On the day when The weight deadens On your shoulders And you stumble, May the clay dance To balance you. (‘Beannacht,’ John O’Donohue) When my grandmother slanders someone, she always follows it with benevolence. “He’s dumb as a rock,” she’ll say, “bless his heart.” “She ain’t worth a plugged nickel, bless her heart.” I think […]
The Jeffersonian Ideal and the Unexpected Solution to Racism
As you may know, Mockingbird HQ is situated here in happy, wealthy, intellectual, pastoral Charlottesville, Virginia. When I moved to Charlottesville for college almost 15 years ago, it was considered “America’s Happiest City” and one of the best places in America to raise a family. It still is. For this reason, and others, there is a […]
Why I Invited Daryl Davis to Speak in DC
There’s a scene about fifteen minutes into Accidental Courtesy, the 2016 documentary about musician Daryl Davis, that so blew my hair back that I immediately looked up his contact info for the purposes of begging him to join us at our upcoming event in Washington, DC. The scene begins with a clip from Geraldo Rivera’s […]
Washington Football Just Can’t Win
♫ Are you ready for some football? ♫ We’re a less than a month away from professional gridiron action and even closer to our beloved college ball. Living in Morgantown WV, home to my WVU Mountaineers, the start of football season induces a Pavlovian happiness into my small community. Relief from summer heat, fall foliage, harvest festivals, […]
Another Terrible Week Ends
Poems, with their frustrations, are apt oblations. See: A failure of sound in line one, And two. And now three. A fitting clang for a clanging land: Half-formed, One-third too much logic, Savagely lucid, like a siren. Going from Jericho to Jerusalem to family dinner, In a beat-up Buick, taillight out. He groans, Pierced in […]
Sammy Davis Jr’s Gonna Build a Mountain
Everything I know about Sammy Davis Jr. I either learned from comedians – the butt of a joke I didn’t get – or Michael Jackson, who emulated the guy. In other words, it’s all second or third hand, and has more to do with his historical importance than his actual work. So I’m not sure […]
