The Best Of Billie

from 4/22/06 from pseudo-intellectualism

Bill Murray is great, but Billie Holiday is at the top of the Bill(ie) charts. Steve, aka "secret agent man," Schwartz, my tech gumba at my current school, made arrangements for a group of middle schoolers to do a phone interview with a friend of his who knew Billie pretty well. This gave me an opportunity to delve deeply into Billie's digital biography. What do the TC clones say, "Dig deep?" Or do they search for a teachable moment? One jewel that I found online was her 1930 Harlem census listing from ancestry.com (She's Eleanor Fagan, her mother is Sadie). I bought a DVD about her at the well stocked B&N in Yonkers (on sale no less for about $12). I used the images from the DVD to put together a couple of poster resources so the kids can familiarize themselves more about her. The image above is early Billie. Dig the pants on tenor great Ben Webster on the left. I also bought a beautifully illustrated (Jerry Pinkney) book about her song "God Bless The Child." It came with a CD of the song as well. I scanned the images and did my best to create a karoke version of it as a slide show.

The goggle video version of the linked slide show was posted on 1/29/08

Google Maps: Billie Holiday

an example of what's on my google map of harlem

Strange Fruit

originally from 4/23/06 now with google video version of the linked slide show

Listening to Strange Fruit reminded me of some very powerful passages from Striver's Row where Kevin Baker provides the background for Elijah Muhammed's conversion to the Muslim faith. The scenes take place in Elijah's (born Elijah Poole) hometown of Sandersville, Georgia where he comes upon the sights of ritualistic lynchings. Later he would see postcards of these lynchings along with packets of fabric of the clothing of those murdered and other "memorabilia" for sale in local stores. It provides the impetus or his move to Detroit. I combined some of these archived images with Billie's version of Strange Fruit. Beware of the graphic nature. Many of the images come from this excellent sight called withoutsanctuary. The images include lynchings of perceived non-black outside agitators as well. There is also a new powerful film on the murder of Emmett Till (emmetttillstory). The library of congress has series on the anti-lynching crusades of the early 1900's.The pbs site also has a story on the show it produced on the fasscinating history of the song Strange Fruit

God Bless The Child

originally from pseudo-intellectualism from 2/21/07
a karaoke (with Billie) movie version of the beautifully illustrated Pinkney book on "God Bless The Child"