eclectique 916
Culture. Is. Power.
Sports
Workin’ It
Source: talesofadomesticmama.blogspot.com via Sarah @ The Pajama Chef on Pinterest
Does this really work?
Also, check out STRONG!, a film by Julie Wyman about the Olympian weighlifting Bronze medalist Cheryl Haworth. Today at brunch, Cheryl referred to her “bigness” — I call it her “awsomeness.” [And I’ve never used that word before in public.] That Cheryl is and so is fellow Olympian Cara Heads who also appears in the film. WHEN/WHERE etc. Saturday, June 30 at Busboys and Poets (2021 14th Street, NW), 5 PM. Cheryl Heads will be a guest speaker. It’s the final ITVS Community Cinema [DC] event for the season and it’s FREE. More information and reservations available at www.communitycinema-dc.org.
STRONG! is wrapping up SilverDocs in a sold out screening tonight at the AFI Silver theater in Silver Spring, MD.
Heritage Haps
The Emergence and Legacy of African American Basketball Conference
November 12 – 13
FREE and open to the public
Presented by: Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation, DC Basketball Inc., Howard University Department of Health, Human Performance & Leisure Studies, the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C, The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, and YMCA of the USA
Locations: (Day 1) Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History
Carmichael Auditorium, 1400 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC
(Day 2) Howard University Burr Gymnasium
2400 Sixth St. NW, Washington, DC
Dr. Edwin B. Henderson, known widely as the “Grandfather of Black Basketball,” a gifted basketball player, coach and promoter, organized a basketball team for the 12th Street Y that went on to dominate black basketball and become the first varsity team at Howard University in Washington. Nowhere has the emergence and birth of African Americans in basketball been more influential to the nation than in Metro Washington. It’s organizers, players, coaches and owners have had more influence on the high school, college and professional basketball game than any other basketball hotbed.
The conference will bring together historians, academics, fans and the public to share the evolution and accomplishments of early black basketball in American culture and life. The conference will be the first to examine early Black basketball history. More than 35 years ago, similar conferences and meetings on the Negro Baseball leagues led to broad public awareness, extensive scholarly research, and Hall of Fame recognition for Negro League and Afro-Latin baseball history. Likewise, it is the hope that this conference will serve to enlighten and expand a dialogue on a deserving, but widely unknown topic.
For more information, visit www.tinnerhill.org
Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards Dinner
Monday, November 15 at 6:30 PM
Eatonville Restaurant, 2121 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC
The Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award dinner to honor excellence for published works of poetry, non-fiction, and fiction by African American authors will be hosted this year by Terry McMillan author of Waiting to Exhale and the sequel (published this year), Getting to Happy.
Hurston/Wright Foundation is celebrating their 20th Anniversary. The foundation was founded by author Marita Golden and bibliofile Clyde McElvene and named for writers Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God) and Richard Wright (Native Son et al)
Personally, I was very impressed by the nominees for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Makes quite a reading list.
Fiction:
Bernardine Evaristo, Blonde Roots (Riverhead)
Percival Everett, I Am Not Sidney Poitier (Graywolf Press)
Chielo Zona Eze, The Trial of Robert Mugabe (Okri Books Inc.)
Victor LaValle, Big Machine (Spiegel & Grau)
Attica Locke, Black Water Rising (HarperCollins Publishers)
Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor (Doubleday)
Poetry:
Samiya Bashir, Gospel (Redbone Press)
Mitchell L. H. Douglas, Cooling Board: A Long Playing Poem (Red Hen Press)
Rita Dove, Sonata Mulattica (W.W. Norton & Company)
Haki R. Madhubuti, Liberation Narratives (Third World Press)
Nonfiction:
Betty DeRamus, Freedom by Any Means (Atria)
Wil Haywood, Sweet Thunder (Knopf)
Gwen Ifill, The Breakthrough (Doubleday)
Robin Kelley, Thelonious Monk (Free Press)
James A. Miller, Remembering Scottsboro (Princeton University Press)
William Julius Wilson, More than Just Race (W.W. Norton & Company)
For more information about the Hurston/Wright Foundation and its programs, visit www.hurstonwright.org or call 301/459-2108.
Bringing the field of dreams home
Anyone who knows me know I’m not a sports fan in the sense of spending Sundays glued to the tube, checking stats or scores unless it’s a championship final. I do get into the culture and theatrical elements of the game. Sunday, I attended my first baseball game in many moons at Nationals stadium. The Washington Nationals lost to the San Francisco Giants miserably. But game outcome did have any effect on my enjoyment of the ambiance and ballpark food. My Ben’s Chili Bowl hot dog and beer really hit the spot. The debate still continues or what was lost and gained for DC residents in bringing major league baseball back to the city with taxpayer money. But I have to say, that Nationals Stadium sure is real pretty!
My field trip was all in preparation for a project I’m working on with WHUT-TV Howard University Television — to collect Washington, DC baseball stories for an oral history to be included in Howard University’s American Archive repository. I’ve got my Zora hat on (photo: Zora Neale Hurston in NC at football game – credit Alex Rivera). I’m learning DC has a very unique baseball history (Negro Leagues, college and little leagues, the majors, the hearings) that’s had an impact on baseball as we know it today. But the only way to find out is to ask around.
WHUT’s oral history project is one of the outreach activities leading up to the WHUT broadcast of The Tenth Inning, Ken Burns’ follow up to the 9 inning/partBaseball series that aired on PBS in 1994. In other words, The Tenth Inning picks up where BASEBALL left off.
But for Washington, DC, our tenth inning marks a new beginning for baseball. How did we get here? You tell us. Bring your baseball story…
– Thursday, July 15 from 4 – 6 PM at the BatterUp Foundation/RBI event – Banneker Field (Georgia Ave. across from Howard University), or
– Saturday, July 31 from 10 AM to 1 PM, WHUT studios (email info.whut@gmail.com or call 202-806-3059)
The Day After the Earth Stood Still for LeBron James
Winning is a huge thing for me…. The major reason in my decision was the best opportunity for me to win, to win now and in the future also. I’ve done some great things in my seven years and I want to continue to do that.
–LeBron James on his decision to join the Miami Heat
Interesting the number one Google trend this morning is Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team; the same team, star MVP player LeBron James dumped on last night in an ESPN prime time special to pursue “winning” with the Miami Heat.
Per Google trends, Dan Gilbert is “on fire.” Cleveland Cavaliers trends #2, and LeBron James at the time of this writing is trending below “involuntary manslaughter.” [Ref. the verdict in the trial of the transit police officer in Oakland.]
Gilbert’s open letter to the fans is probably fueling the fire as well as a few LeBron jerseys being burned in effigy in Cleveland.
“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE”
Is this Gilbert’s throwing down the gauntlet before the “king”? How long will this feud last?
LeBron James performed a striptease for the press, the fans, and the team franchises resembling Mama Rose’s key line in the musical “Gypsy” that launches her daughter Louise’s career as Gypsy Rose Lee.
“Make them beg for more, and then don’t give it to them!”
One gets the feeling James knew this would be an ugly mess and decided to control the narrative by setting up a prime time special on ESPN. And for added damage control, included some human props from the Girls & Boys Clubs in Greenwich, CT (Wait! Not Ohio?!) — giving the NYC sports writers even more to salivate over until the final ax dropped on their heads.
Whoever is working with James on his narrative, obviously knows little about story structure. They should’ve been aware of the perils of trying to control their own media and narrative especially when you string everyone along for the ride. Look how great that worked for Tiger Woods. The drama has greater impact when the photographers and reporters are camped out outside the protagonist’s house and hounding him/her in parking lots. The protagonist gains some sympathy for being stalked by a pack of menacing werewolves.
I’d also like to see the numbers of newspaper sales today and past magazines covers like this one:
[Read the entire shameless and pathetic NY courting here. Maybe the real agenda was to spark tourism in the city. But come on folks!]
Heroes don’t pull out lines like “Winning is a huge thing for me.” (Oh, SNAP! to you NYC and Cleveland. Dude doesn’t dig fruit – apples or plums.) You didn’t hear lines like that come out of Luke Skywalker’s mouth. And though James’ decision means a little financial dip in his multi-million dollar salary, let’s not forget, Florida has no state taxes. So the sacrifice is missing to meet the requirements of a hero’s journey.
For now James is not the protagonist but more the star of a burlesque work-in-progress. The stage and costumes are crafted with only him in mind. The day after, he may just be the dramatic device for the city of Cleveland. With a championship win, Cleveland’s narrative may have a sweeter smell of success.
But since E-Notes is a narrative and basketball watcher, I’ll share his thoughts on the matter:
So who wins?
Tickets will be hot the first time Miami plays Cleveland in Cleveland.
The Lakers/Miami game will probably be shown on Christmas or the first day of Kwanzaa.
Money will be made and their will be hype going into the next N.B.A. season.
But here is what always happens –
– Coaches/bench players/and good defense wins championships.
– Miami has a very young coach. Players with big contracts have big egos. They have to be taught how to win.
As soon as Miami loses a couple of games next year, the media will jump on the team. They will write about how James made the wrong decision.
How the ball is too small to share. Meanwhile, look for a team with great chemistry to defeat Miami. Those teams are: Lakers, Celtics, Thunder and maybe even Chicago.
– There is always an N.B.A. rookie that has a major impact on the league; this year that could be Wall right here with the Wizards.
– And finally there are injuries. A player could get hurt in the pre-season and all the stuff we are talking about becomes nothing but paper.