“Mark Ruffin’s Bebop Fairy Tales captures the heart and soul of the American experience during the 20th century with humor, wit and accuracy, just like the solos of the jazz musicians he uses as his artistic muse. It’s the best kind of history: poetic, noetic and hip.” – Ben Sidran, Musician, Broadcaster, Author of “The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma”.
“The world needs Mark Ruffin’s Bebop Fairy Tales now more than ever. When he writes, The rhythm of the game allows her to interact with her husband without disturbing his enjoyment, I thought he was channeling me and how I learned to love baseball from Dexter Gordon. Baseball, Bebop, the drama of life, all together here. Yes, Bebop is the music of the future and these fairy tales teach us the truth.” – Maxine Gordon, Author of “Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon”
Born: August 2, 1924 – Harlem, New York, U.S.
Died: December 1, 1987 (aged 63) – Saint-Paul de Vence, France
Occupation: Writer, Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Activist
Baldwin spent an impoverished boyhood in Harlem and at 14 became a preacher in the Fireside Pentecostal Church. His first two novels, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), reflecting his experience as a young preacher, and Giovanni’s Room (1956), which dealt with his homosexuality, were written while he lived in Paris. He returned to the United States in 1957 and participated in the civil-rights movement, later returning to France where he lived for the remainder of his life.
Another Country (1962), a bitter novel about sexual relations and racial tension, received critical acclaim, as did the publication of the perceptive essays in The Fire Next Time (1963). His eloquence and unsparing honesty made Baldwin one of the most influential authors of his time. (more…)
b. 1915
Born in Washington, D.C., Elizabeth Catlett studied art under Grant Wood at the University of Iowa, then taught at Hampton University in Virginia. She married artist Charles White in 1941. They lived in New
York, where they mingled with other intellectuals and artists, including Jacob Lawrence and Langston Hughes.
In 1946 Catlett received a Rosenwald Fellowship, and she and White visited Mexico, where they studied painting, sculpture, and lithography and worked with Taller de Grafica Popular, a socially active artists’ collective. The following year they divorced, but Catlett remained in Mexico City, working with some of the most distinguished printmakers of the city. In 1962, she married painter-engraver Francisco Mora and made Mexico her home.
Today, Catlett continues to express a profound concern for the plight of women and the poor through her paintings and sculptures in marble, wood, and terra-cotta.