Pray for your teacher friends. The load is heavy right now. Teaching in this political climate is a LOT.

This week's @altajournal.bsky.social Book Review features my Q & A with author Susana M. Morris about her new book Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler—which explores the worlds that shaped Butler and how they influenced her imagination. www.altaonline.com/books/nonfic...

Gratitude and love to Paul Yamazaki, City Lights's longtime book buyer, who will receive the Northern California Book Awards GROUNDBREAKER AWARD at their ceremony this Saturday, 2pm, held at the SF Main Library’s Koret Auditorium. It's free to attend. See you there? poetryflash.org/programs/?p=...

“Among Polidori’s…photographs, I identified places in my very neighborhood. I certainly never expected to stand elbow to elbow w/ tourists in the Met to look at images of these streets lined with humble homes. Only in ruins could they hang on these hallowed walls.” oxfordamerican.org/oa-now/what-...

Black Star: The Life and Work of Octavia Butler --essay by Michael A. Gonzales crimereads.com/black-star-t... via @crimereads.bsky.social @amistadbooks.bsky.social @lynellgeorge.bsky.social

Small crescent setting over Orleans street, New Orleans

After the rain, Royal and Dumaine, New Orleans

“It was like watching the development of a photograph in reverse: the moment my boyhood sensations became identifiable was the instant they disappeared.” — Keith McNally From “I Regret Almost Everything” #SundaySentence

#Baltimore #arts

Zócalo's latest miniseries explores L.A.'s Literary Public Square. Read from @davidulin.bsky.social on his journey from NYC to L.A., Brittany Menjivar & Sammy Loren on the "alt-lit" scene, @lynellgeorge.bsky.social on making literary community, and John Szabo on libraries. zps.la/LitLA

Many years ago, I set out to map out a collection of LA literary spots that held meaning. Many of those places are gone, but the connections — and memories — are still vividly alive. My latest for @zocalopublicsquare.bsky.social

Mal Waldron was born in New York City on this day in 1925. 📸 Frans Schellekens/Redferns, Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 1995

After losing the family home and studio in the Eaton Fire, John Outterbridge’s daughter, Tami, borrowed a page out of her father‘s artist guidebook, and took the disaster as a challenge to pull together community and make art. My latest for LA Times: www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

For Sidney Clifton, it had always been a dream to make things right. Her parents—poet Lucille & artist Fred—lost their family home, 40+ years ago due to foreclosure. In 2019, she reacquired the property: The Clifton House is now an artists’ creative hub. My latest: savingplaces.org/stories/lite...

On this day in 1958, Art Kane photographed 57 musicians at 17 East 126th Street in NYC for Esquire magazine. It was a Great Day in Harlem, 67 years ago today. Sonny Rollins is the only musician from this photo still living. #SonnyRollinsBridge

Just Released! This 60th anniversary set showcases lost recordings, archival photos & memory- unlocking ephemera with liner notes from the set’s producer, Alec Palao and me on the history of the old 5-4 and the revue’s whirlwind showcase here in LA just days before Watts lit up.

"There’s an intimacy and authority of place—of life—that energizes the [CAAM] show. 'Ode to ’Dena' showcases over two dozen artists of varying disciplines who have been in some way touched or shaped by the community.” @lynellgeorge.bsky.social: www.altaonline.com/dispatches/a... #Altadena

In my latest for Alta journal I write about “Ode to ‘ Dena,” a sweeping exhibition now up at CAAM the traces, the deep, rooted history of the African-American, artistic community in Altadena www.altaonline.com/preview/disp...

VROMAN'S SUMMER SALE JULY 26 - AUGUST 3 The Store’s annual Summer Sale starts on this Saturday, July 26th! Located upstairs in the Event Space. Sticker prices up to 75% off original price + an additional 40% off at the register! All sales are final. May not be combined with other discounts.

“This book is unique among the books written about #OctaviaEButler because of @lynellgeorge.bsky.social's envisioning of Butler’s daily life. It’s an opportunity to get to know Butler and an invitation to pay attention to the world as she did.” ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/07/08/a... #BookSky

Malcolm-Jamal Warner has died, according to multiple reports. He was 54

“I’ve sown a lot of beautiful chaos,” he says. “And a lot of it not so beautiful.” www.nola.com/news/katrina...

"Sixty years ago, the Stax Revue landed in Los Angeles, mere days before Watts lit up in a historic rebellion that captured the world’s attention. The performers had been scheduled for two nights in early August 1965 at the 5/4 Ballroom," @lynellgeorge.bsky.social. www.instagram.com/p/DLQVTHwygxy/

"Working for much of her career with John Martin of Black Sparrow Press, [Wanda] Coleman’s earlier books are the elegant hardbacks of Black Sparrow’s heyday, many adorned with cover art by Barbara Martin, John’s wife." www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/153...

Even now, I can visualize Wanda Coleman at podiums cradling hardcover Black Sparrow editions of her work. "He began collecting first editions by writers he admired....That collection spawned Black Sparrow: He sold the books in 1965 to UC Santa Barbara for $50,000 & started the publishing company."

After Bass spoke with what I assume is a DHS rep, they packed shit up and headed out. The whole neighborhood turned out to chase them out of the park. Some fruit was thrown, alot of yelling

NEW YORK (AP) — Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary turned prize-winning TV journalist, has died at 91.

Remembering Octavia. Born #OTD in 1947.

Octavia E Butler would have turned 78 today. Here are a few ways to celebrate her imprint and literary legacy. www.pasadenanow.com/weekendr/pas...

“[Kaye] says not only is she not going to the ceremony, she’s declining induction into the Rock Hall because it doesn’t reflect the spirit of teamwork that went into her career as a session musician.” www.stereogum.com/2312231/caro...

"i asked grok" "i asked chagpt" yeah well I asked a rare books librarian and they found things I didn’t even know I was looking for, while answering questions about provenance

Norma Swenson, who was a proponent of natural childbirth when she joined a group that produced what would become the feminist health classic, “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” died last month. She was 93.

“I remember telling Joan, ‘You have a lifestyle not a life.’” — Noel Parmentel From “Didion & Babitz” by Lili Anolik #SundaySentence

Breaking News: The U.S. military is deploying a battalion of 700 Marines to Los Angeles amid ongoing protests to immigration raids. Follow live updates.

Thanks for all the joy. www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

"To the fans, all the fans out that made one song from War their favorite song, remember this: Share that song with somebody else and we'll unite the world. Share the song that you love with War around the world." www.audacy.com/knxnews/news...

Who jumped when the WatchDuty app started up this afternoon. 🔥

Me begging people to keep handwritten calendars, notebooks, journals, etc... Some of Rosa Parks' personal papers are in the article below. Recently saw exhibits with notebooks containing ideas of Alvin Ailey & James Baldwin. It's important to write things down. "Spelling is a spell." -Erykah Badu

I just don't know if I could live anywhere else

“Unlike paintings or novels, comics hit the beholder with a double whammy of visual & verbal expression, and the result can electrify as swiftly as it can alienate….Crumb’s Dürer-level hand is attached to a mind that rages & leers as often as it probes and theorizes. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/b...

Next Saturday at Reparations Club, editor Katie Mitchell will be discussing her new book “Prose to the People,” which is decades-spanning homage to Black bookstores across the nation. EsoWon Bookstore co-founder James Fugate will be in attendance, sharing lively stories about LA & the book business.

“Ms. Beeman was especially excited when she uncovered that Eugenie Grambois, the pope’s great-grandmother, had been baptized in 1840 at St. Louis Cathedral, the spired basilica in the heart of the French Quarter that is among the city’s most recognizable landmarks.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/u...

Nature's flash, Jackson Square, 1am, New Orleans

So proud of the Philadelphia Daily News, which turned 100 this March, and which today saw its groundbreaking columnist, the late Chuck Stone, win a special citation #Pulitzer for his groundbreaking work on topics such as civil rights www.inquirer.com/news/philade...

Just a neverending cavalcade of stupid

Congratulations to Katie Mitchell. She tapped into a story that was left on the margins. Eso Won’s James Fugate & the dear Mayme Clayton featured here in this NYT Book Review Sunday featured review👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾. Hooray for Power to the People.” We’ll be celebrating in LA. May 17 Stay tuned for details.

“Jeddum Fishum” remembered in the NYT. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/26/a...

“Like a planchette moving pell-mell across an Ouija board, Toop’s narrative switches paths, topics, leaps into adjacent backstory. We lean toward where his curious spirit takes him.” My latest for @altajournal.bsky.social www.altaonline.com/preview/cali...