PicoBlog

Share Most people who know me, know that I have a rather ubiquitous presence on Twitter. I joined in 2013 in the effort to increase the visibility of the national civil rights organization. By 2014, after the Ferguson uprising, I saw the power of this medium to connect me directly with people in communities all over this country, and to share the powerful work of civil rights. I realized that I could hear voices too often unheard and to use my brand and growing following to amplify those voices; to provide historical context for painful, challenging moments that resonated powerfully with our long struggle for civil rights; to correct inaccuracies and lazy, stereotypical presentations of issues facing the Black community, particularly in the context of civil rights law; and to offer strategy, and even a sense of hope and encouragement in the fight for racial justice and equality.

Click here to read this essay on Substack.  I. There's this moment I'm faced with about once a week––during Zoom calls for work, or on the phone with my grandmother––when someone asks me the question, "so what have you been up to?" Perhaps irrationally, this prompt always sends me into a bit of a panic. So I’ll talk about work and books and TV, and try hard to say something that will make me sound normal.

If there’s one theme that stretches across Wes Anderson’s films, then it is that of the miniature. Whether it’s the lavish ballroom of The Grand Budapest Hotel, the hand painted carriages in The Darjeeling Limited, or now the quarantine zone in Asteroid City, Wes Anderson has grown into cinema’s greatest miniaturist. As Toy Story director John Lasseter once observed, people are drawn to miniature worlds, they want to inhabit them.

Of the various famous people I profiled or interviewed in my twenties—from Kim Kardashian to David Cronenberg, to give you an idea of the gleeful range—nobody interested me more than Zac Efron.  The era of the great celebrity profile is gone, as many have lamented. Gorgeous examples still emerge but they are aberra… ncG1vNJzZmiln6G5usXOrqWgZqOqr7TAwJyiZ5ufonyxe86nZLOZk2Kyp77Opw%3D%3D

I suppose I’m one of those people who can watch a lot of crime shows at any given time without feeling overwhelmed. Despite the acts of violence perpetrated in a lot of K dramas decked with amounts of the red juice that could restock an entire blood bank, K crime shows come across as being lightweight despite the dark themes explored in these stories. And I don’t just mean the One Dollar Lawyer.

There are weeks when writing this newsletter feels like a chore. Sometimes I have to drag myself over to the computer to do it because I have to, not because I find any joy in it. I procrastinate. I get annoyed. And I do get it done… but it sucks.  I went through such a dry spell recently. Every post felt so difficult to complete, and I didn’t like any of them.

A regular feature for paid Watch List subscribers: I suggest one reasonably under-the-radar movie from the recent or distant past, and you do what you want with that information. But first, for non-paying newcomers (of whom there have been quite a few recently), I refer you back to a popular early Watch List discovery — one of this newsletter’s Greatest Hits, really — “Riders of Justice” (2020, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2), which looks like a B-movie vigilante flick but is in fact funnier, sadder, more thoughtful, and more deranged.

A regular feature for paid Watch List subscribers: I suggest one reasonably under-the-radar movie from the recent or distant past, and you do what you want with that information. “Listen Up Philip” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, streaming on Peacock and Kanopy; for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, YouTube, and elsewhere) Comedies about awful people aren’t for everyone, but when they’re done right, as in Alex Ross Perry’s arch, agile literary farce, the results can be a joy.

A regular feature for paid Watch List subscribers: I suggest one reasonably under-the-radar movie from the recent or distant past, and you do what you want with that information. The Illusionist (2006, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, for rent on Amazon, AppleTV, Microsoft, Vudu; streaming with ads elsewhere) Not to be confused with the Oscar-nominated French animated film from 2010 (a delightful ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐-star watch in itself and widely rentable), this is the equivalent of a beach read you can’t put down, or, more precisely, a s’more for a summer night – your fingers get sticky but the sugar buzz is worth it.