A Pause for Praise

My sabbatical is still not over, but I wanted to just quickly praise two things:

1. Dwight A. McBride's book Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch. Absolutely fascinating and engrossing. McBride makes an excellent and none-too-surprising connection between Abercrombie & Fitch's marketing and Nazi propaganda. The company's "Look Book" comes across as a modern day Mein Kampf. I'd write more, but I'm trying to keep this post short.
2. The film Brother to Brother. I seriously was not expecting to like this film, but it really sucked me in on a personal level. Rarely have I felt so close to a protagonist as I did with Perry in this film. Shock of all shocks, the cast is relatively good. (Anthony Mackie went on to do Spike Lee's She Hate Me, and Daniel Sunjata goes without saying to anyone who saw Take Me Out several seasons ago.) Two scenes especially stand out (I do not think this is a spoiler): The first is where Perry bolts out of a post-coital embrace with Jim (who is white) after Jim says that he has "the sweetest black ass," unaware of how loaded and unintentionally offensive that comment is (very relatable); The other is a conversation between James Baldwin and Eldridge Cleaver which puts the aforementioned scene in perfect sociological context, if you ask me. Rodney Evans did an amazing job with the script and direction. Generally, I'm against directors writing and directing their own work, but he's a notable exception. I hope to see more from him.

And for the record, I am receiving no kickbacks.