Today’s joy:
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Author: Christopher A. Kess
Writer, et. al.
Today’s inspiration:
The poet Tiana Clark writing in the March/April 2021 issue of Poets and Writers about her process, and sometimes lack thereof, of writing during the pandemic, remarked about editors soliciting “Black pain from Black writers” in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. At that time, she wasn’t sure she had much to add to the conversation, she wrote. After all, the killing of George Floyd was just the latest such killing in recent years and any Black writer suffering from fatigue from discussing the latest death of an African American at the hands of law enforcement, was understandable. One has to wonder how many times and in how many different ways you can frame this conversation.
Twitter Hackers Caught
There’s a scene at the beginning of “Ocean’s Eleven,” where Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan are trying to talk Ruben Tishkoff into joining them in their planned casino robbery caper. Ruben is hesitant at first, but is happy to join in once Danny and Rusty explain that they’re planning to rob the casinos of Ruben’s nemesis, Terry Benedict, who had recently bought Ruben’s hotels from under him and was planning to demolish them “to make way for some gaudy monstrosity.”
Baltimore Magazine recently published an article by senior editor, Ron Cassie, with some bold proposals to, as the title says, fix Baltimore. The article recounts some of the historical reasons for why Baltimore has come to be in the position that it’s in. It’s not what most people would think, especially outsiders, who most likely think the issue is crime, because they’ve watched The Wire; they’ve maybe even binged it during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It’s true that Baltimore, as it is now, is a product of the decisions made about its governance.