thestoriessheshared

[thestoriessheshared]

/ Walter Sanders, A scene from the Streets, Paris, France, 1959

[thestoriessheshared]

Michael Jackson photographed by Steve Schapiro on Cher - Aired: March 16, 1975

[thestoriessheshared]

[thestoriessheshared]

“Right now, you may not want to feel anything. Maybe you never wanted to feel anything and, maybe, it’s not me you want to be speak about these things. But feel something you obviously did. 

Look, you had a beautiful friendship—maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away or pray that their sons land on their feet. But I am not such a parent. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster that we go bankrupt by the age of 30 and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!

Have I spoken out of turn? Then, I’ll say one more thing—it'll clear the air. I may have come close, but I never had what you two have. Something always held me back or stood in the way. How you live your life is your business. Just remember our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once, and before you know it, your hearts worn out. And as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there's sorrow, pain—don't kill it and with it the joy you felt.”

[thestoriessheshared]

"If I am not the nigger, and if it's true that your invention reveals you, then who is the nigger? ... Well, he's unnecessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. I'm going to give you your problem back: You're the nigger, baby, it isn't me."

[thestoriessheshared]

‘Birdlegs & Pauline with The Versatility Birds’ album cover, circa 1964 (source: The Fresh Music Page)

Birdlegs & Pauline

‘Birdlegs & Pauline’ was a husband-and-wife R&B duo formed in the early 1960s by Pauline Shivers Banks (b. 28 April 1933, Memphis, Tennessee, USA) and Sidney 'Birdlegs' Banks  (b. 13 October 1929, Chicago, Illinois, USA). This musical couple from Rockford, Illinois rose to prominence with their hit single, 'Spring,' which reached the Top 20 on the national R&B charts and received widespread airplay in 1963. Before, Sidney had been performing for nearly ten years, and Pauline was well-known on Chicago’s north side for her exceptional voice.

Because of the success of their record, Pauline and Sydney were able to perform on the same stages as BB King and Tina Turner. They toured with the Versatility Birds, a female group, and a backup band led by Mack and Floyd Murphy, who later worked with the Blues Brothers.The pair also went on to record an album for Cuca Records, but by the time  the album was released in 1964, there was little interest in the group.

The couple divorced in the late 1960s, and Pauline, under the stage name ‘Pauline Shivers,’ recorded a few songs for the Chicago-based Opex label before leaving the music scene entirely. She eventually became a devoted member of her church, serving as an outstanding soloist and youth choir director at Apostolic Faith Church in Chicago until her death in 1997. Sydney, a rare one-and-done hit artist, never recorded again, and lived peacefully with his wife and family until his death in 2007.

Sources: Biography - Birdlegs & Pauline and their Versatility Birds (All Music) Pauline Shivers (The Fresh Music Page) Sidney Banks Obituary

[thestoriessheshared]

Has anyone else been watching My Brilliant Friend on HBO? The show is as riveting as it is jarring. I finished season one last week and about to start the second season today.

[thestoriessheshared]

We tend to, as human beings, our impulse is, once we know, once we have the answer, we move on. So we’re constantly moving from one thing to the other. I would rather inhabit the question, or dwell. For me, that is the place I want to live in.

American poet Mary Ruefle in a wonderful conversation with David Naimon.

[thestoriessheshared]

Individualism is as American as baseball, hot dogs, and the fourth of July. We are a nation created by individualists. Those who willfully came here forsook their homelands and kin seeking something better for themselves. They came to found a new political order rooted in personal freedom. They came to realize the promise of individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

David G. Myers, The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty

[thestoriessheshared]

America...is a nation of men who never grew up. With notable exceptions the American boy remains a boy to the end of his days, faithful to the old school tie and all that sort of thing.

John Tunis, Competition

[thestoriessheshared]

There is no such thing as being non-political. Just by making a decision to stay out of politics you are making the decision to allow others to shape politics and exert power over you. And if you are alienated from the current political system, then just by staying out of it you do nothing to change it, you simply entrench it.

Joan Kirner, the first female Premier of Victoria, Australia

[thestoriessheshared]

“For I am—or I was—one of those people who pride themselves in on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all—a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named—but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not. This is certainly what my decision, made so long ago in Joey’s bed, came to. I had decided to allow no room in the universe for something which shamed and frightened me. I succeeded very well—by not looking at the universe, by not looking at myself, by remaining, in effect, in constant motion.”

― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

[thestoriessheshared]

The multitude of Paris seems to be dressed in blue every day but Sunday, when, for the most part, they put on an unbelievably festive black.

— James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

[thestoriessheshared]

And yet–when one begins to search for the crucial, the definitive moment, the moment which current all others, one finds oneself pressing, in great pain, through a maze of false signals and abruptly locking doors.

— James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

[thestoriessheshared]

When I was a young girl, I wanted to be like my Mom. She seemed so big in my little world, She was both the storm and the calm.

If she was not gone for hours within a day, My Mom would be locked away in her room. The walls are yellow and there’s many ashtrays, The smoke is covered with cheap perfume.

My Mom would sometimes bake sweets after supper, And always fed my brother nice and plump. But one time I found a pipe under some clutter, My Mother found me and I was struck.

My friends and I pretended candy sticks were smokes, We inhaled, then scream, “We’re high!” My Father told my Mom about our jokes, Something about actions and all-seeing eyes.

Then one day my Mom left and never came back. I heard her say she couldn’t take it anymore. Despite my Father’s pleads, she packed, And left out the front door.

The world takes and gives, And there is those it tears apart. But sometimes it is hard to forgive, When it is people who stab the heart.

[thestoriessheshared]

[thestoriessheshared]

Rosy morning porthole view.