Saturday, February 19, 2011

Isabel Wilkerson on book tour in Chapel Hill

Isabel Wilkerson, former national correspondent and bureau chief at The New York Times and the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, was at UNC-Chapel Hill last night to discuss her new book, "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration."

This is not a book review, since I'm still reading the book...a massive 600 pages, part sociological study that also tells the specific stories of three people who were part of the migration. But I had to share, especially since I was privileged to be there with my BFF Yvonne who is Ms Wilkerson's first cousin.

She talked for about an hour about the nearly six million black Americans who left the South in the 20th century due to the constraints of Jim Crow laws , hoping for freedom in the cities of the northern and western United States.


Then she signed books for over one hundred people. She even signed my Kindle...sorta.


And we had a photo-op, me, Yvonne, and Yvonne's sister's friends from Durham

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Green Hornet




I like comic book superhero movies. Superman, Batman, Spider-man, Iron Man, I've enjoyed them all. I expected The Green Hornet to be another one of the rich playboy turned protector of the innocent and down-trodden, a la Robert Downey, Jr. in Iron Man.

What I wasn't expecting was another stupid white guy movie. I should have checked the cast list before going off with Sweetie for our afternoon's entertainment. Seth Rogen would have been a big red flag. He was the guy who "Knocked Up" Katherine Heigl. And he played the same dufus who doesn't recognize his own classist, misogynist, racist tendencies. I thought Cameron Diaz selected better movies for herself. Slapstick reached a whole new level with martial arts, big cars, big guns, explosions, and crashes through skyscrapers. All in 3D. A cheap third dimension that barely had one person standing out from the background.

Sweetie gave it two stars for the one big laugh...front wheel drive. I give it one star.