Southern Illinois University Edwardsville/Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club/East St. Louis Higher Education Center: 618 650-3991; eredmon@siue.edu
TO: All Media; Art, Dance, English & Music Departments; Poets & Writers
November 17, “2009”: “Break Word” with EBR Writers Club & Friends . . .
East Saint Louis, IL—“2009: Reflections & Projections in Poetry, Dance, Jazz, and Visuals”—a feature of the Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club’s annual “Break Word with the World” program—will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 6:00 p.m. in Bldg. D of the SIUE/East St. Louis Higher Education Center, 601 J.R. Thompson Drive. The public is invited to this free event.
Featured Poets/Performers will include members of the Soular Systems Ensemble— Roscoe Crenshaw, Susan Lively, Charlois Lumpkin, Darlene Roy, and Eugene B. Redmond—along with these rich voices: Michael Castro, K. Curtis Lyle, Patricia Merritt, Jeffrey Skoblow, Lena J. Weathers, and Treasure Williams. “2009” will also feature an open mic segment.
The “2009 Experience in Dance,” offered by SIUE/ESL’s Center for the Performing Arts (directed by Theo Jamison), will also be presented, along with “Michael’s Magic, Miles’ Smiles, Motown’s 50th, Michelle’s Show-&-Tell & Other 2009 ‘Milestones,’” a mixed media exhibit of “festivals & funerals.”
Curated by Alfred Henderson II, an SIUE graduate student and special assistant to Eugene B. Redmond, the exhibit will feature photos, posters, newspapers, magazines, art work, book and (LP) album covers, t-shirts, and other memorabilia from the EBR Collection.
Rounding out “2009,” will be “Jazz to the 2009th Degree,” an eclectic repertory from the East St. Louis Senior High School Concert Band, directed by Delano Redmond.
The Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club, founded in 1986 and named for East St. Louis’ Poet Laureate, is enjoying its 23rd year. All writers are welcome to meetings, held at the SIUE/ESL Center on the first and third Tuesday, September through May. Club Trustees include Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Avery Brooks, Walter Mosley, Quincy Troupe, Jerry Ward Jr., and Dr. Lena J. Weathers. Darlene Roy is president.
Besides the Club, other sponsors of “2009” include “Drumvoices Revue,” SIUE, Black River Writers Press, and the East St. Louis Cultural Revival Campaign Committee.
For more information about the Writers Club or area cultural-literary activities, call 618 650-3991 or write the group at P.O. Box 6165, East St. Louis, Illinois 62201; eredmon@siue.edu.
“Experience is something you can’t get for nothing.”
At five o’clock this evening, I had stepped out of Aldi’s to wait for the bus to take me to campus, and then I looked up into the sky. Actually, I didn’t have to look up into the sky because everywhere around me already showed what had given me the kind of unexpected dread: it was very dark. It was not just an evening dark, but a pitch black appearance of night. I looked at my watch, and it was still five o’clock. For a moment, I thought that my watch had stopped, I had missed the bus, and I was stranded again in town, especially since everyone seemed to observe me with some kind of suppressed amusement as I stood at the bus stop. Actually, they were not looking at me. I have now classed it with the same standard response of momentary notice that I get every time I find myself standing in a public place, especially alone, and carrying two bags of groceries.
The Halloween weekend went without incident, mostly because I later found out that it was seen mostly as a holiday for children and not for serious adults. I noticed this kind of indifference early enough in my apartment from my flatmates who had promised not to leave the front light on – a sign for the roaming kids that the house was closed for trick-or-treating. On Friday, I had gone into town late in the evening with a friend, and noticed how creatively many houses decorated their front porches with skeletons, ghouls and other scary stuff, including carved pumpkins with lights in them. There were kids on the road going to different houses in little plastic bags searching for candy. On their heels were parents and older ones who, as I was told, were there to keep their wards/siblings safe from prowling pranksters or children kidnappers. According to my friend, it wasn’t always like this. “Growing up in the 70s, there was not much in the news about kidnappings and the likes like we have today, and it wasn’t because the country was any safer, but because the news circuit was not as paranoid.” She said. “We went out at night trick-or-treating, and came back at dawn, alone and without our parents, and it was much more fun.”
At her own house, where she lives with her mother, a professor from the University, the front porch light was also turned off, and the only glow outside were two carved lighted pumpkins. We rang the doorbell and she went to hide behind one of the shrubs while I put up the shrillest imitation of children as soon as her mother approached the door from inside the house, and said “trick-or-treat!” If she was amused by our prank as soon as she opened the door, I couldn’t notice it as much as I saw her urgency to return to the basement where she was working on the computer. In short, I could say that for many people with even a modicum of maturity, especially those without preteen children, Halloween has become nothing but just a weekend of lights and irritating kids.
In the end, the news wasn’t so enticing anyway. The parade started late, the costumes were not so spectacular, and it was too dark to take good pictures. So there. The only pictures I will boast of from the All Saints Weekend were the ones I took some days before then, while messing around with an old mask. And of course with the large witch hat that I tried on while at Prof Rudy’s house on Sunday. His wife had worn it in the house during their bridge-playing session, and was gracious enough to lend me for a few seconds photo opportunity. She looked better in it though, and I wish I could put up her picture instead of mine. But without her permission, how could I? I think the main reason why I didn’t eventually dress up as a Pirate of the Carribbean was because I didn’t do my shopping early enough. And by the time I got to Khol’s on Friday, all they had were children’s costumes, and the workers looked at me strangely when I asked them if they had anything for adults to wear on Halloween. Oh well, I’m not a kid anymore. Or am I?
“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.“