Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Second rate reporter says what?

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Let there be snark.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Republicans in disarray!

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Rest in Peace, Maya Angelou (Updated)

Rest in Peace, Maya Angelou (Updated)

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Rest in peace, Maya Angelou, author, poet and activist (1928-2014).

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

I got to meet her once. I had a work-study job at the performing arts center at my college. She was kind to an awe-stuck minimum-wage flunky.

UPDATE
Also, President Obama is about to deliver the commencement speech at West Point. You can watch a live stream here. [H/T: Valued commenter Elizabelle]

Reader Interactions

119Comments

  2. 2.

    Yatsuno

    I am shedding tears. She inspired so many young people over several generations with both her story and her gifts. May her next road be an easier one.

  5. 5.

    JGabriel

    RIP, Maya Angelou.

    Or not, your call. If there’s an afterlife, it could be the world would be better improved with a little turbulence from the restlessness of such a great soul.

  8. 8.

    Botsplainer

    On an incredibly uplifting note atop a genuinely shitty violence cycle that depressed me, I just got this text from my youngest daughter from her archaeological dig in Albania. She’s 19, has an aggregate 3.9 something GPA, and dubbed herself “Queen of Illyria”;

    So I just thought you might like to know what’s going on at the tomb excavation. We’re just now reaching surface level but the whole mound has been fascinating! All of the artifacts, pottery and coins and stuff have documented modern, then medieval, then roman, then Hellenistic, then Bronze Age then copper age. Like this shit is unprecedented when it spans that much time. But we should be about to come onto the graves.

  9. 9.

    Elizabelle

    Did MSNBC just say the Obamas think of Maya Angelou as a “shero”?

    I like that word.

  10. 10.

    Elizabelle

    Irony, too: a poet and writer/civil rights humanist/brave Renaissance soul leaving the world just as cable TV is turned in for Obama’s West Point speech (10:15 a today).

    Pen, meet sword. And eclipse same.

  11. 11.

    nancy darling

    I once breathed the same air as Maya Angelou. We were both sojourners in Stamps, Arkansas in the 1940’s. I lived there for two years, age 4-6.

    I read her book, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, thinking it would trigger more memories of those years. Alas Miss Angelou and I were moving in parallel universes due to the segregation of the times.

    Her’s was a life well-lived and worth emulating.

  12. 12.

    Elizabelle

    @Yatsuno:

    I think it was the hard road that made her, though.

    Am feeling stunned, although grateful that she got a good, useful, long life that she used well.

  13. 13.

    c u n d gulag

    RIP, Maya Angelou.

    You lived a life well worth living.
    And thank you for sharing part of your life’s journey with us.
    You will be sorely missed.

  14. 14.

    Hawes

    Met her at my grad school graduation. She was as powerful as thunder and as gentle as a rain shower.

  15. 15.

    NotMax

    Another Obama-directed hit to distract from Benghazi.

    /rabid wingut

    (You know some on the lunatic fringe will push such crap.)

  16. 16.

    Punchy

    I wonder if CNN would cover this more extensively if she had passed in a mysterious plane crash….

  17. 17.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    The caged bird spreads her wings now.
    Fly high.
    Your words live on.

  23. 23.

    Elizabelle

    “Just because we’ve got the best hammer doesn’t mean that every problem is a nail.”

    I am enjoying this speech, and he called out partisans screaming that America is in decline early into it.

  24. 24.

    shelley

    /rabid wingut

    (You know some on the lunatic fringe will push such crap.)

    Naah, from one site, it’s more of a sneer-y ‘Maya who?”

  25. 25.

    Tommy

    Just read her bio and gosh there was a lot of stuff I didn’t know about her. That wonderful lady sure did live a full life. Makes me feel so darn small I’ve done not even a fraction of the things she did. All I can say is just wow:

    Long before that day, as she recounted in “Caged Bird” and its five sequels, she had already been a dancer, calypso singer, streetcar conductor, single mother, magazine editor in Cairo, administrative assistant in Ghana, official of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and friend or associate of some of the most eminent black Americans of the mid-20th century, including James Baldwin, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

    Afterward (her six-volume memoir takes her only to the age of 40), Ms. Angelou (pronounced AHN-zhe-lo) was a Tony-nominated stage actress; college professor (she was for many years the Reynolds professor of American studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem); ubiquitous presence on the lecture circuit; frequent guest on television shows, from “Oprah” to “Sesame Street”; and subject of a string of scholarly studies.

    I have to admit I didn’t really know any of that. Just stunning!

  26. 26.

    nancy darling

    @Tommy: I say this with the utmost respect. If you google images of her, you will see she was an absolute babe in her younger, dancing years.

  28. 28.

    Bobby Thomson

    Of all the great things she did, I like to remember her best for her appearances on Sesame Street. She owned it.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    @Tommy

    Had an always see the dark side relative who would have read that and said, “So she couldn’t hold a job, huh?”

    (Not my own opinion, merely an aside.)

  31. 31.

    Elizabelle

    I had no idea of Ms. Angelou’s performing arts background (although vague memory of the Roots role).

    Or the other stuff. Being a poet and writer and whipsmart social commenter would be plenty.

    But, Wow.

  32. 32.

    Tommy

    @nancy darling: I mean how didn’t I know this:

    The famous poet got into writing after a childhood tragedy that stunned her into silence for years. When she was 7, her mother’s boyfriend raped her. He was later beaten to death by a mob after she testified against him.

    “My 7-and-a-half-year-old logic deduced that my voice had killed him, so I stopped speaking for almost six years,” she said.

    From the silence, a louder voice was born.

    It never ceases to amaze me how much stuff I don’t know …..

  35. 35.

    Tommy

    @NotMax: Yeah. She also traveled Europe for years in a dance troupe. When I look at that list of jobs I think to myself, she lived life. I’ve read some of her poetry, but never I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. That is a terrible oversight I need to correct today.

  38. 38.

    Tommy

    @Mnemosyne: Hard to understand all the hate isn’t it. If a Conservative icon/writer died as long as the person didn’t spew hate I’d feel sorry for his family, friends, and fans. As I’ve said here over and over again I just don’t have the energy, much less desire to be mad all the time. Life is too short.

  39. 39.

    Violet

    A really amazing woman who lived a long and purposeful life, influenced many, inspired many more, and leaves a legacy that will never die. We are lucky to have had her in our midst. May she rest in peace.

  40. 40.

    Tommy

    @Violet: I was surprised to see she was born in St. Louis. Kind of my home town. At the time she was a youth parts of St. Louis and even East St. Louis (now a running joke) used to be powerful, even pretty affluent African American towns. Miles Davis (and a long list of other artists) was from East St. Louis. I think she got into music a little after leaving the area for the West coast, but wonder if she might have ever been around Miles. If so, boy would that be a story I’d like to hear!

  41. 41.

    Citizen_X

    @NotMax:

    “So she couldn’t hold a job, huh?”

    Shorter: writer!

    Thank you, Ms. Angelou, wherever you may be.

  42. 42.

    SatanicPanic

    In one way he passing is an end of an era- can anyone name a living poet who is even remotely as noteworthy? Poetry used to be an important part of culture, now it’s not.

  43. 43.

    Tommy

    @SatanicPanic: I was kind of thinking the same thing. I can’t think of one. I am sure somebody smarter then myself here will point out a few, but I can’t came up with a single one. Now I guess I am to blame for poetry nothing being more popular. I might have 1,000+ books in my house. Maybe 3-5 (if that) are poetry.

  44. 44.

    Ben Cisco

    @Tommy: The thought of someone passing and being respected in their passing is anathema to them. They cannot think or reason, and therefore have no connection with someone who embodied all that and more.

    The fact that practically everyone on the planet EXCEPT them holds this lady in highest regard just piles the bile higher, I guess…

  46. 46.

    GregB

    Much of the Free Republic ranting sounds like the basic script the National Review and many on the right ran back in the 80’s…it was basically a stock response to successful, non-conservative members of non-white ethnic groups.

    To them she was an affirmative action cultural elevation by the all powerful leftwing media establishment to be mocked and ridiculed because she didn’t earn that elevation legitimately in their jaundiced eyes.

  47. 47.

    cckids

    When I started homeschooling my kids, we read “Caged Bird” and “Even the Stars Look Lonesome” together. She gave our white souls an insight into a world that was so far removed from where we were, and yet so lyrical and, yes, uplifting because of her attitude and resolve. She just shone through, wherever she was.

    I remember watching her at President Clinton’s Inaugural. It was the first time I’d heard of her, so I went & found her work. So powerful, so fun. She was the type of writer you wished you could meet; have coffee with. RIP, Ms. Angelou. You made the world so much a better place.

    Edit to add: Two of my favorite quotes from her:

    “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”

    and

    “”My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”

    What a way to live your life.

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    Sad to contemplate that “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” would be defaced with a trigger warning.

  49. 49.

    rikyrah

    Thank you Dr. Angelou.
    For your words and your spirit and your presence.

    And for being a role model to millions of women who never met you.

  50. 50.

    Belafon

    OT: Within the margin of error, it’s that number again:

    Two-thirds of Americans in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll disapprove of the Republican strategist raising questions about Clinton’s age and health in advance of her potential presidential run. The lopsided negative reaction to Rove’s commentary — just 26 percent approve of his topic of criticism — includes majorities of every age group as well as Democrats and independents. Republicans split evenly on the issue, with 45 percent approving and 46 percent disapproving of Rove broaching the issue.

  51. 51.

    SatanicPanic

    @nancy darling: @Tommy: I’m sure they exist. It’s just that we’ll probably never gain have a poet be any more famous than the most famous opera star or professional bowler. Just interesting to think how our culture has changed.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    Bar sketch, with Pryor as an alcoholic named ‘Willie’, and featuring John Belushi as the bartender. Willie arrives at home, where his wife (Maya Angelou) expresses her feelings on her husband’s behavior, as he’s passed out on the sofa

    http://youtu.be/sNFuxrxfM9c

  54. 54.

    scav

    @NotMax: defaced? To a significant degree, a trigger is just an on-button to something real, and it’s generally a piss-poor anodyne piece of writing that doesn’t juggle with a few of those (they may get flipped with different degrees of daring and effect). I don’t get the shame of being known to deal with real things happening in real ways.

  55. 55.

    cckids

    @Tommy: We were moved, entertained, and inspired by the “spoken word” or poetry slam competitions we found on Netflix, Brave New Voices and Louder than a Bomb.

    Just incredible. Got both my kids turned on to poetry, it is more accessible than written poetry, so a good gateway. And wonderful in itself.

  57. 57.

    japa21

    Okay, I made the mistake of clicking on botsplaier’s link. It isn’t so much hate filled (though there is that) or racist (though there is that as well). What gets me is the total ignorance.

    At least a throd of the comments complain about what a horrible poet she was. First of all, my guess is that most of them never read any of her work.

    Secondly, in regards to those that did, my guess is that if it isn’t a dirty limerick or begins “Run, Spot, run” they don’t consider it poetry.

  58. 58.

    Tommy

    @cckids: I’ll look those up on Netflix. Thanks. I think your use of the word “accessible” is very accurate. That is exactly how I feel about poetry, never felt it was accessible. Heck I actually feel like I am “reading it wrong” :).

  59. 59.

    scav

    @NotMax: But still, the point is why a ‘trigger warning’ is saying something bad about a work, rather than interpreted as a signal that the book is juggling with the real sharp pointy bits of reality? Yes any system of such ratings can be misused and misapplied, but I don’t get the immediate assumption it’s a badge of shame.

  60. 60.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Tommy: I didn’t know she was a Calypso dancer back in the day until I saw a photo of her a few weeks ago. Fascinating woman.

    May she RIP.

  62. 62.

    Patricia Kayden

    @japa21: Should any of us care about what Rightwingers think is good or bad poetry? I don’t think there is any opinion held by a rabid Rightwinger that I would find interesting. And I’m sure the feeling is mutual. Let them stew in their ignorance. The world is passing them by.

  63. 63.

    NotMax

    @japa21

    Heh.

    Reminded of the time long ago when met a friend’s housemate, who would assail anyone within earshot of what a fan of and how ‘into’ poetry he was.

    He proudly offered to show off his “collection,” which consisted of a single volume – the collected verse of Robert Service.

  64. 64.

    Kay (not the front-pager)

    Maya Angelou was the commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient at my college graduation. She was so inspirational that my father became a lifelong admirer who read all of her works. And if you knew how unlikely that is…

    This is truly a great loss to our culture and our nation.

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    @scav

    Shortest answer: Caterpillars require cocoons to advance their potential as adults; people don’t.

    IMHO.

  66. 66.

    JDM

    I just looked to see if her amazing bit on the Richard Pryor Show was on YouTube. It is.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNFuxrxfM9c&feature=kp

    He did an incredible show that lasted hardly at all due to censorship (after the network made a big deal of how they weren’t going to censor him). (There was another amazing segment with a woman talking about a lesbian encounter where she kept shifting her story.) Some incredible TV, and the one with Maya Angelou was one of the best things I’ve ever seen on TV or anywhere. Starting with a character (Pryor) in a bar, and then your view of the character completely changes when he gets home and collapses and his wife (Angelou) does a monologue.

  67. 67.

    Chickamin Slam

    @Botsplainer: All they remember is that she made an appearance right after President Obama’s first inauguration and had an orgasm on TV or fainted in joyful hysterics upon reading a poem. Something about being too excited about this president. That was too much for them and they changed the channel.

  69. 69.

    Gypsy Howell

    First sentence of NYT coverage of Obama’s address at West Point:

    WEST POINT, N.Y. — President Obama on Wednesday tried to regain his statesman’s mantle, telling graduating cadets here that the nation they were being commissioned to serve would still lead the world and would not stumble into military misadventures overseas.

    Unbelievable. “Tried to regain his statesman’s mantle” How, pray tell, did he lose it exactly, NYT?

  70. 70.

    catclub

    Charles Pierce has an article related to Obama and Afghanistan. He keeps repeating a number of
    $10M/day, which works out to $3.65B/yr and is an underestimate by a factor of 10 of the actual
    costs. Anyone know how to contact him and tell him ( I am without a Facebook login for comments there).

  71. 71.

    nancy darling

    @cckids: Congratulations for inspiring your kids to love poetry.

    My son and I were on a flight out of Amarillo, TX when he was about 10 or 12. He was admiring the big fluffy clouds and I recited what I could remember of John Gillespie Magee’s “High Flight”—“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings….”.

    He was enthusiastic about the poem and I thought I had made an in-road. I went to the library when we got home and got some poetry books I thought he would like—Scott Momaday among others. When I presented the books to him, he looked at me like I was crazy and said, “I said I liked that poem. I didn’t say I liked poetry!”

    A side note on Magee, he was killed in WWII at age 19. He had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force before the U.S, entered the war. As far as I know, Scott Momaday, a native American, is still alive.

  72. 72.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    I’m not a fan of poetry but hers was tolerable, and that’s high praise from me.

    Rest of her life was pretty…tremendous, and that should not be ignored. She did a lot.

  73. 73.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Does my sassiness upset you?

    UPPITY! UPPITY! UPPITY!

    /ht Lynn Westmoreland

  76. 76.

    Tommy

    @Gypsy Howell: Look I really, really don’t like our use of drones. But put that aside (which is kind of hard for me to do I might add), I could bitch a little here or there about Obama’s foreign policy. But generally speaking with some pretty tough choices to make, well he seems to have done a pretty good job. Perfect, nope, but last I checked perfection is close if not impossible to obtain.

    And most importantly of all, two wars ended or winding down. And we didn’t get into ANOTHER ONE!

    Oh I should note did others see the story of the report from the UN. Iran is down to almost no weapon grade nuclear materials (or anything close to it). A fifth of what they had not that long ago. If that isn’t good news and a story that ought to be on the front page of every news site, well I don’t know what is.

  77. 77.

    scav

    @NotMax: I see them more as may contain traces of nuts warnings. Silly to most of us but a real courtesy to people with nut allergies. Probably misused by actual human nuts, but they’re not going to get much of value out of the book if they stumble into it anyway.

  78. 78.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Unbelievable. “Tried to regain his statesman’s mantle” How, pray tell, did he lose it exactly, NYT?

    @Gypsy Howell: Words used by Western media for black leaders:

    thug
    dictator
    president-for-life
    terrorist
    warlord
    gang leader
    strongman

    You don’t see “statesman” in there, do you? That’s for white folks, like Henry Kissinger or Adolf Hitler.

    Fucking media needs to be hauled out of their offices and beaten with shovels.

  81. 81.

    Ash Can

    @nancy darling: Another wonderful poet for children is Jack Prelutsky. I came across his work when my son was very young. I ran off to the bookstore right away and got a book of his poetry. The book was ostensibly for my son, but most definitely for me as well.

  83. 83.

    YellowJournalism

    @Bobby Thomson: Watched one appearance with my nephew once long ago, he was fascinated by her.

    The poem Betty used was the first that came to mind when I heard she had passed.

  84. 84.

    NotMax

    @scav

    In foodstuffs, the caution is for something actually life threatening, a different matter altogether.

    I see the other labeling as a decidedly negative recommendation and can but heartily disagree with those who do not.

  85. 85.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @NotMax: WARNING: This comment contains snark that may (well, probably with 100% certainty) offend fundigelicals, teahaidists, Wahhabists, over the top Zen Buddhists, loons who think “Jedi” is a religion and not a marketing come-on, Opus Dei fuckwads, and other disagreeable persons. Do not taunt happy fun ball. Have a nice day.

  86. 86.

    ranchandsyrup

    Debbie Schlussel is classy:

    Debbie Schlussel ‏@DebbieSchlussel 2h

    Buh-bye, Maya Angelou, America’s Most Overrated Crappy Writer Ever; Queen of Dreksville #tcot #gop #MayaAngelou RIP Maya Angelou

    Debbie Schlussel ‏@DebbieSchlussel 57m

    Maya Angelou, Racist, US-Hating, Anti-Semitic Nutjob, Most Overrated Crappy Writer, RIH http://is.gd/2rCiO3 #tcot #gop #MayaAngelou

  87. 87.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    No edit function, otherwise would add to the above than am hard pressed to come up with an example of someone dying or being rushed to emergency from reading a book.

    @Villago Delenda Est

    Message received. Over and out.

  88. 88.

    nancy darling

    For the foodies out there who are not into poetry, Angelou was an extraordinary cook who entertained her friends with lavish meals. I wish I could have gone to one of her dinner parties.

  90. 90.

    scav

    @NotMax: Feel free to bring up the reality of certain psychological conditions with war vets, the parents of Sandy Hook and UCSB and many others. Tell them to pull up their pants and be grown ups. And I am so reading whatever book @Villago Delenda Est: has the cover of.

  91. 91.

    RaflW

    Most horrible human of the week award (I know, the competition!) goes to Tim Cavanaugh at NRO. I refuse to link, but he penned the item
    “RIP, Maya Angelou, Proud Gun Owner and User”
    today.

    Uhuh. Let’s look at why a black woman might, in a violent, racist, misogynistic society, feel the need for a gun. Of course, that’s not where he goes. He just goes straight to hell.

  93. 93.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Tell me again why I should give a shit about what a mob of bigoted white assholes say about a great African-American poet?

  94. 94.

    Wally Ballou

    @Ash Can: Still have my dog-eared, much-loved Scholastic Book Club edition of “It’s Halloween” from kindergarten on the premises somewhere.

  95. 95.

    hamletta

    My mom and I went to the Bay Area in 1989 right after the big earthquake, and we stayed at the Sonoma Hotel. Angelou stayed there when she was writing Caged Bird, and they had a little plaque over her room.

    Years later, in the mid-’90s, I was working at a music magazine, and the Lounge Music revival was in full swing, so some indie label re-released her Calypso album, complete with the full hipster liner notes. It’s wonderful. Tommy Tedesco was her guitar player.

  97. 97.

    Ash Can

    @ranchandsyrup:
    @SatanicPanic:

    It never fails to amaze me when someone chooses to basically go on record as saying something like that. What causes a person to behave like that? (I pretty much know the answer to that, but still. Geez.)

  99. 99.

    RaflW

    @ranchandsyrup:
    Yikes. I went to her blog and it looked like a KKK rally. Are folks so stupid that they think calling Maya Angelou and Oprah Winfrey “Blots on America” somehow advances themselves?

    I agree with others who say who cares about this hater, but it is pretty shocking what comes out, so publicly, from people with at least some degree of mouthpiece.

    My partner and I are traveling by car to Selma and Montgomery next month to learn some history. He wants me to take off our UU pro-same sex marriage bumper sticker (two gay guys with a MN Volvo wagon & pro-gay messages. In Alabama. Mmmmm).

    I hate to even temporarily let the haters win (a very, very tiny win), but as we know, they’re armed and extremely stupid and angry.

  102. 102.

    Cckids

    @nancy darling: She wrote a marvelous cookbook, great Southern cooking recipes with (of course) wonderful stories to go with each one.

    Find the story of her banana pudding, the guy she made it for & the way it changed her view of herself. Made me cheer.

  104. 104.

    Randy P

    @Tommy: I heard that story at a talk she gave in 2012, which must have been one of her last public appearances. In fact I remember hearing later that she was not certain whether she was actually going to be able to give the talk. Glad she felt well enough, it was a powerful evening.

  106. 106.

    Betty Cracker

    @RaflW: FWIW, I’ve driven to Mobile with my marriage equality symbol, peace sign and Obama bumper stickers (2008 and 2012!) displayed and never run into any trouble. Dirty looks sometimes from strangers and derisive comments from wingnut family members, but no actual vandalism.

  107. 107.

    Darkrose

    @NotMax: Yeah, it would have really sucked if someone had explained a little about that scene and put it in context when I first read IKWTCBS at age 8 and had nightmares for a year.

  109. 109.

    Cervantes

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I didn’t know she was a Calypso dancer back in the day

    She toured Europe in “Porgy & Bess,” among other things … and she used to dance in nightclubs on the West Coast … in skin-tight gowns … bare shoulders and bare underneath … you couldn’t take your eyes off her.

  114. 114.

    flukebucket

    @Botsplainer: Those comments over at Free Republic show you just what we are up against as a country. God damn that is some low life trash commenting over there.

  115. 115.

    southend

    @Belafon:
    That caught my eye, too. It’s amazing how often I see that 26-28 number in various polls. Each time, I say to myself, “Yep, there’s that number again”.

  118. 118.

    Elizabelle

    @Cckids:

    Jeebus. I was going to tease and say Maya Angelou had not written a cookbook, had she?

    And now you tell me she did.

    Renaissance Woman is becoming too small a description for this late, great phenom.

  119. 119.

    NotMax

    @ruemara

    Let it drop? That was the very first time I have ever used the term “trigger warnings” on this or any other blog, and also the very first time I have responded to anyone on that topic.

    Refuse to be intimidated by your faulty recall.

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