the novel “Mama Dearest,” which is the follow-up to “Not A Day Goes By,” hits bookstores. And the first of a new book series Harris had just created titled, “The Bentley Chronicles,” arrives in 2010.

It’s also been confirmed that Harris reserved the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C. for a 4-week run in 2010 for “Invisible Life (The Musical),” which was being primed for an eventual Broadway run.  So important was this project that the music was written by the legendary duo Ashford & Simpson and the script written by August Wilson’s protégé, Javon Johnson. (Read the full article)

Interesting. Happy reading, y’all.