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[externaltext]

i spent my thanksgiving with my sister and her various circles. nice quiet day off with lots of good food items. observing other people's wacky families can sometimes make you appreciate your own.

i actually spent the most time today reading james baldwin, just above my head, in corners at my hosts' houses. baldwin was so fucking prescient, a

Comments

[lizdefiance]

dude, have you seen the price of the ticket? it's a fucking good documtary about his life and death and work. i saw it years ago at the public library in one of those little booths on a tiny tv, wearing headphones, and it was still great.

[naot]

wow. james baldwin is amazing. what he writes is so true and flows so smoothly. like buttah. i don't know that book. i'm trying to find "sonny's blues" to bring to you but i'm not sure where my copy is.

my mom used to call her sister yuki and they later named a guinea pig in honor of that. how could i have forgotten?

[gordonzola]

Just above my Head is actually my favorite Baldwin novel. It just may be time to re-read it. In a lot of ways i think it's his most complex and subtle book. I still think he was also one of the best essayists ever. I was very sad when I finished all his works also.

I was lucky enough to take a whole Baldwin Course when I was in college with an English professor who was rather obsessed by him. We even watched a video of his funeral service in NYC.

[externaltext]

wow. lucky. when cornel west was still at harvard, he taught a class on baldwin and lorraine hansberry. i wish the timing had worked out that i could have taken it.

i think just above my head is tied with another country for my favorite one.

[meehae]

have you tried kimchi together with turkey? oh man. and with spaghetti. mmmmm. your user icon rules. i wanna hang out with you. xo

[externaltext]

man, kimchi is good with EVERYTHING. yum yum. i used to hate it as a kid, isn't that crazy? i wanna hang out with you too. maybe i'll come visit the west coast soon.

How I found Baldwin

[insearch]

Just above my head, in the gallery's archives, is the Library of America edition of Baldwin's collected essays. I came across his writing through the artwork of Glenn Ligon, one of the artists we represent. He has made a series of paintings, drawings, and prints that incorporate fragments of text from "Stranger in the Village." I like the subjectivity in Baldwin's writing, the fact that there's a voice there.