I’ve admired your work for a long time. But this one has a particular beauty and strength. Congratulations.
Maybe it struck a particular chord because I was just in Chicago a month ago.
We went to some blues clubs and I noted that the musicians are almost universally black, and of different ages, and the audience is almost universally white and old (like me). I mentioned it to a friend when I got home and he said, “Like a basketball game, well, ignoring the age part.” I’m not sure why that is. A black woman who was a school
principal in Brooklyn once told me that blues and jazz are like classical music for black kids these days, something very foreign and distant that, for them, only a certain kind of white person cares about. Maybe someone in the Crooked Timber universe has some thoughts on this.
Nice framing! Great frame! A dance of light and shadow, a rich if muted palette, a striking juxtaposition of ornamented stone and spare steel towers, so nearly alike.
“blind skyscrapers use/ Their full height to proclaim/ The strength of Collective Man”, “Whose buildings grope the sky”
A frog, of course, would simply list the visible fasteners.
@Bob. Re: blues and young black audience. It would take several essays to begin to answer your question. I’ll try by giving a title to essays I would write on the subject.
1) Why Young Black People Don’t Know About Rosa Parks. Subtitle: why US school systems teach no black history and culture. (And black parents cannot afford to offset this deficit)
2) Dead Nation I: The elimination of music and art in US schools, with special attention to impact on inner city schools.
3) Dead Nation II: How the music industry promotes and exploits certain genres of music as black.
4) Downtown Development: Why black people no longer go “downtown” for entertainment.
5) From Juke Joint to Club: Economics moves blues artists from local to tourist clubs. Who can blame them?
I could go on….
{ 8 comments }
Alan White 06.16.19 at 5:40 pm
Now that really captures the place. And thanks for leaving out that tawdry Trump tower.
Donald A. Coffin 06.17.19 at 12:01 am
Very, very nice. I know where you were when you shot that, having lived in Chicago for about 15 years.
Bob 06.17.19 at 1:21 am
I’ve admired your work for a long time. But this one has a particular beauty and strength. Congratulations.
Maybe it struck a particular chord because I was just in Chicago a month ago.
We went to some blues clubs and I noted that the musicians are almost universally black, and of different ages, and the audience is almost universally white and old (like me). I mentioned it to a friend when I got home and he said, “Like a basketball game, well, ignoring the age part.” I’m not sure why that is. A black woman who was a school
principal in Brooklyn once told me that blues and jazz are like classical music for black kids these days, something very foreign and distant that, for them, only a certain kind of white person cares about. Maybe someone in the Crooked Timber universe has some thoughts on this.
Dr. Hilarius 06.17.19 at 3:04 am
Nice framing and the color contrast works well.
bad Jim 06.17.19 at 5:48 am
Nice framing! Great frame! A dance of light and shadow, a rich if muted palette, a striking juxtaposition of ornamented stone and spare steel towers, so nearly alike.
“blind skyscrapers use/ Their full height to proclaim/ The strength of Collective Man”, “Whose buildings grope the sky”
A frog, of course, would simply list the visible fasteners.
Brooke 06.17.19 at 11:01 am
@Bob. Re: blues and young black audience. It would take several essays to begin to answer your question. I’ll try by giving a title to essays I would write on the subject.
1) Why Young Black People Don’t Know About Rosa Parks. Subtitle: why US school systems teach no black history and culture. (And black parents cannot afford to offset this deficit)
2) Dead Nation I: The elimination of music and art in US schools, with special attention to impact on inner city schools.
3) Dead Nation II: How the music industry promotes and exploits certain genres of music as black.
4) Downtown Development: Why black people no longer go “downtown” for entertainment.
5) From Juke Joint to Club: Economics moves blues artists from local to tourist clubs. Who can blame them?
I could go on….
Ben 06.17.19 at 2:42 pm
@Bob: if you ever get back here, check out Rosa’s (on Armitage)
jsrtheta 06.19.19 at 6:13 pm
As a former Chicagoan, I can only say “Bravo!”
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