Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
One of the pleasures of getting older and making a living the way you want to is that your social circle becomes rarified and the people who enter have been vetted. When I was in my twenties, shady-ass characters routinely found their way into my life and my apartment. With some regularity, friends revealed themselves…
Mount Zion A.M.E. Church in Greelyville, South Carolina, was ablaze on Tuesday evening. Photos were posted by local firefighters and journalists on social media: The prominent African American church was burned down by the KKK in 1995. The cause of this latest fire is unknown. There have been a string of fires at African American churches throughout…
Up until a few weeks ago, I worked at a historic site in the South that included an old house and a nearby plantation. My job was to lead tours and tell guests about the people who made plantations possible: the slaves. The site I worked at most frequently had more than 100 enslaved workers…
A destroyed piano is part of the charred remains of Briar Creek Road Baptist Church Wednesday, June 24, 2015 in Charlotte, N.C. (Davie Hinshaw/The Charlotte Observer via AP) In the week after nine people were shot dead at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina, six churches with predominately black congregations in five southern…
Six predominantly black churches in various cities in the South caught fire this week, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Three of the fires have been confirmed as cases of arson, two were likely accidental, and authorities are still investigating the cause of another. The College Hills Seventh Day Adventist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee…
Fires burned four predominantly black southern churches over the last week, and authorities say at least three of the blazes were the work of arsonists. Monday: The first of the fires burned College Hills Seventh Day Adventist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. The predominantly black church suffered some damage to its lawn, front doors, and van,…
Actors Tony Revolori, Kiersey Clemons and Shameik Moore in Dope David Moir /sl-art-illo-cap /sl-art-illo-cntr First, let’s get this out of the way. Dope is a good movie. It is enjoyable, watchable and sweet. But it is also so sweet that if it were a drink, it would be a hipster, artisan rum punch drowning in…
Coming-of-age stories are about going through something defining. Movies like The Breakfast Club endure because the experiences they capture, like grappling with identity or awkward sexuality, are meant to be universal, signposts that mark the moments where we quit being kids. Resolution comes as each character — our teenaged avatars — take those first steps…
“Dope” begins with an onscreen definition, which is a known characteristic of satires that ultimately fail in their satiric visions. Usually, these films open with a definition of satire, which they don’t live up to by the closing credits. “Dope” opts instead for Webster’s take on its title, defining it as slang for a stupid…
Photo From left, Tony Revolori, Kiersey Clemons and Shameik Moore in “Dope.” Credit Rachel Morrison/Open Road Films A coming-of-age story that is at once a parody of, and a tribute to, ’90s-vintage ghetto dramas, “Dope” wears its pop-culture obsessions on its sleeve. So does its hero, Malcolm (Shameik Moore), a teenager navigating his senior year…