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THIS TALK WAS GIVEN ON AUGUST 2, 2009, on the occasion of the eighty -fifih birthday of the great African -American writer James Baldwin. The talk was written not only to celebrate Mr. Baldwin's life, but as a kind of remembrance of my first meeting and subsequent relationship with him. The renowned African -American choreographer George Faison, a dear friend of Mr. Baldwin, was the organizer of the evening. The event was put on before a standing room- only crowd at The Fireside Theater in Harlem, which Mr. Faison also directs. Others on the program included poet, playwright and activist Amiri Baraka, poet Sonia Sanchez, musician and singer Genovis Albright, André Leon Talley, editor- at -large of Vogue magazine, Helen Baldwin, sister-in-law of James, and musician and a former student of Mr. Baldwin, Alexa Birdsong.
To talk with James Baldwin was like attending the creation of the world and being invited to assist in the building. You were immediately and irrevocably re-convinced that indeed, "in the beginning was the Word;" that "the Word was God," and that God had invested in James Baldwin the language of life. I first met Mr. Baldwin at his family's house at 137 West 71st Street, between Columbus Avenue and Broadway. His sister Paula was a designer then making clothes, now sculpting dolls of a life-like power. Her specialty then was a T-shirt dress that touched the ankle and a matching hat that celebrated the head. This outfit became the signature of the young, black, hip, and irresistible women of my generation. Paula's apartment was also her display room - a space about 60 feet deep; the walls resplendent with her creations; a huge plushy sofa covered in ceremonial cloth seeming to breathe "come unto me;" from the sofa to the sliding glass doors, the room opened out to a tiny yard where grew the tree of life right in the middle of New York City. On the day I entered this space the sisters, Paula and Gloria, were cooking an African paella - the shrimp, the mussels, the chicken, the andouille sausage, the peanut butter sauce, the rice, the okra - , conjuring up such aromas as to wake the pleasure of the known world. On that day we...