Gotham City Soul

I was not going to post this blog entry because I feared it might come off as me being a killjoy during the holiday season. I mean, oh boy, a blog about death on New Year's—way to go Audrey. But I wrote this in good faith, spirit, and humor and it is something I wanted to share with you at the end of this year and the beginning of the next. Because I love you, not because I want to bum you out. Plus you have to admit, that picture above is pretty fun ny . I do have a plan to get back to history and soul and New York City and all that good jazz in 2008. But for now . . . Joe Black: Don't be feisty, sista . Jamaican Woman: I not be feisty mista . You com' for me that's good news. Joe Black: Can do no right by people. I com' to take you, you want to stay - I leave you stay, you want to go. from Meet Joe Black By now people who read my blog might think I’m a bit preoccupied with death . I’m not, really. But the “death” of 2007 makes me think of it. And in my own way, ...

So I arrived in Newark Airport from Savannah yesterday around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. I prefer Newark to LaGuardia and JFK for a couple of reasons, not the least of them being state loyalty. Yes, I will travel out of New York City to Jersey paying the $15 surcharge to the Taxi and Limousine Commission to fly out of Newark. Newark Airport makes sense to me. It’s laid out in a way that I can navigate. I just like it better. I traveled to Newark via cab last Friday because I just couldn’t get up early enough to do anything else, and bless the Supershuttle for being so cheap ($21, one-way; 12 for additional people in your party) and proletarian, but it has its issues (namely, you’re packed in like a sardine; they pick you up way too early for your flight—3 am for a 7 am takeoff, for example; there’s always somebody who is stunningly late for his or her flight (because he or she lied to the dispatcher about the time of the flight) and is killing the driver in a death by a thousand irri...

I've been so wrapped up in work I haven't had a chance to piece together enough decent blogs. I'm doing a drive-by today, telling you quickly about an event our magazine (actually our events planner and publisher put together) a youth forum for teenage boys to meet men who have done great and good things for the community and the world in general. The four men this year were Louis Gossett Jr. , Byron Lewis , the founder, in 1969, of Uniworld Group Inc. , a media planning company targeting the black and Latino markets; Ohio Congressman Louis Stokes , who served 15-consecutive and highly productive terms in office (during which he helped cofound the Congressional Black Caucus ); and Percy Sutton, Jr. , elder statesman of Harlem, and lawyer for Malcolm X, among many other things. Because I'm just quickly dropping in, I've provided the links (just click on the names for the bios) and a photo of the men with students, and at an awards ceremony we held at the Schomburg...

I couldn’t let the day go by without acknowledging that it’s St. Nicholas Day in the Netherlands and Germany and other parts of Europe. We never celebrated it when I was a kid, but my Mom sure did, and I’m writing about it here because for me, it marks the beginning of Weihnachtsdelerium , a German specific fever centered on Christmas that begins around now and ends on January 6, Three Kings Day. She and her brother, my Uncle Heinz (who is traveling to Tunisia for Christmas; ironic that my old German uncle has been to Africa a half dozen times or more and I haven’t been once) put their shoes outside their front door the night before, and St. Nicholas would come knocking at this door, with his faithful sidekick, Knecht Ruprecht (farmhand Ruprecht). St. Nick would ask my mom and uncle specific questions about their behavior throughout the year; if he determined that they were good, he would leave gifts in their shoes. If he decided they weren ’t, they might get switches. What children ...

I’m usually willing to give artistic expression, and many things quite a bit of latitude, but I’m going to go ahead and be grumpy about something today. I’m not going to see American Gangster . I like Denzel Washington’s work. I loved his directorial debut Antwone Fisher , and of course there is the well-known portrayal of Malcolm X ; and the lesser vaunted, but equally wonderful performance as Creasy in Man on Fire , the story of a burned out ex CIA operative and assassin who finds redemption in the process of saving the life of a little girl, whom he has grown to love as his own. The Hurricane, in which Washington starred as the embattled boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, is a topic for another blog entry altogether, as there is deep controversy over the facts surrounding the story of Carter’s life. But I loved Washington’s Oscar-worthy performance all the same. But I don’t want to contribute one thin dime to American Gangster . I fail to see why I should care to know the details of ...

I have to jump in here today to rant. I realize solving the homeless problem is a difficult one, but I've just about had enough of people "in charge", who either don't have a clue, or don't want to have a clue about living in the real world, the world where the majority of people on this planet live. For example, is it me, or do you think it is completely absurd of the city, and more specifically Mayor Bloomberg (whom I actually like well enough on many issues), to turn homeless families away from shelters, telling them that they should seek shelter with family members? Do the people who try to shape these policies have a lick of sense? Do they understand that the reason most of these people are homeless in the first place is because they DON’T HAVE FAMILY MEMBERS TO LIVE WITH? Even if the family members exist, how can we force them to take in their homeless relatives? This may seem like a simplistic solution but maybe if we built more shelters, and better yet, a...

Back to Vodou , In the wake of all of the Halloween revelry (note to rabid Christians: It’s not a holiday to celebrate the cult of death—it derives from All Saints and All Souls day on November 1 and 2 in the Roman Catholic Church, and may even stretch back further than that to early harvest festivals in Europe) I thought it might be interesting to speak about the African traditional religion of Vodou. It’s a bit easier to understand, I think, if you are Catholic, because the Church basically appropriated or blended ancient pagan rituals, such as the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, with its own to keep everybody happy. Followers of Vodou did the opposite—they (as well as a host of other African Traditional Religions) hid the rites they brought from Africa in the rituals of the Catholic Church, syncretising their spirits, called lwa (note that they are not gods; the Vodou religion recognizes one supreme God, Bondye ) to Catholic saints. The lwa and ancestors are spirits...