Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and more

Afriend telling me she is reading James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” gets me thinking about an iconic photo of Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, sitting on a couch with cigs and drinks before them, when people did those sorts of things.
Hansberry had written “A Raisin in the Sun,” done on Broadway with Sidney Poitier, who died two years ago in Barbados (if only I could die there), at age 94.
With the success of “Raisin,” which later became a musical, entitled by the shortened name, Hansberry was besieged by the press to give her thoughts about Blacks in America.  She very succinctly said that she did not want to opine about her race.  She wasn’t writing generally about them, but quite specifically writing about one family on Chicago’s Great South Side on one block in one specific apartment.  Nothing general about it.
A memory surfaces.  Poitier and Harry Belafonte,  who just died at 96, on the Johnny Carson show.  The occasion.  Both Black men, both from the islands, were turning 50.  Carson asked Belafonte what it felt like.  He went on.  And on.  Carson looked as If Harry would never stop.  Finally, he did.  Carson, not easy to ruffle, turned to
Poitier, who stood up, went right down to the camera, did a perfect pirouette and returned to his seat, having uttered not a syllable.
I have heard that Poitier and his wife came to Salisbury, looking to buy a house.  They stayed with people on Salmon Kill Road.  They did not buy a house.  O, what we missed!  At the fruit display at La Bonne’s (which was then Shagroy)  Sidney,  how do these mineolas compare to those in Jamaica?
Hansberry and Baldwin.  Both gay.  A Black friend, who has been living with HIV for decades — I am not talking out of school, he is quite open about this — and who, on his third try just won a Tony, said to me years ago that if the Black community could ever get over its homophobia and realize the power and wealth that Black gays have, then finally some things could get accomplished.
I don’t have time or space to recount the anti-gay, anti-women attitudes that rappers and others have expressed.  I can only say I believe my friend is right.
A classmate’s father was the Executive Director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith.  At his funeral service, my friend gave the eulogy in Manhattan, the most stirring eulogy I have ever heard.  I was in the back and I noticed the great Bayard Rustin, stalwart of the Civil Rights Movement, and a gay man.  A man who was largely ostracized by the Movement.  I remember his silver-tipped cane.  The cane with which he would have tapped his way into our hearts.  If only we had let him.
A photo of Belafonte and Martin Luther King, Jr. comes to mind.  The Princeton professor Eddie  Glaude suggests that King was uncomfortable with Baldwin’s  gayness.  I am guessing that Poitier and Belafonte would have had no such problem.

 

Lonnie Carter is a playwright, Obie winner and his signature play is “The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy.”

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Lakeville Journal and The Journal does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

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Club baseball at Fuessenich Park

Travel league baseball came to Torrington Thursday, June 26, when the Berkshire Bears Select Team played the Connecticut Moose 18U squad. The Moose won 6-4 in a back-and-forth game. Two players on the Bears play varsity ball at Housatonic Valley Regional High School: shortstop Anthony Foley and first baseman Wes Allyn. Foley went 1-for-3 at bat with an RBI in the game at Fuessenich Park.

 

  Anthony Foley, rising senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, went 1-for-3 at bat for the Bears June 26.Photo by Riley Klein 

 
Siglio Press: Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature

Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.

Richard Kraft

Siglio Press is a small, independent publishing house based in Egremont, Massachusetts, known for producing “uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.” Founded and run by editor and publisher Lisa Pearson, Siglio has, since 2008, designed books that challenge conventions of both form and content.

A visit to Pearson’s airy studio suggests uncommon work, to be sure. Each of four very large tables were covered with what looked to be thousands of miniature squares of inkjet-printed, kaleidoscopically colored pieces of paper. Another table was covered with dozens of book/illustration-size, abstracted images of deer, made up of colored dots. For the enchanted and the mystified, Pearson kindly explained that these pieces were to be collaged together as artworks by the artist Richard Kraft (a frequent contributor to the Siglio Press and Pearson’s husband). The works would be accompanied by writings by two poets, Elizabeth Zuba and Monica Torre, in an as-yet-to-be-named book, inspired by a found copy of a worn French children’s book from the 1930s called “Robin de Bois” (Robin Hood).

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Cycling season: A roundup of our region’s rentals and where to ride them

Cyclists head south on the rail trail from Copake Falls.

Alec Linden

After a shaky start, summer has well and truly descended upon the Litchfield, Berkshire and Taconic hills, and there is no better way to get out and enjoy long-awaited good weather than on two wheels. Below, find a brief guide for those who feel the pull of the rail trail, but have yet to purchase their own ten-speed. Temporary rides are available in the tri-corner region, and their purveyors are eager to get residents of all ages, abilities and inclinations out into the open road (or bike path).

For those lucky enough to already possess their own bike, perhaps the routes described will inspire a new way to spend a Sunday afternoon. For more, visit lakevillejournal.com/tag/bike-route to check out two ride-guides from local cyclists that will appeal to enthusiasts of many levels looking for a varied trip through the region’s stunning summer scenery.

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