Things I Saw This Week - Friday, December 10

TISTW is a collection of reads, visuals, and music, curated by Elle Perry, a Memphis-based journalist, featuring art and culture, food, cities, and more. (Issue No. 130)

Elle Perry

Dec 10, 2021

Yes, please.

Jude Atwood @JudeAtwood

TILDA SWINTON AS LIBRARIES: a thread Tilda Swinton as Texas Southern University's Library Learning Center

Renowned actress Tilda Swinton wearing an angular periwinkle shirt and skirt.

Art

Cultural critic, musician, and journalist Greg Tate recently died at the age of 64. Many beautiful tributes were published in his honor.

Hanif Abdurraqib @NifMuhammad

I wrote this, in praise of Greg Tate. 68to05.com/essays/a-note-…

Pitchfork @pitchfork

Greg Tate was spectral, mythical, legendary—a giant among critics, the godfather of hip-hop journalism, a paragon of freedom and abundant Blackness

There Will Never Be Another Greg TateThe pioneering critic, who passed away earlier this week at age 64, expressed the multitudes of Black art with unparalleled intensity and wit.p4k.in

hua hsu @huahsu

rip greg tate... impossible to mimic, though we all tried... a giant, a good and big-hearted person, the realest one... wrote this in 2016 and could have easily written 100,000 more words about his influence on us

The Critic Who Convinced Me That Criticism Could Be ArtHua Hsu writes about the Village Voice cultural critic Greg Tate, the author of “Flyboy in the Buttermilk,” whose new book, “Flyboy 2,” came out this month.newyorker.com

Deborah E. McDowell @dem8z

“I realized that the meaning of being Black is summed up in who comes to bury you, who gathers in your name after you’re gone,” he wrote, “what they have to say about how you loved, and how you were loved in return.” AND HE WAS LOVED!!

Greg Tate (c. 1958–2021)Cultural critic Greg Tate, whose incandescent and incisive writing, particularly on topics surrounding Black American culture, influenced a generation, died today of undisclosed causes at the age of sixty-four. The news was confirmed by his publisher, Duke University Press. A tremendously talented g…artforum.com

In films to look forward to news, “Jezebel” director and actress Numa Perrier will produce and star in an Audre Lorde biopic, “The Erotic.”

Born February 18, 1934, and sharing a birthday with Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde was raised in Harlem to Grenadian immigrants. She did not speak until the age of 5 and then did so through poems. She worked as a librarian for several years before publishing her first volume of poetry The First Cities. She continued to write prolifically with over a dozen publications that were deeply personal while challenging the politics of race, identity, and feminism.
A self declared “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”, Audre Lorde was the 1991 New York Poet Laureate. Numerous documentaries on her life exist including The Berlin Years and Litany for Survival. The Erotic marks the first scripted feature film based on the life, loves, and mischief of Audre Lorde and will be accompanied by an immersive art installation.

And, The New Yorker has the story of “The Kansas City School That Became a Stop for R. & B. Performers.”