loveitallabove

Dear Friends and Family, On the brink of the new year on December 31, 2019 we stood at the foot of Kehinde Wiley's brand new monumental equestrian sculpture in downtown Richmond at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. There were a bunch of families gathered around taking pictures together. Emblematic of this entire year and entitled “ Rumors of War ,” the monument depicts an unarmed Black man in heroic pose atop a horse. The man’s sneakers are in the stirrups, looking back over their shoulder like Napoleon as they ride forward up a ridge . It was a strange harbinger of the year that was, and how it’s going. Kamala Harris will be named our vice president in a few weeks. In between, the apocalyptic has been commonplace; I mean, what a year. Emil started high school this fall. Graduation this past spring from Mark Day School was likely the year’s highlight. Karen is still at Mark Day. This fall they've been doing hybrid learning. It’s the first time Karen and Emil have not been goi...

Thank you to the few close friends and family who joined the first discussion about   The Berlin Stories . My hope is to create a sense of community and cohesion for folks, to read more books, and books that speak to this particular age in which we are enmired. It feels like both a constructive and arcane activity during this time and an important way to understand that we have been here before, that art as literature lingers. It's indulgent and speaks to the dichotomy of introvert and extrovert. Wondering if it's the introvert who is really seeking the reassurance or the extrovert; in this case, I know I will be compelled to finish a novel if I have others relying on me. And Isherwood. I have always wanted to read Isherwood's The Berlin Stories . Made up of two novellas about ex-pat life in Germany, these works are distilled into what becomes the first movie that scared me out of my wits Cabaret. I can't imagine it was in a theater and why would it have been on TV in t...