Not too long ago in this space it was Amadeo. Now more light to shine on B-More products, sparked by this homage to Ta-Nehisi Coates by PostBourgie, where the writing is also top-flight.
Ta-Nehisi is indeed profound, and I look forward to getting into his first book. Meantime on his blog he drops a simple line bursting with truth in his latest post: “…I know the limits of my experience.” (Please, read for context, and if you haven’t already, read all his stuff.) It shames me to see this from someone who knows so much more than I do and expresses it so much better. At least that’s how I feel and how any good human being ought to feel — like, shit, if this is what he’s saying I’d really better raise my game.
By now I’ve heard and seen Coates in a handful of interviews/opinion shows, and he couldn’t come off more down-to-earth. Most recent I know of was by Marc Steiner here. If you know Baltimore, you know Steiner. I’d heard a lot about him, but had never caught him on WYPR before he was fired back in February. Now I’ve got an idea of what I was missing — the man’s an engaged interviewer and conversationalist, still plying the craft at the Center for Emerging Media. Cool dude.
I’m not even going to join the chorus singing the praises of “The Wire” — I’m redundant. But I mention it ’cause of its obvious Baltimore connection, and ’cause I binged on a bunch of Steiner interviews withthe show’s players conducted during the final season a few months back. My favorite was of Brendan Walsh and Willa Bickham, founders of Viva House, a Catholic Worker soup kitchen. Hear how serious they are about serving people. I’m in awe.
So I add Marc Steiner to my list of favorite interviewers, and since I mention the list I’ll name another from Baltimore, Farai Chideya of News and Notes on NPR. She’s a vast improvement over the former host, Ed Gordon. Whatever the circumstances of his departure, the show was falling way short before Chideya took over.
