New York, New York

MISCELLANEOUS
First, I had trouble with these links--but maybe they will work for you.  I was hoping you could hear a bit of Louis Armstrong as well as Charlie "Yardbird" Parker, since both were mentioned in the story.
http://cai.ucdavis.edu/uccp/previewquestionsanswered.html

Also, we didn't get to the satellite image some of you were begging for in 1st and 3rd;  here ya' go:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=manhattan+New+York&safe=active&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Manhattan,+New+York,+NY&gl=us&ei=huTFTJ-LKImWsgORg7WlDQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCQQ8gEwAA

And some necessary corrections to the Monday a.m. Still-Asleep-Syndrome:
Correction to 1st:  Sonny--not the narrator--was 15 when their father died (so narrator was 22)
Correction to 1st and 3rd:  The Staten Island ferry goes from Battery Park (lower tip of Manhattan, between the financial district and the water) to the island where the Statue of Liberty is (called Liberty Island), Ellis Island, and finally Staten Island itself, which is actually across New York Bay from Manhattan.  (It's much closer to New Jersey--separated only by two river-like bodies of water called "kills" [from Dutch].)

TODAY IN CLASS
Setting:  Time and Place.  Getting the geography down for "Sonny's Blues." Haarlem--oh, wait, that's the Dutch spelling--Harlem is oh, so close--but most definitely far away from the mainstream possibilities of life for America in the burgeoning late 40's and 50's.  In fact, many would say that New York City was at its peak of power, influence, and romance at this time--but none of the positive mystique was available to people stuck in Harlem.  And by setting up the time line of ALL the action, we were able to look briefly at the South when the KKK was largely unchecked. Alhough what happened to the uncle was not a deliberate clan action, it clearly represents a time and place when human life was not valued so highly if the skin was black.  That background becomes part of the suffering--of the blues--represented throughout the story.

TOMORROW
Prepare by looking more closely at POV and Characterization (for those who did not already do one of these).  No formal written work to hand in, but I strongly suggest notes or some annotating.  We want to focus on the connections, the significance here--not the obvious.  Who, by the way, is the protagonist of the story??