September: Perfect

"All the months are crude experiments, out of which the perfect September is made." -Virginia Woolf

NOTES:

This month these reviews got hijacked by Hollywood. I was researching locations for a story and this happened. Kevin Hart once said, "Hollywood. It's undefeated."

But I'm moving on. There's always San Francisco, Boston, Portland, Maine, and Stockton, California. Great stories everywhere you look, but in the best stories the location always tries to elbow the protagonist aside. It's like real life that way. Have a wonderful autumn.

BOOKS: "Everybody Knows" by Jordan Harper

Few novels rattle me. "Everybody Knows" is a pulp fiction concussion. I'm not sure I can describe my reactions to this book. I can tell you one thing for sure: Jordan Harper's novel will be added to the short list of great Hollywood novels.

"Everybody Knows" was chosen as a New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year. It was also an Editors' Choice Selection for the New York Times Book Review, and was nominated for an Anthony Award and a Barry Award.

It's a book that echoes with headline stories and characters recognizable from our recent past and it seems to incorporate and devour all past Hollywood pulp novels.

I could feel those past novels reaching out through this book. Raymond Chandler & Nathaniel West & Gregory Dunne & many other authors' sensibilities and concerns are here.

It's not perfect. It doesn't have to be. What it does is grab all the lies and corruption we feel around us and hold it up to the light for a moment before it turns to ash.

Harper is a television producer, the editor of a literary magazine that features pulp short stories, a short story writer, a TV writer/screenwriter, and a novelist of three other pulp fiction novels.

This book is violent and not for everyone. If you love the gasoline-on-water rainbow sheen of Hollywood, this is your book.

SCREENS: "Hollywood Black" directed by Justin Simien, based on the book by Donald Bogle

This four-part series based on the historian Donald Bogle's book "Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretative History of Blacks in Films" was directed by Justin Simien and describes his personal journey to understand the contribution that Black artists made to Hollywood and world cinema. The first two episodes were especially illuminating.

Here is a brief list of some of the films this documentary considers important. Many of them were written and directed by Black Americans. It is not a complete list, and not in chronological order, but these are the films mentioned in the documentary that stand out for me.

“Lime Kiln Club Field Day” (1913); “Within Our Gates” (1920); “Stormy Weather” (1943); “Imitation of Life” (1934); “The Emperor Jones” (1933); “Show Boat” (1936); “Gone with the Wind” (1939); “Carmen Jones” (1954); “Lost Boundaries” (1949); “Home of the Brave” (1949); “The Defiant Ones” (1958); “A Raisin in the Sun” (1961); “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (1967); “In the Heat of the Night” (1967); “Uptight” (1968); “Watermelon Man” (1970); “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song” (1971); “Killer of Sheep”(1978); “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One” (1968); “Sidewalk Stories” (1989); “Daughters of the Dust” (1991); “The Watermelon Woman” (1996); “Waiting to Exhale” (1995); “Love & Basketball” (2000); “Friday” (1995); “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T” (1992); and "12 Years a Slave” (2013)

Another pleasure of this documentary was watching the man who played football for Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California, Ryan Coogler, being interviewed by the director of the film. He ultimately graduated from Sacramento State where he was a star athlete after SMC cancelled their football program.

It was at SMC that his creative writing teacher encouraged him to write screenplays. He directed, and wrote or co-wrote, "Fruitvale Station," "Creed," "Black Panther," and "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever." Amazing career.

SCREENS: "Get Shorty" created by Davey Holmes adapted from the Elmore Leonard novel and film

This ragged take on Hollywood works like a graphic novel providing plenty of visual shocks. In this reality "the beast" is a harmless industry run by fools burdened by equally inept violent idiots trying to break into their world. But there is some funny subversion going on, if you care to pay attention to it. Available to stream on Prime MGM+.

MUSIC: Guitarist and Songwriter Mk.gee

I can't stop listening to this music.

Mk.gee's debut album "Two Star & the Dream Police" was released in February of this year. I'm not sure how I missed this debut album by incredible musician. I'm just glad he was recommended to me. His album was supported by five singles: "Candy," "How Many Miles," "Are You Looking Up," "You Got It," and "Dream police." Each single is addictive.

Let's see how long YouTube leaves this live performance up. It's an hour of mystical music that feels both romantic and edgy.

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