July 12, 2019

On Michael Seidenberg: 1954–2019
He hated goodbyes.
All articles by this author
July 12, 2019
Dan Chung, Brandon Harris, Sarah Leonard
He hated goodbyes.
June 6, 2017
I set about visiting old haunts that summer, but soon realized few were left.
We had been gentrifiers, more humble and open than most, we assumed, and now our time to be called back into service had come again. There were surely other areas in premium metropolitan cultural centers out there that had lapsed to Negroes in the years after the Great War which remained affordable for the mostly white American middle class of 2015, and we’d have to go find one. He was, quite naturally, thinking about moving to LA, a cliché in the Brooklyn we were inhabiting, especially among the middle-class creatives who fashioned themselves as priced out, a sensation that inspired a cottage industry of Didion imposters writing “Goodbye to All That” imitations on the websites of once-veritable magazines. This is not, despite appearances, one of those. I remain too stubborn to read the writing on the wall.
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June 1, 2015
Scenes from the other Graceland
Paul wore several dense rings on his large hands as he gave the $5 tours and left the impression that he was not above using them in a mix-up. His charm melted away at the edges of a subtle menace he exuded. If he caught a visitor staring off into space as he was talking, he’d often grab their shoulder forcefully or pound on it twice with a backhanded closed fist, saying “Yo, Yo!” until he was confident that he had regained their attention.
Fuck George Jefferson, it’s Spike Lee who has moved on up.
March 30, 2014
What is black cinema anyway?
The questions one has to ask to define such a thing are those that few people feel comfortable asking, let alone answering: Is the money that financed the film in black hands from the beginning? Will the rewards find their way to black hands in the end? In the meantime, will black audiences have the film marketed to them, have places where they can easily see it? Will they identify with its themes and aesthetics? It’s all just posturing until those questions are answered.
Spike Lee was synonymous with Bed-Stuy, even if he’d never actually lived there.