Things I Saw This Week - Friday, October 22

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. 123)

Oct 22, 2021

Art

The fifth and final season of “Insecure” premieres on HBO on Sunday night. Consequence of Sound (where I once was an editor!) talks to Issa Rae, BJ The Chicago Kid, and Victoria Monét about the show’s most impactful music moments over the years.

The show’s music supervisor, Kier Lehman, has credits including “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” “Black Lightning,” “Being Mary Jane,” and “Entourage.” (I am a fan of his work.)

Solange has teamed up with Atlanta-based For Keeps Books to offer a free library of rare, out-of-print books written by Black authors. It kicked off last Friday.

Saint Heron, the creative studio of musician Solange Knowles, is launching a public library of collector’s-edition books by or spotlighting Black poets, visual artists, designers, and luminaries. Starting this Monday, readers will be invited to borrow one of 50 titles completely free of charge: with shipping and return postage covered, there will be no expenses for borrowers, who can enjoy the books for research, study, and personal discovery for 45 days.

Cities

From Smithsonian magazine: “How Memphis Created the Nation’s Most Innovative Public Library.”

From WBEZ Chicago: “Independent Black cinema got its start on Chicago’s South Side.”

From NPR: “Drummer and local legend Mel Brown endures as the humble godfather of Portland jazz.”

Culture

This is how New Zealand musicians are trying to save a Maori language from extinction.

Food

KQED declares San Jose the Bay Area’s “great immigrant food city.”

According to Chavez, food hubs like the predominantly Mexican and Vietnamese enclaves of East San Jose came into being, in large part, because those neighborhoods were the only areas in San Jose where working-class immigrants and refugees could afford to live and open businesses. “San Jose is this kind of hidden gem of food, just because of the nature of all of the low-income communities that have been marginalized into these pockets of [the city],” she says.

Especially good olive oil comes from Rameh.

While southern Spain and southeastern Italy are now the biggest commercial olive-oil-producing regions in the world, evidence suggests that the land surrounding the Sea of Galilee — where Rameh sits on the slopes of Mount Haidar — was once the world’s most important olive region. Recent research indicates it was the site of the earliest olive cultivation, too, dating back to 5000 B.C.
Today, about 2,000 acres of centuries-old olive trees surround Rameh in every direction — a green sea, the rustle of leaves akin to waves. In newspaper articles, books and even poems, the olives are described as “the best you ever laid eyes on,” and the village itself as “the queen of Palestinian oil.”