These Black and Blue Red Zone Days
Subtitle: Special Text Edition of Black and Blue Letters from the Red Zone
Edition: Special Text Edition of Black and Blue Letters from the Red Zone
Publisher: Black Skylark Singing
Published: April 2023
Place of publication: United States of America
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 222
ISBN-13: 9798218175610
Copyright date: 2023
First sentence: Dear Anybody Everywhere,
Has something like this happened to you?
Description: In the compelling stories, letters, and poems which comprise These Black and Blue Red Zone Days, author and artist Aberjhani presents readers with portraits of what has it has meant to confront, and survive, different facets of the great pandemic of the 21st Century. Through observations which combine the intimacy of journal-writing with the objectivity of journalism and scholarly documentation, the celebrated creative explores how and why COVID-19 and its different variants have represented only one plague which America and the world are still battling. 

A pandemic of social, racial, and political imbalances and injustices––despite many wishing it otherwise––has proven just as deadly and costly. As a self-styled “Seeker of Beauty with Beauty,” (borrowing from a quote by W.E.B. Du Bois), the author brings to life mesmerizing moments of recognition revealing the startling depths and vulnerabilities of our shared humanity.
Notes: Through the letters, stories, essays and poems which comprise THESE BLACK & BLUE RED ZONE DAYS, readers experience instances of unexpected grace, such as when encountering two physically challenged people attempting to return home after venturing out on foot, and in a wheelchair, to find food during lockdown in Savannah, Georgia. There are acknowledgements of absurdities like simultaneously risking one’s life to appear in court to argue the urgency, or non-urgency, of painting a back-yard shed. Letters to Homeless Friends of the Library, to his own 14-year-old self, and diverse public “essential” servants capture the sorrow of heartbreaking choices and the unexpected beauty of astonishing compassion.
Table of contents: title: TABLE OF CONTENTS; title: Introduction    1; title: Chapter 1:  Into the Red Zone   7; title: Chapter 2:  Through a COVID-19 Lens Darkly     25; title: Chapter 3:  Collective Angst and Private Heavens     43; title: Chapter 4:  Dreaming at 100.4 Fever Degrees Fahrenheit     	                                    	            59; title: Chapter 5:  Black Folks and Existential Proclamations of the; title: Blues     75; title: Chapter 6: Quarantine Cubism     95; title: Chapter 7:  Remembering Red in a Different Way     109; title: Chapter 8:  Traveling with the Angels     125; title: Chapter 9:  Stormy Days in Georgia & Washington D.C.    143; title: Chapter 10: This Time of Renewal and Re-weaving     159; title: Epilogue: Seeker with the Inkhorn     185; title: Acknowledgments     193; title: Contributing Creatives     196; title: About the Author     203