the beginning of write up of the spook who sat by the door.



I became interested in this film because of the title. It was something I heard incidentally while leaving one of my favorite jazz bars, St. Nick’s Pub, on 147th St in Harlem, NY. I heard the name mentioned in glowing tones to recommend a new Black video rental place in the area. The woman who told me about it seemed surprised that I had never heard of this movie. I was I intrigued because she wouldn’t tell me what it was about she just said “rent it, borrow it, or even steal it then watch it and watch it again. Then you can call and thank me.”. I began my search for this movie from that day.
My first inquiries brought back the name Sam Greenlee. He was born 1930 in Chicago, IL. He was an author, poet, screenwriter, journalist and talk show host. He was also employed with the US information agency as a foreign services officer. He served in Iraq, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Greece. He worked there for seven years and in 1958 was awarded the Meritorius Service Award for work accomplished during the Baghdad Revolution. His novel upon which this movie was based was an underground success. It was published in 1968. He went on to adapt the screenplay with the help of Melvin Clay.
The movie itself was produced by Sam Greenlee and it stands as a testament to the power of guerilla filmmaking. They were many setbacks in production. The crew hadn’t the permits for any of the shots done in Chicago. The mayor at the time was against the production of this film. Most of the shooting happened in Gary, Indiana.
The protagonist of the movie and novel is a man who is appointed to the CIA as a political maneuver to ensure the re-election of the encumbant Senator. The Senetor felt that he was losing the “Black vote” and needed something to remind “those people” that he was the best friend they had in Washington. The brilliant idea is suggested the election ensured and the story progresses. Dan Freeman withstands the rigourous training and the thinly veiled insults to his humanity by the agency. He prevails over the systematic degradation that seemed to be so entwined with every single interaction within the CIA. Te actor does his best to imbue the character with the queit strength tof the Uncle Tom characterization. He is careful to maintain the carefully blank gaze and humble tones. I wondered here if the writer’s prior experiences within a US government agency gave him that particular sort of inside knowledge. I wasn’t surprised to see his portrayal of the institution as place to learn not to advance. The audience is supposed to identify with Freeman. I appreciated that while he was most capable in this movie. He had all the plans and knowledge but it wasn’t without explanation. As the audience you were aware of how he ha came to this knowledge. I also appreciated that they took their time to introduce Freeman as the one to watch among the many. By not making him noticeable just a part of the back among the other candidates for the CIA tells of what kind of operative he would be.

translation in anglophonics/ a beginning of a paper I am writing




I was born on the panting breath of a woman chasing her man and this dream of this country of opportunity. Learning that the sun could shine brightly over a cold cruel landscape was one of this countries first lessons to my mother. Hard, thankless work was another lesson learned. The sweat of exhaustion on her lips a bitter taste as she brought me screaming to this world.

I am not Jamaican enough for Jamaica. I wasn't born on its soil. I do not have that dark disc of skin scarred from a burnt needles immunizing prick. I am not American enough to not feel like an imposter when I mark indelibly African American when those forms that need that ever-important demographic question answered. Language is a clear line that marks off the territories where I stand on the fringes.

I sit on the edge space where I can understand the lilting speech, make my spine liquid to a steady rhythm but I dare not always claim Jamaica I fear being dismissed as a Yankee imposter. I can speak with ringing professionalism without accent or "whitely brightly and sprightly" as I can't help but think of it. I hate that I am better heard when I employ these carefully polished tones. When I learned to use them was as child in Queens.

I knew even as a child that my mother didn't speak as the other mothers did in the largely white suburb where we lived when I was very young. I could see their eyes glaze over and her meaning while quite clear to me for them couldn't be heard past her foreignness. I knew that speaking was best heard by mimicking the folks on television. I have always had an ear for music. It took only learning the flat discordant notes of homogenized speak.

We moved to the ENY section of Brooklyn when I was 8. This was where I learned that there was a black way to speak. I also learned that I was not doing it. I also learned that anyone who spoke as my mother or father did were coconuts that fell off the banana boat. I learned a new melody. The graphic tones of Black-isms that were part southern softness augmented by the constant low level of stress that is urban life set the immediacy of hip hop.

What was once two tongues had become three. I had learned that being foreign was private. I learned that "whitely, brightly, sprightly" was for teachers. It didn't take me long to figure out that they would treat me differently from my peers because of it. I learned that lesson from the way their eyes would meet and lock over my classmate’s heads when they would yell their exuberance in the playground at recess. In class when their eyes would register surprise when I used words they didn't expect. My peers could understand these words I just feel they were unheard and not encouraged. On the street to avoid becoming a target learning that rhythm that spilled from all the mouths around me was important to survival.

Yet as much as I have learned to be a part of these worlds. I am always asked at by some observant person based on phrase that had a carribean slant, where are you from?

Where am I from? Where is my homeland? Is it the place I was born, the language that I speak, the culture that I am allowed to claim?

This is my life.
I have decided to embark on some new projects. I have begun collecting interviews for a documentarjy that I am producing to showcase women artists.

Distaff Descant.


Distaff- adj : characteristic of or peculiar to a woman; "female sensitiveness"; "female suffrage" [syn: female] n 1: the sphere of work by women 2: the staff on which wool or flax is wound before spinning

In hebrew pelek "a circle"

Descant-
A discussion or discourse on a theme.


Women work is creation, transformation and sustanance. To create is to take the raw materials of life and shape them in to being. bearing children or nations on our back we do this amid great adversity. At times even controversially but always with the intention of keeping the circle of creation unbroken. Always affirming the life that we live and thAt which we live beyond our individual years.

Women bear a world that does not always mean them well. Through our bodies we restructure the world, swell borders and redefine margins. In this aspect the act of creation through the transfor