Ha, Osho. I heard of him for the first time this year. An acquaintance posted snippets of some of his quotes on Tumblr, and I was like, "Oh, those sound thoughtful and interesting." So I read up a little more on/by him, and was like, "What the hell, hell no, ugh." Enough said about that. If you don't mind my asking,…

Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe" was a real joy to read (never thought I'd say that about a book about physics). However, my interest having been piqued, I tried to read other things about quantum physics and made neither head nor tail of them. I should just reread TEU. And some Osho, I guess.

Tangentially related anecdote: when I was little, my mom wanted me to marry Machel Montano when I grew up. This was back when he was singing stuff like "Too Young to Soca" and she just thought he was the cutest thing ever.

No, you're right. The Before All Else or whatever is a back-formation, but bae is just short for babe or baby or babes.

I didn't say that the King of Swaziland is a dictator because I'm honestly not well enough informed about the situation to know or to have a strong opinion on the whole shebang with the King and Ms Badu. When I said that a dictator and a king aren't mutually exclusive, that was meant as a general statement in response…

I strongly recommend you do what I did and look it up on the internet. It took me probably 3 seconds max to find relevant info.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. From the tweets linked, I learned more about the difference between absolute monarchy and constitutional/limited monarchy, which was something I hadn't really known/thought about before.

That's the first thing I noticed. I was like, "SHE'S WEARING STELLA JEAN!" and then I was jealous. I dream of owning/wearing something by Stella Jean. I love her clothes.

I know, right? She should not have made a lyrics video because, apart from this video being horribly tasteless, it confirmed that her lyrics for this song are shit. That duct tape thing? What the fuck was that? I don't think that even qualified as a punch line.

Ditto on the resemblance to the "Got Till It's Gone" video! That's the same thing that came to my mind when I saw it. I was kinda neither here nor there on the song until today, but I saw the video and it just made me feel... I don't know how to say it. It really moved me, which is so rare for a music video. It…

I've tried various mixes for the cleanser, but now I just use plain extra virgin olive oil with a little honey (not special manuka honey or anything like that, just regular non-pasteurised honey). Plain olive oil worked just fine as a moisturizer too, actually; I just add the other stuff to be fancy. As for a breakout…

Yup! Started doing it consistently this year, and then started using a couple drops of oil (a blend of olive/sweet almond/grapeseed/vitamin e with a bit of neem or tea tree if I'm having a little breakout) on my face in the morning instead of moisturizer. Best skin I've had since adolescence hit me.

In Black Love, it's kind of sweet that the women referenced for Biggie and Tupac are their moms.

Somewhat related: I'm really looking forward to this movie, and I want to know more about the Mavado/Nicki track, mainly whether it's a new one, or the one they did together last year. I have no real interest in Rita Ora.

I was just waiting for someone else to say it, because I didn't want to be the first. So, thank you.

That Supreme Court of Shade seal is... Oh, it's so good. 1 million shade-free points to Ms Jacoby for that. I love it.

"I rebuke it." Yes. I'm adopting that turn of phrase.

Agreement, yay? Yay!

The music of Black-ish is basically an acknowledgement that it sees us.

I know what the concept of "blind to race" means. I'm not entirely convinced that, given the realities of the world we live in, it's a particularly useful concept. And I think it can be deployed in such a way as to try to erase difference, or to position whiteness as a norm/default. So what I was saying is not that I…