The Avengers

I didn't have to ask Sweetie twice if he wanted to go to the movies today.  Total testosterone movie.  Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, The Black Widow, and Hawkeye team up to stop Loki.  You guys know who all these people are.  And Samuel L. Jackson as their fearless leader, Fury.

We went to the first non-3D showing at 1:15, and the theater was packed.  Hardly an empty seat in the place when we arrived at 1:15.  We managed to squeezed into the two seats at the top in the corner, which were better than the few seats down front, too close to the screen to watch without getting a pain in the neck.

The plot?  Does there have to be a plot when you have special effects and flying, crashing things?  It was a bit dark at the beginning, and too much talking, shouting orders, so I got a snooze.  They did break up the action with some frequent comic relief.  These are Marvel comic book characters, ya-know?  At the end of the movie, the audience applauded.

But I gotta love Samuel L. Jackson.  He has so many movies in the works, I can't see them all.  There was a time when I tried to keep up with his different hairdos.  He's had afros, and dreadlocs and jerri-curls, and most anything that a black man can have.  My favorite on him  is bald.  He has had so many hair variations that he started adding skin variations...scars, burns, wrinkles.  In this movie he has an eye-patch with a dreadful looking starburst of scars radiating from under it.  It's almost as mean as his face in The Dark Knight in 2008.

Anyway, I had to dig up my old chart.  It became impossible to keep it up, even with help from friends.

I give the Avengers three stars.

Samuel L Jackson Hairdo Rating Chart
Movie Title	Year Released	Character	Hair style	Sarah’s hairdo rating
Resurrecting the Champ	2007	Champ	locs	1
Snakes on a Plane	2006	Neville Flynn	bald	9
Freedomland	2006	Lorenzo Council	hat	3
The Man	2005	Derrick Vann	short locs	2
Star Wars:Episode III	2005	Mace Windu	bald	9
XXX2	2004	Agent Augustus Gibbons	short afro	5
Kill Bill	2003	The Organ Player
Blackout	2003	Mills
S.W.A.T.	2003	Lt. Dan “Hondo” Harrelson
Basic	2003	Drill Instructor West
XXX	2002	Agent Augustus Gibbons	short afro	5
House on Turk Street	2002	Jack Friar
Star Wars:  Episode II – Attack of the Clones	2002	Mace Windu	bald	9
Changing Lanes	2002	Doyle Gipson	short afro	5
Formula 51	2002	Elmo McElroy	long braids	4
The Caveman’s Valentine	2001	Romulus Ledbetter	dreadlocks	2
Unbreakable	2000	Elijah Price	“bed head” afro	1
Shaft	2000	John Shaft	bald	10
Rules of Engagement	2000	Colonel Terry L. Childers
Any Given Wednesday	2000	Willie Nutter
Deep Blue Sea	1999	Russell Franklin	black toupee	0
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace	1999	Mace Windu	bald	9
The Red Violin	1998	Charles Morritz	bald & thinning	3
The Negotiator	1998	Lt. Danny Roman
Jackie Brown	1997	Ordell Robbie	fried & died	1
Eve’s Bayou	1997	Louis Batiste	short afro	6
A Time to Kill	1996	Carl Lee Hailey	receding afro	4
Pulp Fiction	1994	Jules Winnfield	curl	1
Jungle Fever	1991	Gator Purify	Short	2

Mother's Day Special - 2012

For the Month of May, you can purchase the Kindle version of Motherless Child - stories from a life for 99 cents.

Imagine you gave a baby up for adoption forty years ago, and after years of trying to find her, she finds you. Now come the hard questions. She's healthy, beautiful, and successful, but she wants to know why you gave her away and why you didn't marry her father. And there is also the unspoken question of "What kind of black woman gives her baby away?" How do you explain to her that giving her away was the best gift you could offer?

This is my first published work, a coming-of-age-in-the-sixties-single-black-pregnant-and-on-the-way-to Germany, memoir.

Click here to purchase.

The Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Josie Henderson is a black marine biologist in a profession dominated by white men.  She's a free spirit held back by the bonds of a dysfunctional family, and a loving (white) husband who wants children.  She married him because he understood her passion for marine life.  Yet she is afraid to trust him with her family conflicts  because she thinks he doesn't "get" being black. 

Then along comes a black male marine biologist whom Josie thinks understands it all, the black thing, the sea and diving thing.  In trying to get everything she wants, Josie loses what she once thought was important. In the end she must return to family to restore meaning to her life.

Martha Southgate carries us through the lives of Josie, her brother, and parents, a loving family torn apart by alcoholism.  I found that I cared about all of the main characters even as I could see the worst was coming.  It's the kind of story that stays with you for a long time.



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Cutting for Stone

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I should have paid attention to how long this book was before I started reading on my Kindle, I might have paced myself better.

It's a wonderful epic that spans lifetimes across continents. The story is told by one of twin brothers born to a nun who dies in childbirth and to a surgeon who runs away. The title "Cutting for Stone" comes from the Hippocratic Oath which says in part, "I will not cut for stone," meaning a physician will not practice surgery. (The practice of medicine was different in ancient times.) The title also refers to the runaway surgeon, Thomas Stone.

Two physicians become foster parents to the twins and raise them at Missing (Mission) Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ghosh, the foster father told the boys their birth was a mystery to Thomas Stone, "like Joseph, clueless about Mary and the baby."

The author is a physician who fills the story with medical details. Just when I thought I had read more about obstetrics and gynecological surgery than I every wanted to know, the story moves on to volvulus and fistulas, and transplants, Oh My! Throw in a failed coup against Emperor Haile Selassie, and you have a really fast-paced page-turner of a story. Did I mention a plane hijack and an escape to the USA.

There is so much in this book about family devotion, betrayal, and forgiveness, it took my breath away.



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