Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 620 Sutter, San Francisco (415)474-8800. Welcome to the music of the 1930s Harlem Streets and rural deep South complements of Hurston's SPUNK trilogy, adapted by George C. Wolfe with the extraordinary singing of Kim Nalley in the lead, and C. Kelly Wright, who steals much of her thunder with her own "powerhouse blues pipes". I met Kelly's father, Paul, a retired boxer, who runs a boys' gym in Oakland. We shared a down home meal in the lobby of the theater: lasagna, green beans, carrots, pasta salad, sickeningly sweet punch concoction, and copious amounts of carrot cake. Paul has traveled around the world, "whipped it to the red", and was very proud of his Equity daughter, Kelly, who looked radiant!
I shared a Jewish haiku with him, and he, a Harlem slang glossary:
Basho: There is no subject whatever that is not fit for haiku.
Yiddish Proverb: This you call poetry?
Middle East Peace talks-
the parties reach agreement.
Falafel for lunch.
Air out- leave, flee, stroll
Astorperious- haughty, biggity
'Bam and down in 'Bam- down South
Beatin' up your gums- talking to no purpose
Beluthahatchie - next station beyond Hell
Bull-skating-bragging
Coal Scuttle blond-black woman
Collar a nod-sleep
Diddy-Way-Diddy-1)a far place. 2)suburb of Hell, built since ay before Hell wasn't no bigger than Baltimore.
Dumb to the fact-"You don't know what you're talking about."
Frail eel-pretty girl
Ginny Gall- another suburb of Hell
Granny Grunt-mythical character to whom most questions may be referred
I don't deal in coal-"I don't keep company with black woman"
jelly-sex
jump salty-get angry
peola-a very white Negro girl
piano on a platter-spare ribs (white rib bones suggest piano keys)
playing the dozens-low-rating the ancestors of your opponent
reefer-marijuana cigarette, also a drag
Russian-a Southern Negro up north "Rushed up here," hence a Russian
scrap iron-cheap liquor
solid-perfect
stroll-doing something well
Sugar Hill-Northwest sector of Harlem (the expression is distorted in the South to mean the Negro red light district)
The bear-confession of poverty
The Man - the law, or powerful boss
Thousand on a plate-beans
What's on the rail for the lizard-suggestion for moral turpitude
Whip it to the red-beat your head until it is bloody
Zoot suit with the reet pleat-Harlem style suit, padded shoulders, 43-inch trouser at the knee with cuff so small it needs a zipper to get into, high waistline, fancy lapels, bushels of buttons.
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