CALENDAR • BOOK REVIEW
B2
NOVEMBER 16 - november 22, 2012
TOJ
FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Orlando: Sheryl Brady, a protégé of Pastor T.D. Jakes, will be speaking on Nov. 18 at Faithworld at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. St. Petersburg: The Christian Wrestling Federation will host a show including ‘Mr. Hollywood’ Shannon Rose as the special guest ring announcer on Nov. 17. The event will feature old school wrestling combined with today’s high flyers at the Tree of Life Church, 4682, 49th Ave. N., at 2 p.m. Free. Jacksonville: A celebration of service concert honoring Elder Dwight Follins and featuring the Florida Mass Choir Praise Team will be held Nov. 17 at 7 p.m. at Faith United Miracle Temple, 1860 West 5th St. More information: 904-207-1051. Orlando: Orlando Community Arts Inc. presents Clare and the Chocolate Nutcracker at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Center, Dec. 1 at 7 p.m. Orlando: “Sister Act The Musical’’ makes its way to the Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre Dec. 4- 9. Jacksonville: Rap artist 2 Chainz will be at the Florida Theatre Jacksonville Nov. 23 for an 8 p.m. show and at the Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackie Gleason Theater Nov. 26 for an 8:30 p.m. Orlando: The 26th Annual Festival of Trees showcasing displays of designer decorated trees and wreaths, gingerbread creations, vignettes, a gift boutique and children’s activity area will be held through Nov. 18 from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. at the Orlando Museum of Art, 2416 N. Mills Ave. Cost: $10 adults, $6 for children. More information: 407-896-4231. Winter Garden: The community is invited to a free couponing class presented by the Simple Truth Foundation and hosted at Next
ERICA RIGGINS
The Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists will host its annual Griot Drum Awards & Scholarship Banquet on Nov. 15 at The Nielsen Company’s headquarters in Oldsmar. A reception will be held at 6 p.m.; dinner and a program begins at 7 p.m. A panel will include Bay News 9 anchor Erica Riggins. More information: www.tbabj.com.
NAJEE & MICHAEL BAISDEN
JOEL OSTEEN
Tickets are on sale for the eighth annual Jazz in the Gardens presented by Uptown and hosted by Michael Baisden (right), featuring Charlie Wilson, New Edition, Najee (above), Earth, Wind and Fire, Mary Mary and more. The event will be held March 16 and 17 at Sunlife Stadium, Miami Gardens. More information: www. jazzinthegardens.com.
Community Church, 13640 W. Colonial Drive. It’s at 10:30 a.m. Nov. 17. More information: 407-654-9661 or pastorscott@nextcommunitychurch.com or www. nextcommunitychurch.com. Ocoee: The City of Ocoee will award $10,000 in matching grants for neighborhood improvement projects as part of its Most Valuable Partnership (MVP) Matching Grant Program. The maximum grant award is $2,000. Applications are available at www.ocoee.org
Author and televangelist Joel Osteen will be at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena Nov. 30 at 7:30 p.m.
or at the City Hall reception desk. The deadline to submit applications is Nov. 30. More information: www.ocoee. org or call 407- 905-3100. Tampa: Wiz Khalifa’s The 2050 tour is at the USF Sun Dome Dec. 2 for a 7:30 p.m. show. St. Petersburg: First Fridays are held in downtown St. Petersburg at 250 Central Ave. between Second and Third Avenues from 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. More information: 727-393-3597.
100 Black Men of Tampa Bay to host scholarship fundraiser at GameTime The 100 Black Men of Tampa Bay, Inc. is creating a family-friendly scholarship fundraiser for Collegiate 100 BMTB students. The event will take place Dec. 1 beginning at 6 p.m. at GameTime, 1600 E. 8th Ave. Tampa. The collegiate group, 100 BMTB, has made annual scholarship awards to outstanding students at Hillsborough Community College (HCC) for the last four years. For this cycle, the organization will award scholarships to one student at each of the HCC campuses, and a new scholarship to one student at the University of
‘Telegraph Avenue’ explores urban life and relationships BY DR. GLENN ALTSCHULER SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER
In their struggle to survive and thrive on planet America, Michael Chabon suggests, some Black people have tried “terraforming,” a grand strategy to change the atmosphere and environment to fit the needs of human physiology. Others, however, have opted for “pantropy,” a program to selectively alter individuals so that they can adapt more effectively to “harsh, unforgiving” realities. In “Telegraph Avenue,’ Chabon, the author of “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay’’ and “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,’’ rarely employs such high-falutin’ concepts. But terraforming and pantropy are the choices confronting his characters: Archy Stallings, an AfricanAmerican, and Nate Jaffe, a Jew, co-owners of Brokeland Records, which is located “on the ragged fault where the urban plates of Berkeley and Oakland (California) subducted,” may well be put out of business by Gibson Goode, the fifth richest Black man in America, who wants to build a megastore in their neighborhood. Their wives, Gwen
BOOK REVIEW Shanks and Aviva Roth, partners in midwifery, have been threatened with legal action following a dangerfilled delivery.
Wickedly funny Set in 2004, the plot will thicken – and relationships will be further strained – when Archy’s father, a broken-down former actor in blaxploitation and Kung Fu films, arrives, carrying a secret dating back 30 years to the heyday of the Black Panthers, and teenager Titus Joyner, the son Archy never acknowledged, appears, strikes up a special friendship with 15-yearold Julius Jaffe, and joins the Jaffe household. Saddled with a contrived plot and an ending that is not quite credible, “Telegraph Avenue’’ is not as compelling as Chabon’s best novels. At its best, however, it is a beautifully written, wickedly funny, perceptive and poignant meditation on race, gender, class, and popular culture – and on human frailty and fragility – in 21st-century America.
Terraforming to pantropy Archy, Chabon writes, “was tired of Brokeland, of black people, and of white people, and of all their
“Telegraph Avenue: A Novel” is by Michael Chabon. Publisher: Harper, 68 pages. schemes and grudges. … Most of all, he was tired of being a holdout, a sole survivor, the last coconut hanging on the last palm tree on the last little atoll in the pathway of the great wave of late-modern capitalism, waiting to be hammered flat.” If he could load his backpack with a hefty paycheck, a benefit’s package, and a paid vacation, and “move from being shiftless and cheating to merely the latter,” Archy also muses, he might make a 50 percent gain in domestic peace. Moving, at first almost imperceptibly, from terraforming to pantropy, Gwen learns to “stay fly. And do what you got to do.” She begins to feel something resembling forgiveness for Archy, his father and his sons, and for the men “for whom he was the heir and testator, from the Middle Passage, to the Sleeper Cars of the Union Pacific, to the seat of a fixie back-alleying down Telegraph Avenue in the middle of the night.”
‘Common passion’ “Telegraph Avenue’’ leaves Archy Stallings and
Nate Jaffe with a financial backer, a cache of valuable “oldies,” plans to start “a web site that will sell fortyyear old chunks of vinyl on consignment to invisible Samoans,” and a determination, at long last, to “get real and take shit seriously. At the same time.” Whether or not the new operation actually holds promise, Chabon reminds us that a fulfilling personal and professional future does not depend on platters or profits or on nostalgia. It is all about family, friends and lovers, living in neighborhoods “where common sorrow could be drowned in common passion” and collective action. Try as he might, however, Chabon is not all that reassuring about the future of such neighborhoods, or, for that matter, about the efficacy of either terraforming or pantropy.
Dr. Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.
South Florida. The Game Night Scholarship event presents an opportunity for friends and family to socialize, eat, drink and play, all in a good cause. Ticket purchases will provide access to unlimited food from a special menu, unlimited non-alcoholic drinks, and a twohour game card. Tickets are $30 and $35. The higher amount is for an automatic raffle entry. The event will feature an appearance by Stu Robinson from 95.7 The Beat. Buy tickets online at www.100BMTB.org or through members of the 100 Black Men of Tampa Bay.