Wednesday, March 31, 2021

the last book I ever read (Gluck: Her Biography by Diana Souhami, excerpt three)

from Gluck: Her Biography by Diana Souhami:

Gluck never went for long without a woman in her life and when the new one arrived she moved quickly into her orbit. Her close relationships influenced her painting far more than theories of art. While she was with Sybil Cookson, she painted Sybil’s grandfather, daughter, former lover’s daughter and the courtroom dramas about which Sybil wrote. During the years with Constance Spry, from 1932-6, she painted arrangements of cut flowers.



Tuesday, March 30, 2021

the last book I ever read (Gluck: Her Biography by Diana Souhami, excerpt two)

from Gluck: Her Biography by Diana Souhami:

The Meteor was inordinately ambitious for both her children, generous, certain of her abilities and proud of their achievements. She made no further reference to ‘the kink in the brain’ but put Gluck’s unconventional behaviour down to artistic licence. The tactics of stonewalling used for Craig were not extended to Gluck’s subsequent grander lady friends such as Constance Spry and Nesta Obermer, both of whom she liked and respected and with whom she happily took lunch and tea. The Meteor believed, or said she believed, that her daughter had a God-given gift and was something of a genius. She also thought her incapable of managing her own affairs. She acted on the slightest hint that Bolton House might need repainting or the car might need new tyres, or that Gluck might want clothes, or special canvases, or errands run or pieces of furniture acquired. After the death of her husband, she let it be known to the other trustees that she favoured generous treatment for her daughter. What Gluck wanted, after her father’s death and before the outbreak of war, in any material sense, she received.



Monday, March 29, 2021

the last book I ever read (Gluck: Her Biography by Diana Souhami, excerpt one)

from Gluck: Her Biography by Diana Souhami:

Gluck described the family home as full of blue ornaments, diarrhoeacoloured oak, endless games of bridge and her father cheating at patience. She did, though, regard her childhood as happy. As for her latent taste for crossdressing, her brother remember her intense annoyance at being given a Red Cross nurse’s outfit at the time of the Boer War, when he got a City Imperial Volunteers uniform with slouch hat, bandolier, leather leggings and gun. She freely admitted to a preference for games where she was Napoleon, and in her teens was commended in the Hampstead and St John’s Wood Advertiser for her ‘dignified and impressive’ performance as Cardinal Wolsey in scenes from Henry VIII at Miss Mathilde Ellis’s Pupils’ Recital at the Hampstead Conservatoire. As that same evening Ruby Greenop played Romeo, and Beatrice Cohen was William III, gender crossing probably reflects more on the surfeit of girls at Miss Ellis’s dramatic society, than as a reliable indicator of androgyny. Two years later, a play Gluck wrote called King and Pope was produced at the same Conservatoire. It ran to three mercifully short acts and a prologue and was set in eleventh-century Germany. She played Henry IV, her brother the Prince, her cousins Isidore and Barnett the Pope and the Bishop, and Sadie Cohen the lady-in-waiting.



Sunday, March 28, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt fourteen)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

The hard campaign and the worry over the outcome of Helen’s confinement had left traces on Matthew’s face. The satanic lines were accentuated, the eyes seemed sunken farther back in the head, his well-manicured hand trembled a little as he reached for his glass again and again.

He wondered how it would all come out. He hated to leave. He has had such a good time since he’d been white: plenty of money, almost unlimited power, a beautiful wife, good liquor and the pick of damsels within reach. Must he leave all that? Must he cut and run just at the time when he was about to score his greatest victory. Just think: from an underpaid insurance agent to a millionaire commanding millions of people—and then oblivion. He shuddered slightly and reached again for his glass.



Saturday, March 27, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt thirteen)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

“Buggerie!” gasped the F.F.V., “Are you mad?”

“Quite sane, sir,” squeaked the ponderous man, somewhat proudly, “and I know what I know.” He winked a watery eye.



Friday, March 26, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt twelve)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

The air was electric with expectancy. People stood around in knots. Small boys scattered leaflets on ten million doorsteps. Police were on the alert to suppress disorder, except what they created.



Thursday, March 25, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt eleven)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

Back in Richmond Mr. Snobbcraft and his friends were in conference with the statistician of a great New York insurance company. This man, Dr. Samuel Buggerie, was highly respected among members of his profession and well known by the reading public. He was the author of several books and wrote frequently for the heavier periodicals. His well-known work, The Fluctuation of the Sizes of Left Feet among the Assyrians during the Ninth Century before Christ, had been favorably commented upon by several reviewers, one of whom had actually read it. An even more learned work of his was entitled Putting Wasted Energy to Work, in which he called attention, by elaborate charts and graphs, to the possibilities of harnessing the power generated by the leaves of trees rubbing together on windy days. In several brilliant monographs he had proved that rich people have smaller families than the poor; that imprisonment does not stop crime; that laborers usually migrate in the wake of high wages. In his most recent article in a very intellectual magazine read largely by those who loafed for a living, he had proved statistically that unemployment and poverty are principally a state of mind. This contribution was enthusiastically hailed by scholars and especially by business men as an outstanding contribution to contemporary thought.

Dr. Buggerie was a ponderous, nervous, entirely bald specimen of humanity, with thick moist hands, a receding double chin and very prominent eyes that were constantly shifting about and bearing an expression of seemingly perpetual wonderment behind their big horn-rimmed spectacles. He seemed about to burst out of his clothes and his pockets were always bulging with papers and notes.



Wednesday, March 24, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt ten)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

Rev. Givens, fortified with a slug of corn, advanced nervously to the microphone, fingering his prepared address. He cleared his throat and talked for upwards of an hour during which time he successfully avoided saying anything that was true, the result being that thousands of telegrams and long-distance telephone calls of congratulation came in to the studio. In his long address he discussed the foundations of the Republic, anthropology, psychology, miscegenation, cooperation with Christ, getting right with God, curbing Bolshevism, the bane of birth control, the menace of the Modernists, science versus religion, and many other subjects of which he was totally ignorant. The greater part of his time was taken up in a denunciation of Black-No-More, Incorporated, and calling upon the Republican administration of President Harold Goosie to deport the vicious Negroes at the head of it or imprison them in the federal penitentiary. When he had concluded “In the name of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, Amen,” he retired hastily to the washroom to finish his half-pint of corn.



Tuesday, March 23, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt nine)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

Mr. Licorice for some fifteen years had been very profitably advocating the emigration of all the American Negroes to Africa. He had not, of course, gone there himself and had not the slightest intention of going so far from the fleshpots, but he told the other Negroes to go. Naturally the first step in their going was to join his society by paying five dollars a year for membership, ten dollars for a gold, green and purple robe and silver-colored helmet that together cost two dollars and a half, contributing five dollars to the Santop Licorice Defense Fund (there was a perpetual defense fund because Licorice was perpetually in the courts for fraud of some kind), and buying shares at five dollars each in the Royal Black Steamship Company, for obviously one could not get to Africa without a ship and Negroes ought to travel on Negro-owned and operated ships. The ships were Santop’s especial pride. True, they had never been to Africa, had never had but one cargo and that, being gin, was half consumed by the unpaid and thirsty crew before the vessel was saved by the Coast Guard, but they had cost more than anything else the Back-To-Africa Society had purchased even though they were worthless except as scrap iron. Mr. Licorice, who was known by his followers as Provisional President of Africa, Admiral of the African Navy, Field Marshal of the African Army and Knight Commander of the Nile, had a genius for being stuck with junk by crafty salesmen. White men only needed to tell him that he was shrewder than white men and he would immediately reach for a check book.



Monday, March 22, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt eight)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

The next speaker, Dr. Joseph Bonds, a little rat-faced Negro with protruding teeth stained by countless plugs of chewing tobacco and wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, who headed the Negro Data League, almost cried (which would have been terrible to observe) when he told of the difficulty his workers had encountered in their efforts to persuade retired white capitalists, whose guilty consciences persuaded them to indulge in philanthropy, to give their customary donations to the work. The philanthropists seemed to think, said Dr. Bonds, that since the Negroes were busily solving their difficulties, there was no need for social work among them or any collection of data. He almost sobbed aloud when he described how his collections had fallen from $50,000 a month to less than $1000.

His feeling in the matter could easily be appreciated. He was engaged in a most vital and necessary work: i.e., collecting bales of data to prove satisfactorily to all that more money was needed to collect more data. Most of the data were highly informative, revealing the amazing fact that poor people went to jail oftener than rich ones; that most of the people were not getting enough money for their work; that strangely enough there was some connection between poverty, disease and crime. By establishing these facts with mathematical certitude and illustrating them with elaborate graphs, Dr. Bonds garnered many fat checks. For his people, he said, he wanted work, not charity; but for himself he was always glad to get the charity with as little work as possible. For many years he had succeeded in doing so without any ascertainable benefit accruing to the Negro group.



Sunday, March 21, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt seven)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

Following him came Colonel Mortimer Roberts, principal of the Dusky River Agricultural Institute, Supreme General of the Knights and Daughters of Kingdom Come and president of the Uncle Tom Memorial Association. Colonel Roberts was acknowledged leader of the conservative Negroes (most of whom had nothing to conserve) who felt at all times that the white folks were in the lead and that Negroes should be careful to guide themselves accordingly.

He was a great mountain of blackness with a head shaped like an upturned bucket, pierced by two piglike eyes and a cavernous mouth equipped with large tombstone teeth which he almost continually displayed. His speech was a cross between the woofing of a bloodhound and the explosion of an inner tube. It conveyed to most white people an impression of rugged simplicity and sincerity, which was very fortunate since Colonel Roberts maintained his school through their contributions. He spoke as usual about the cordial relations existing between the two races in his native Georgia, the effrontery of Negroes who dared whiten themselves and thus disturb the minds of white people and insinuated alliance with certain militant organizations in the South to stop this whitening business before it went too far. Having spoken his mind and received scant applause, the Colonel (some white man had once called him Colonel and the title stuck), puffing and blowing, sat down.



Saturday, March 20, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt six)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

The attitude of these people puzzled him. Was not Black-No-More getting rid of the Negroes upon whom all of the blame was placed for the backwardness of the South? Then he recalled what a Negro street speaker had said one night on the corner of 138th Street and Seventh Avenue in New York: that unorganized labor meant cheap labor; that the guarantee of cheap labor was an effective means of luring new industries into the South; that so long as the ignorant white masses could be kept thinking of the menace of the Negro to Caucasian race purity and political control, they would give little thought to labor organization. It suddenly dawned upon Matthew Fisher that this Black-No-More treatment was more of a menace to white business than to white labor. And not long afterward he became aware of the money-making possibilities involved in the present situation.



Friday, March 19, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt five)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

He was not finding life as a white man the rosy existence he had anticipated. He was forced to conclude that it was pretty dull and that he was bored. As a boy he had been taught to look up to white folks as just a little less than gods; now he found them little different from the Negroes, except that they were uniformly less courteous and less interesting.



Thursday, March 18, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt four)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

An observer passing up and down the streets would have noted a general exodus from the locality. Moving vans were backed up to apartment houses on nearly every block.

The “For Rent” signs were appearing in larger number in Harlem than at any time in twenty-five years. Landlords looked on helplessly as apartment after apartment emptied and was not filled. Even the refusal to return deposits did not prevent the tenants from moving out. What, indeed, was fifty, sixty or seventy dollars when one was leaving behind insult, ostracism, segregation and discrimination? Moreover, the whitened Negroes were saving a great deal of money by being able to change localities. The mechanics of race prejudice had forced them into the congested Harlem area where, at the mercy of white and black real estate sharks, they had been compelled to pay exorbitant rentals because the demand for housing far exceeded the supply. As a general rule the Negroes were paying one hundred per cent more than white tenants in other parts of the city for a smaller number of rooms and worse service.



Wednesday, March 17, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt three)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

For a minute or so, Max stood irresolutely in the midst of the gibbering crowd of people. Unaccountably he felt at home here among these black folk. Their jests, scraps of conversation and lusty laughter all seemed like heavenly music. Momentarily he felt a disposition to stay among them, to share again their troubles which they seemed always to bear with a lightness that was yet not indifference. But then, he suddenly realized with just a tiny trace of remorse that the past was forever gone. He must seek other pastures, other pursuits, other playmates, other loves. He was white now. Even if he wished to stay among his folk, they would be either jealous or suspicious of him, as they were of most octoroons and nearly all whites. There was no other alternative than to seek his future among the Caucasians with whom he now rightlfully belonged.



Tuesday, March 16, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt two)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

They dined and they danced. Then they went to a cabaret, where, amid smoke, noise and body smells, they drank what was purported to be whiskey and watched a semi-nude chorus do its stuff. Despite his happiness Max found it pretty dull. There was something lacking in these ofay places of amusement or else there was something present that one didn’t find in the black-and-tan resorts in Harlem. The joy and abandon here was obviously forced. Patrons went to extremes to show each other they were having a wonderful time. It was all so strained and quite unlike anything to which he had been accustomed. The Negroes, it seemed to him, were much gayer, enjoyed themselves more deeply and yet they were more restrained, actually more refined. Even their dancing was different. They followed the rhythm accurately, effortlessly and with easy grace; these lumbering couples, out of step half the time and working as strenuously as stevedores emptying the bowels of a freighter, were noisy, awkward, inelegant. At their best they were gymnastic where the Negroes were sensuous. He felt a momentary pang of mingled disgust, disillusionment and nostalgia. But it was only momentary. He looked across at the comely Sybil and then around at the other white women, many of whom were very pretty and expensively gowned, and the sight temporarily drove from his mind the thoughts that had been occupying him.



Monday, March 15, 2021

the last book I ever read (George S. Schuyler's Black No More, excerpt one)

from Black No More by George S. Schuyler:

Max Disher and Bunny Brown had been pals ever since the war when they soldiered together in the old 15th regiment in France. Max was one of the Aframerican Fire Insurance Company’s crack agents, Bunny was a teller in the Douglass Bank and both bore the reputation of gay blades in black Harlem. The two had in common a weakness rather prevalent among Aframerican bucks: they preferred yellow women. Both swore there were three things essential to the happiness of a colored gentleman: yellow money, yellow women and yellow taxis. They had little difficulty in getting the first and none at all in getting the third but the yellow women they found flighty and fickle. It was so hard to hold them. They were so sought after that one almost required a million dollars to keep them out of the clutches of one’s rivals.

“No more yallah gals for me!” Max announced with finality, sipping his drink. “I’ll grab a black gal first.”



Thursday, March 11, 2021

the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt eleven)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

The hearse ran into crates of iced fish spread out on the sidewalk, skidded with a heavy lurch, and veered against the side of the refrigerator truck. The back doors were flung wide and the throat-cut corpse came one-third out. The gory head hung down from the cut throat to stare at the scene of devastation from its unblinking white-walled eyes.

Exclamations in seven languages were heard.



Wednesday, March 10, 2021

the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt ten)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

The 125th Street Station sat beneath the trestle like an artificial island, facing 125th Street. The double-track line widened into four tracks as it passed overhead on the gloomy, dimly-lit wooden platform. Passengers alighting there for the first ime had the impulse to turn about and climb back into the train. The platform shook like palsy and the loose boards rattled like dry bones every time a train passed.

From the platform could be seen the lighted strip of 125th Street running across the island from the Triborough Bridge, connecting the Bronx and Brooklyn, to the 125th Street ferry across the Hudson River into New Jersey.



Tuesday, March 9, 2021

the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt nine)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

Looking eastward from the towers of Riverside Church, perched among the university buildings on the high banks of the Hudson River, in a valley far below, waves of gray rooftops distort the perspective like the surface of a sea. Below the surface, in the murky waters of fetid tenements, a city of black people who are convulsed in desperate living, like the voracious churning of millions of hungry cannibal fish. Blind mouths eating their own guts. Stick in a hand and draw back a nub.

That is Harlem.



Monday, March 8, 2021

the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt eight)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

Before replying, Goldy went around the table and sat down. His wig and bonnet lay on the table beside a half-empty bottle of whiskey. With his round black head poking from the bulging black gown, he looked like an African sculpture. He was so high he kept brushing imaginary specks from his gown.



Sunday, March 7, 2021

the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt seven)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

The driver got the idea. He twisted his head and gave the nun a toothy grin. “Yas’m, four and twenty olders. Which one of them olders going to get here first, you reckon?”

“Four of the elders will lead the twenty,” Goldy said.

“Yas’m.”

The driver resolved to put five bucks on four twenty in each of Harlem’s four big books before noon that day as sure as his name was Beau Diddley.



Saturday, March 6, 2021

the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt six)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

Overhead was the 155th Street Bridge, crossing the Harlem River from Coogan’s Bluff on Manhattan Island to that flat section of the Bronx where the Yankee Stadium is located. The Polo Grounds loomed in the dark on a flat strip between the sheer bluff and the Harlem River. The iron stanchions beneath the bridge were like ghostly sentinels in the impenetrable gloom. A spur of the Bronx elevated line cross the river in the distance connecting with the station near the Stadium gates.

It was a dark, deserted, dismal section of Manhattan, eerie, shunned and unpatrolled at night, where a man could get his throat cut in perfect isolation with no one to hear his cries and no one brave enough to answer them if he did.



Friday, March 5, 2021

the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt five)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

Jackson picked up the squashed loaf of bread and straightened it out, then sat at the table and lifted the lid of the pot. It was half-filled with boiled pig’s feet, black-eyed peas and rice.

“Ain’t nothin’ but hoppin’ john,” Goldy said.



Thursday, March 4, 2021

the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt four)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

The blankets had sailed over the kerosene stove and were beginning to sizzle with the smell of burning wool and cotton.

The brothers threshed about the floor, grunting like two hungry cannibals fighting over the missing ribs. Finally Goldy got his foot in Jackson’s belly and gave a shove, separating them.



Wednesday, March 3, 2021

the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt three)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

Goldy lived with two other men on the Golden Ridge of Convent Avenue, north of City College and 140th Street. They had the ground floor of a brownstone private house that had been cut up into apartments.

All three impersonated females and lived by their wits. All were fat and black, which made it easy.



Tuesday, March 2, 2021

the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt two)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

Seventh Avenue and 125th Street is the center of Harlem, the crossroads of Black America. On one corner was the largest hotel. Diagonally across from it was a big credit jewelry store with its windows filled with diamonds and watches selling for so much down and so much weekly. Next door was a book store with a big red-and-yellow sign reading: Books of 6,000,000 Colored People. On the other corner was a mission church.

The people of Harlem take their religion seriously. If Goldy had taken off in a flaming chariot and galloped straight to heaven, they would have believed it – the godly and the sinners alike.



Monday, March 1, 2021

the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt one)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

“Now I make you a rich man, Jackson.”

“Thank the Lord. Amen,” Jackson said, crossing himself.

He wasn’t a Catholic. He was a Baptist, a member of the First Baptist Church of Harlem. But he was a very religious young man. Whenever he was troubled he crossed himself just to be on the safe side.