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LOOK HOMEWARD BABY         HARRINGTON

[[italics]] Paris Burning? [[/italics]] But Haynes honestly makes no such claims for Big Brother which he frankly states "is for folks who really dig hot stuff."  I have overheard groups of Black surgeons, who'd taxied up to Haynes' between planes from Orly, observe that even a layman must notice that ONE DROP of Big Brother caused a rather alarming protruding of the eyeballs accompanied by a quickening of the respiration which should not be confused with the process of breathing!  Obviously what Haynes had in mind when he concocted these diabolical sauces was a surcease of nostalgia.  But in fact it is more like curing heartburn by smashing one's big toe with a sledge hammer.  

These observations are not meant to imply that Black expatriates, especially painters and sculptors, are unhappy in Europe< especially in France.  The art community in Paris, for example, is a completely open one.  The only criterion is, are you a good artist? Or at least are you working like hell to become one?  Such a criterion induces an atmosphere of camaraderie, a sharing of ideas, techniques, and often soup, all of which seem indispensable in the making of an artist. I never even remotely experienced anything like that at "home" except perhaps in Harlem among a group of really beautiful human beings and artists like the late August Savage, or like Aaron Douglas, Ernie Crichlow, Elton Fax, Romare Bearden and Bob Pious.  There is another quality which made Paris a truly civilized place and that was the fact that it was no disgrace to be poor and unsuccessful, with all the abominable things that word implies in the rat-race society of the "silent majority."  At least that was Paris when I arrived in 1951.  There's no doubt but that without this liberté, égalité, and fraternité there could not been a Monet, Modigliani, Picasso, or Giacometti.  And there could not have been a Henry Tanner, that great Black master whose paintings hang alongside the greats of France in the Louvre, although he is virtually unknown in his native Philadelphia.  If this sounds like Paradise forgive me.  It isn't, there are pitfalls.  But later...

I sort of stumbled on the Cafe Monaco not long after I got to Paris.  I'd been wandering through a maze of incredibly narrow streets in the Latin Quarter which couldn't have changed since the time of Rabelais.  From the outside there was nothing even remotely seductive about the cafe.  As a matter of fact it seemed seedy.  But in the murky interior I noticed a tall Black brother sitting with his back against the far wall.  Although it was obvious that the sun had never shone in that street since it stopped being a cowrun down to the nearby Seine, the contemplative brother was wearing seem-

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