The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

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tuesday, november 12, 2019. section c eZ re k

BY AMANDA LONG

The ABCs of

parenting from

5 celebrities

Tackling the topics of racism, sexual assault,

mental illness, climate change and financial independence

Josée Bisaillon for the washington Post

“trying to s ell something” t o a group of w hite

women. O ne of those women was his w ife.

Since then, they’ve had another daughter,

Asha, who is growing u p in a family that

speaks openly about race and racism.

The coffee shop has allegedly changed

hands. It’s s till a place we d on’t g o to. The kids

were with friends who wanted to stop there,

and m y 8-year-old s aid, “My family doesn’t g o

there.” When you’re clear with your kids why

you make certain decisions, they’re okay

with it. If Disneyland w ere in t here, we might

have a bigger problem.

My 5 -year-old recently found a book about

the Loving couple. our Latina babysitter

explained to our mixed-race kid about the

couple who m ade it legal for b lack and white

couples t o be m arried. Juno s aid, “You mean,

my mom and dada wouldn’t be able to be

married without t hat couple?” T he n ext time

she was walking by the coffee shop, she said,

“Is that why they kicked you and Dada out,

because you’re married and t hey didn’t want

see parenting on c3

P

arents walk a fine line between

protecting their kids from the

harsh reality of the world and pre-

paring them for it. And although

countless books, websites and TV

shows are dedicated to helping parents talk

about the big issues, that “A fterschool spe-

cial” script can seem beyond reach when

those questions are launched from the back

seat in the drop-off lane. We asked five

famous parents to share their conversations

about racism, sexual assault, mental illness,

climate change a nd financial independence.

These interviews have been edited and

condensed.

racism: w. kamau bell

In a 2015 “This American Life” segment

titled “When You S ee R acism, Say Racism,”

the 46-year-old comedian vowed to do just

that with h is two young daughters, Sami

and J uno. T hat was shortly after he’d been

asked to leave his neighborhood coffee s hop

because some employees thought he was

BY MARK JENKINS

As an adolescent, singer-guitarist
Adrianne Lenker was briefly groomed as
a teen-pop s tar. There’s no vestige of that
period in the music Lenker makes more
than a decade later, either as a solo
performer or when fronting Big Thief,
the bicoastal quartet that sold out the
9:30 Club on sunday night.
Perhaps because Lenker uses her
breathy soprano to deliver lyrics that
seem to be obliquely autobiographical,
her compositions are often termed
“folk.” Yet Big Thief’s style sounds more
like old-time country crossed with grun-
ge. While the mostly midtempo rhythms
evoked the Grand ole opry, the music’s
extreme dynamic shifts and coiled inten-
sity suggested post-punk. Both Lenker
and fellow g uitarist Buck Meek picked in
a percussive mode that produced banjo-
like timbres, yet they punctuated the
8 0-minute set with trebly, serrated for-
see music review on c4

music review

A mix of grand

theft opry and

capital grunge

theater review

in “lovers’ vows,” a butler uses poetry

in the service of delightful comedy. c2

music review

with music easels, eternal now paints a

serendipitous aural landscape. c4

carolyn hax

if your shiftless fiance won’t take out the

trash, kick him to the curb. c8

kidspost

Biologist likens birds’ mating dances to

humans giving one another flowers. c8

BY CHARLES ARROWSMITH

The best sequels aren’t just about get-

ting the old gang back together t o repeat

the thrills of the first installment (though

that’s part of it). A successful Part II

deepens the meaning of Part I. It doesn’t

so much meet our expectations as con-

found them, unfurling a new canvas to

reveal truths about the effects of time on

character and situation.

“Find Me,” André Aciman’s thoughtful

follow-up to “Call Me by Your name”

(2007), confounds expectations from the

start, assuming a different structure to

probe the difficulties of going back and

the myriad ways in which we seek mean-

ing. While the first book focused (mostly)

on one summer and the romance be-

tween teenage intellectual elio and grad-

uate student oliver, “Find Me” is more

fragmentary, takes a longer view and

places in counterpoint a wider range of

relationships.

see book world on c2

‘Call Me,’

maybe: An

uneven sequel

book world

BY HANK STUEVER

Judging from the blank looks I get

from some of my younger colleagues

when the words “preppy murder” come

up, it would seem that this combustible

moment in tabloid A merican culture has

faded into history more than I might

have guessed. (Jennifer Levin? Robert

Chambers? Dorrian’s Red Hand? no?

nothing?)

But as the supreme Court confirma-

tion hearings of Justice Brett M. Ka-

vanaugh reminded us last year, the

1980s are never as far away as we might

wish them to be, and they are more than

just a museum of Reaganomics and

hot-pink leg warmers. They also carry

psychic wounds and watershed mo-

ments, particularly on the subjects of

crime and gender.

We struggled back then with such

concepts as acquaintance rape and rou-

tine assaults. We knew little about

violence against women within our own

social circles, other than the occasional

notion that certain crimes might some-

how be the woman’s fault. A form of

slut-shaming, as it’s called now, greeted

see notebook on c2

critic’s notebook

‘Preppy’ trains its camera on the victim

Paul demaria/new york daily news archive via getty images/sundance tv

the media surrounds robert chambers, on trial i n Jennifer levin’s death, a s he

leaves court. He claimed self-defense but later pleaded guilty to manslaughter.