Antiracist Accountability: #DiversifyYourFeed Quintux! (??)

Hello again!

I am writing another antiracist accountability post this month because I did not write one in April, and I've been meaning to make up for that.

So now: EVEN MORE GOOD NEWS!

You will likely remember another of our highlighted favorite TikTokers, Alexis Nelson (aka Blackforager, aka @alexisnikole).  Last September, she was featured in a New York Times article (as well as a bunch of other news coverage at the time and since).  It was so exciting to see such a positive, enthusiastic, and richly informative Black educator gain so much visibility while connecting people back to nature.

Well.

She WON A JAMES BEARD AWARD!!

It's just so nice when nice things happen.  I hope this makes your heart as happy as it made mine.

Congratulations Alexis!!!

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: #DiversifyYourFeed Quadrux x Supporting Black-Owned Bookstores Redux

Hello friends,

All of a sudden, I am at a happy stage of writing antiracist accountability posts that they now not only require multiple installments to track positive developments, but the subjects of various accountability posts also continue to commingle!  This is fun in a way I did not anticipate!

Without further ado:

You will remember that I highlighted Mamadou Ndiaye (aka @mndiaye_97) and his excellent animal facts content as one of the (many) reasons that TikTok, when its algorithm is well-trained, is a source of seemingly endless delights.

In April 2021, Ndiaye's content was then featured on @pbsnature's account, which seemed like a very promising sign he was moving up in visibility.

Exciting update as of this month:

He wrote a book!!

It is entitled "100 Animals That Can F*cking End You", and it is available for pre-order now!

...Which brings me to the delightful mash-up of today's post, because this is an excellent opportunity to pre-order this assuredly entertaining and informative book, support an excellent Black content creator and educator, AND support Black-owned bookstores!

An very easy way to do that: Victoria Alexander is an anti-racist equity and justice educator based out of University of Maryland who also has great content on TikTok, including this video explaining a great, easy-to-use resource for purchasing books from people of color-, queer-, and women-owned bookstores instead of relying on Amazon.  She also provides several curated booklists on various antiracist topics.

If you want to use that book-buying resource pre-order Ndiaye's book AND benefit Loyalty Bookstore, one of the Black- (and Queer-) owned bookstores featured in my previous post about buying from Black-owned bookstores, you can use their bookshop.org link by clicking here!  (You can also buy through Ms. Alexander's personal link here, which will give her a small commission and is therefore a nice way to compensate her for her immensely important work!)

Enjoy!  And congratulations Mamadou!!!

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: When Awful Stories Have Happy Endings

Hello again,

Now for a brief antiracist accountability post, which is ever more crucial given that I did not write one last month.

You may remember the awful episode in May 2020 in which white woman extraordinaire Amy Cooper, aka the Central Park Karen, called NYPD to make false allegations against a Black man just trying to enjoy some birdwatching.  While this was unfortunately only one of a dizzying array of examples of white women abusing their immense privilege and thereby risking getting their Black neighbors and fellow citizens killed, it was particularly ugly to watch her concoct her plan to lie to the police out loud to her potential victim, only to then actually have the audacity to carry that plan out.  The man she could have gotten killed through her attempts to mobilize the violence of the state is Christian Cooper (no relation, obviously?).

It was recently announced that Mr. Cooper will be hosting a 6-episode series on National Geographic (available through Disney+) called "Extraordinary Birder".  Mr. Cooper, who has evidently enjoyed birdwatching since he was 10 years old and has a career history that illustrates that he is extraordinary in many ways beyond his birdwatching, will happily now have the opportunity to share his beloved hobby with viewers worldwide.  Mr. Cooper is clearly a treasure, and the fact that he will now have a larger platform on which to share his love of birds is sure to be a huge treat.

One of the unexpected gifts of being home almost constantly during the past 2+ years has been that I have gotten more and more interested in birdwatching.  I installed a bird feeder I can see from the window over the sink in my kitchen, and it's become a daily pleasure to top up the feeder and feel like a modern-day Disney princess as our neighborhood birds immediately descend to get some snacks.  Even better, my Child has been enjoying several excellent board books profiling a variety of native birds and providing audio of their calls, and is now so keenly aware of birds that he can correctly identify them in the wild from their calls alone.  It is such a joy to share this interest with him, and I am so excited to share Mr. Cooper's show with him!

Be sure to tune in with us!

{Heart}

"Julia" Is A Delicious Treat

Hi team,

I am going to do my best to write two very quick entries before the end of the month.

So here we go:

Let's talk about the most recent movie about famous chef and cookbook author, Julia Child: "Julia" (2021).

Despite its relatively short run time, this film was a rich, dense biography of the life and career of a beloved food icon.  It provided insights into Child's childhood and early adulthood, the important relationships that shaped her, and how her earliest experiences in France forever captured her heart and ultimately changed the history of American cooking forever.

While the movie is deeply affectionate toward the woman at its center, it does not shy away from some of the more complicated and at times ugly chapters in her life.  For example, it explores the at times strained and contentious relationship between Child and her co-author, French chef Simone Beck.  It also acknowledges Child's history of overt homophobia, although it also allows her some degree of redemption by highlighting her remarkable about-face after her lawyer and dear friend Bob Johnson, who was gay, died during the AIDS epidemic; she later went on to become an early celebrity voice advocating for awareness, research, and treatment for AIDS.  

Unsurprisingly, one of the most prominent themes throughout the movie is Child's immense impact on the average American home cook.  So much of her life's mission was to reclaim nourishing and delicious cooking for all of humanity--to take "fancy" cooking out of the kitchens of exclusive and elitist restaurants and make it accessible and accomplishable in every home's kitchen.  Hers was a deeply admirable and humanitarian aim to reconnect people with their enjoyment of creating food they can love and be proud of.  It is a wonderful gift to her fellow human beings and an enviable legacy.

With that in mind, I found it particularly rankling with Ruth Reichl, chef and food writer, discussed with some pride how Child eventually lost influence and how the next generation of chefs--presumably Reichl's cohort of food professionals--"elevated" cooking again by emphasizing niche and artisanal ingredients not available to the average family.  It doesn't seem to occur to Reichl that the impact of her generation of chefs is actually to push excellence in cooking backward, again to a point that it is so "fancy", exclusive, and expensive as to be unattainable or intimidating to the average home cook.  It's a strange thing to congratulate oneself and one's colleagues for, especially in the context of this particular film celebrating the inclusivity and general empowerment of Child's cooking legacy.

At its conclusion, this movie is heartwarming and uplifting without being overly saccharine--a true honor to its subject.  I gave it a 5.

{Heart}

Take A Delightful Trip with "Vacation Friends"

Heyo,

Especially after my (thoroughly justified) screed in my previous post, I'd love to offer a little palate cleanser in the form of a quick review of a movie I absolutely loved.

Let's talk about "Vacation Friends" (2021)!

The worst thing about this movie is its completely forgettable title.  It is such a bad title that I may not have even watched this film were it not for Husband's very good judgment to give it a chance.  That damn placeholder-sounding title was almost enough to dissuade me from giving the movie a try, as it makes it sound like this could easily have been a flat and boring chore of a film.  DO NOT BELIEVE ITS LIES.  If you're able to remember the title long enough to actually find and watch the thing, you're in for a sincerely and raucously laugh-out-loud romp.  

"Vacation Friends" is a buddy comedy/wedding crashers hybrid with generous helpings of creativity and heart.  It is carried handily by its core cast of Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, John Cena, and Meredith Hagner.  

I thought I wasn't familiar with Hagner's work until I was reminded by a perusal of her IMDB page that she was in two really interesting and previously-written-about-on-this-blog movies: "Palm Springs" (2020) and "Ingrid Goes West" (2017).  My only previous exposure to Orji is in a few episodes of the goddamned delightful "A Black Lady Sketch Show" (2019-present).  Both Orji and Hagner are perfect complements to their male counterparts as Emily and Kyla, while also expanding their characters into reasonably fleshed-out human beings (as much as a fully silly ass movie will allow for, anyway).  John Cena's Ron balances absurd impulsivity against goofy yet sincere earnestness, with occasional displays of shocking competence to keep his charmed audience guessing.  As Marcus, the film's proverbial straight man, Howery (recently appreciated in "Free Guy" (2021) and appreciated, albeit less recently, in "Get Out" (2017)) comfortably falls into the ostensible lead role for the film, hopefully lining up his already-busy career for ever more success.

One of the great maneuvers executed by this movie is that, for my brain at least, it played with my expectations for its narrative structure.  Based on the film's trailer, I expected it to start with Emily and Marcus's wedding and perhaps introduce the backstory of their friendship with Kyla and Ron in alternatingly jarring and blurry flashbacks.  Instead, we get to see the friendship from its earliest, not exactly promising moments, only to get maybe a bit irrationally attached to the friendship--just as Ron and Kyla do.

An additional major perk of this movie is that it presents an interracial friendship without being remotely squeamish about the fact that it is about an interracial friendship.  To the contrary, any and all squeamishness stems solely from Ron and Emily's good-heartedly brash bull-in-a-china-shop energy, which Marcus and Emily understandably resist and object to until (spoiler) ultimately opening their hearts to friendships that will endure long beyond a boozy hazy week in Mexico.

Beyond the title, my only other regret for this movie is that Husband and I weren't able to see it in a theater.  Given how much we were laughing at home, I can only happily imagine how much fun it would have been to share in this fun adventure in a theater with a packed house.  I can't tell you how much I hope to be able to enjoy something like that sometime soon.

I gave "Vacation Friends" a 5.  I truly and unabashedly enjoyed the hell out of this movie.  I hope you do too!

{Heart}