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Martin Duberman’s Stonewall: A Present-Day Reflection
For anyone who wants to understand how we went from Stonewall to Pride, Duberman helps fill in a number of crucial details. Countless LGBTQ+ organizing efforts have occurred over the years, but most have not endured. Given how organizers of the first march feared that no one would show up, it’s staggering to imagine that Pride today might not even exist, if their efforts had collapsed like so many others.
Has Anyone Seen My Dildo? A Workplace Tale
Posted on February 9, 2022 3 Comments
Organizational theory around health and human services has a lot to say about workplace development, structure, culture, and goals. Sadly, there’s not a whole lot in that literature addressing the role of dirty words, condoms, dildos, and blowup dolls.
Pandemic Habits: Quarantine Reading, Quarantine Writing
Posted on April 13, 2021 Leave a Comment
It’s been hard to keep a partition between reading for work and reading for pleasure. If it’s something that might have bearing on the content of my book, I want to take notes. Reading for pleasure should be, well, more pleasurable, but the eyes and brain weren’t having it when I’d try to pick up a book in the evening for the fun of it.
Attention Economy, Part II: The Curious Case of Randy Shilts
Posted on March 8, 2021 Leave a Comment
With respect to the attention economy, Goldhaber notes, “We struggle to attune ourselves to groups of people who feel they’re not getting the attention they deserve, and we ought to get better at sensing that feeling earlier.” While he’s making this observation about those who recently tried to overthrow the 2020 election, the comment gives me pause because I think it applies quite aptly to the stories of ordinary people that Randy often featured in his work. To the extent that attention functions as currency in our society, what can we make of someone who was undeniably ambitious, yet tried to use his journalism to help lesser-known and less powerful individuals?
The Attention Economy, Part I: Commodity, or Human Right?
Posted on February 23, 2021 Leave a Comment
It perhaps goes without saying that in order to establish and maintain healthy, productive social relationships, we need to start by paying attention to each other. Simplistic as it may sound, this is a crucial step toward establishing more substantial bonds like empathy, attachment, mutual concern, and reciprocity. “Attention is a bit like the air we breathe,” Warzel comments. “It’s vital but largely invisible, and thus we don’t think about it very much unless, of course, it becomes scarce.”
The Pilgrimage
Posted on January 15, 2021 Leave a Comment
By stepping into the role of biographer, I realized that I’d taken on the part of quasi-time traveler, putting myself in the same place at different moments and connecting what I’d witnessed in archival footage with the evidence provided by my own senses.
Video Blog, Pt. 4: The Exciting Conclusion!
Posted on January 5, 2021 Leave a Comment
In the final portion of this video Q & A, students ask about the target audience for When the Band Played On, potential future book topics, and how I’d like my writing to affect people.
Video Blog Pt. 3: Answering Student Questions
Posted on December 29, 2020 Leave a Comment
In this segment, Holly asks me how a social work perspective has informed my research and writing, and to describe the experience of becoming intimately familiar with someone who I’ll never be able to meet in person.
My First Video Blog! Answering Student Questions (Pt. 1)
Posted on December 20, 2020 Leave a Comment
A couple months ago, I was invited to give a guest lecture to a class of social work students at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. I was so blown away by their curiosity and enthusiasm, I thought it would be fun to share their questions – and my responses – through the blog.
“Would You Have Liked Him When He Was Alive?”
Posted on December 7, 2020 1 Comment
Instead of distancing myself from the more complicated emotions of Randy’s story, I’ve tried to move closer, even when it’s challenged my comfort levels and forced me to reconsider my own assumptions and beliefs. Being able to explore those uncomfortable spaces has helped me to write about them in ways that I hope will make it stronger.
Days of Wine and Proses 