Hello, and happy summer solstice.
It arrives in the Northern Hemisphere today, June 20, and it’s the earliest start to the summer season in over two centuries. My birthday (it’s in a few days) falls in the glorious first week of summer which usually (?) includes the first June full moon. It’s known as a “strawberry” moon, reaches peak illumination June 21 at 9:08 pm E.T., and lasts through Sunday morning. Cancerians are ruled by the moon and though I’m not 10000% into astrology, I’ve always felt the moon’s phases in my body and brain. The moon pulls the tides after all, and its energy right now feels new, and intense. I’m channeling it into my written words, and it twirls on its own through those dreamy mornings before I’m fully awake. It heightens my instincts. And eases my my more consistent anxieties. I love June deeply — the weather sears but plants and trees glow green like go.
The completion a full (third? fourth?) draft of a current writing project coincided with about 1pm on Juneteenth. Picture me sighing with relief. Picture me dashing — like my enslaved ancestors — a bit late into my (birthday-month) freedom. I’ll keep you posted on publication dates, but for the projects I’m attacking most actively, I’ve been reading this oral history of Sean John, this piece about the history and musical magic of New York City’s D&D Studios, this about the Brooklyn home of new Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick, and this about the virtuoso
painter/sculptor/collagist Kerry James Marshall. I also love this “Miss Juneteenth: Pageants and pie in a small Texas town” from Ashanté M. Reese.
While we’re on the serendipitous, 1976’s The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings is playing at Turner Classic Movies this month, and we lost the great Willie Howard Mays Jr. on June 18. He was 93. Mays, a two-time MVP, and the greatest center-fielder who ever lived, began his Hall of Fame career in the Negro Leagues on teams like the Chattanooga Choo-Choos, and went to the majors four years after Jackie Robinson, in 1947, crossed into Major League baseball’s all-white ranks. Because she managed Gladys Knight & the Pips for a time, I learned a lot about Mays’ first wife, Margherite Wendell Mays, while researching my recent Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop. Here’s a clip of the couple being interviewed in 1958.
Often named as Mays’ widow, Margherite the kind of semi-famous Black woman whose existence and wide influence goes unrecorded and uncelebrated, Margherite was married to Mays 1956-62. At a time when woman artist managers and A&R reps were rare, and at a time when the segregated worlds of professional sport and pop music were being disrupted by people of color, Margherite married (twice, actually) into the business of a new Black culture.
Called a “café-society beauty,” she was born Scarlett Margherite Wendell. She was also known as Marti Marciano, and was also ex-wife of the Ink Spots’ Bill Kenny. Her and Kenny’s marriage ended in scandal, as Kenny proved that a daughter that she said was his, was in fact, not. Margherite’s moves were regularly chronicled in Ebony and Jet — whether it was about her ten trunks of clothes, her lustrous baby hair, or her fights with her boyfriends. Draped in mink, she stood on tarmacs before TWA jets while Mays held her boxy and expensive luggage. Margherite moved with confidence in the newly integrating universes of pro sports and show business.
It’s hard to assess the mix of business and emotion in loving partnerships, but many believe Margherite even functionally managed the Ink Spots for a time.
Stuff I’m reading:
This review of the recent, historic Kendrick Lamar concert:
And while we’re in L.A., here’s an erasure alert regarding the African ancestry of Los Angeles’ first settlers. The piece also mentions this book. I’ve had it for a long time, and it’s important. This “book lover’s guide” to our sprawling city is beautiful to look at, a lovely read, and includes libraries, settings, and monuments as well as bookstores.
My Celtics won the NBA Championship so of course I’m reading this history of public education in BOS.
The new film Planet Janet is being reviewed well. The title reminds me big-time of a thought-line popular the 1990s. In addition to apparel, there were rap song lyrics, like this from Naughty By Nature.
The line still shows up as Instagram and TikTok captions
The Klan, they were terrorists. They were hatemongers, extremists who were burning down churches and beating up congregants. The feeling around [now] feels like that sometimes, that feeling of anger and hate. My God, can we not move forward while still talking and understanding what happened in the past?” More, here.
Let me find out Diplo has a “private jungle paradise” in Jamaica.
“Why are we losing the bare minimum of diversity, equity, and inclusion protections that exist? Why?! Because they claim that DEI violates their civil rights… It represents the idea that they are losing their country.” — Kimberle W. Crenshaw, Columbia University Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law. More, here.
I appreciate this, from Dan Rather’s substack: We have come to the point where Old Glory is being used to fracture the country. To fly the flag, especially on a car or pickup, is to (wink, wink) show your support for the convicted felon/presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his insurrectionist supporters. Many who don’t support him now feel uneasy about flying the flag for fear they will be labeled as right-wing extremists. The flag is not just for Republicans, or just for Democrats, or just for those in between. It is meant for all.
Stuff I’m watching:
I haven’t yet tried Baby Reindeer, but I’m going to. It’s calling me, especially as most of my projects right now are memoiristic (I’ll keep you posted).
The Australian series Total Control.
So far, it’s three-seasons long, and I just started at Season 1, on Amazon Prime Video. It’s good. Also from Australia, this time “rural noir:” Scrublands (in four parts) was excellent. More, here.
In music,
Danyel
Happy Birthday, Danyel! ❤️ My birthday is in first week of July, so I’m a fellow Cancer ♋️ 🌖 the moon pull is real! Hope you had a great birthday! ✨
Extra thanks for the #4 and #6 article links.