James Baldwin - Search and Destroy

I read Just Above My Head last month, reminding me that his novels are just not compelling despite flashes of eloquence.

i thought Beale Street was, even though it's not A Great Novel.

I thought Giovanni's Room was incredible - I'm surprised to see that it's not so revered on here. He writes like all of his characters are under a fluorescent light - it's such blisteringly brutal writing, and with such an immediacy of space and time. With that book more than most I've read for a while, I feel like I can walk right back into the scenes and live in them.

Baldwin, opening track: "The cop may be a very nice man. I haven't got time to figure that out."

https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/93648

"God's only hope is us. We don't make it, he aint gonna make it either."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQejcZc4uFM

reread THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN last year after mindhunter featured the atlanta child murders. when it was published (1985) i remember it was generally received with polite but somewhat baffled embarrassment, as the misstep of a great old man losing his grip?

anyway even last year it seemed more like dead-on prophecy than misstep and right now it seems more darkly exacting and OTM than ever ffs

(what put this in my mind is the new yorker's timely reappraisal)

That's an excellent piece

Search: every video of Baldwin talking about police brutality

Jimmy Baldwin on police. Dick Cavett prodding him to cut them some slack. Jimmy refusing. pic.twitter.com/cWn7T3dR8B

— Harmony Holiday (@Harmony_Holiday) July 1, 2020

“All of us know, whether or not we are able to admit it, that mirrors can only lie, that death by drowning is all that awaits one there. It is for this reason that love is so desperately sought and so cunningly avoided. Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

wonderful.

Watching “I Am Not Your Negro” for the first time today. Very intense watch.

yeah it's excellent

in fact definitely watch this wonderful doc tonight rather than Encanto pls!

so good

Peck's other work is also pretty decent.