I wanna say Jim DeRogotis, who originally broke the R. Kelly story, wrote a lot about that exact factor. It’s a good question and one I think is hard to reconcile. I mean, how is that different than consuming really violent or misogynist or supremacist products generally without a clear bad actor or triggering…

I’ve spent a large part of my career working with people accused/convicted of crimes, and that’s a hard job if you can’t compartmentalize. I generally feel that people are more complicated than their best or worst part. So separating the art from the artist isn’t as much of a struggle, especially if the art is…

I think part of keeping folks off the pedestal too is giving artists’ (and our own sensibilities) space to just be. These two artists’ comparison comes from the spotlight both of them are in at this moment. But otherwise, I’m not sure how useful a comparison even is outside of music since they’re prominent in…

This is an important take. Given that public group-think is terrible at dealing with their darlings when they act in ways that can’t be easily reconciled, it seems a lot simpler to not go down that road in the first place. Donald Glover, just like Kanye or Beyonce or Jesse Williams, etc. and so on are complex…

Spot on advice. And it’s good to plan your day out too—know when you’re going to eat and when you’ll need quiet space to prepare or comfortable space to relax afterward. It’s a nice feeling of control over your environment. I don’t think I’ll ever feel like a natural, but I definitely had to learn how to fake it…

We try to keep each other honest! It’s not always easy, but it’s nice.

That’s basically where we ended up with it. I still find it a beautifully written book in structure and prose with interesting characters. But none of those characters are heroes despite attempts to romanticize them.

I think they wanted the group to have more empathy for the pressure and conflict Oscar especially dealt with. They were more willing to accept Oscar’s obsessive and unstable behavior as a product of his environment without also acknowledging that there’s personal choice and accountability involved too.

I love Oscar Wao, but probably not for the reasons intended. My book group read it a couple of years ago and we spent a lot of time talking about how it exposes the bullshit justification for toxic masculinity. It probably wasn’t intentional because there’s righteousness to the male characters that doesn’t make…

And she wrote it in response to people just like Kanye who minimized the struggle of slaves. It was meant to both build empathy and also say, “you think you’d do X if it were you, but the reality is a totally different thing.” Her papers at the Huntington Library have a great explanation of how irritated she was with…

The over use of AC is one of the few things I’ll make a stink about in the office. It’s obscene—and the second it’s anywhere near comfortable for me, it’s whine city. I’m willing to add extra layers but other folks need to get a fan if they’re so sensitive.

OMG, Tevin Campbell. I met that dude at a wedding back in the mid-90s and he was such a jerk. As predicted, he couldn’t even make a top 10 list of songs specifically in his wheelhouse.

After grammar arguments, office discussions about proper temperature are my favorite popcorn moments.

Well, the Capitol is an awful place. But the rest of DC is pretty cool. Besides, those folks don’t hang out in DC so they wouldn’t know anyway.

You can, but it’s a lot more complicated if it’s your primary means of collaborating for governance at that scale. So not just as well. From having clients making court appearances via teleconference to the regular coalition work at this scale, it takes face-time rather than Facetime.

Another reason is that some folks I know used to have separate phones for court or correctional facilities. Some of the former and most of the latter won’t let you in with a device containing a camera.

Ha! My boss’s assistant says that he can always tell which emails I ghostwrote for her because it has proper grammar. I’m so used to formal writing that it creeps into the casual stuff.

My first thought was, wow, that crew is skewing pretty young. I would have expected late 30s and 40s. There used to be a big group of mostly young people that played in the basement of the main library on Saturdays where I live before they closed it for renovation—it smelled like a teenage boy’s bedroom when you…

I don’t know what I fear more—late onset seasonal allergies from my dad is at least seasonal so I’m good for half the year (because DC). Or there’s the late onset lactose intolerance from my mom which is all the time, but there are ways to avoid the most painful aspects of it.

I thought about the comic books stores entry too, and was like, yeah, seems right (sadly). Except my now local comic book store is crazy inclusive and it was jarring at first—and has spoiled me forever.