Word: b
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...professional (and obsessive) movie watcher, I find Netflix a helpful reference source for my never-ending entertainment education. (B-movie serials! BBC miniseries! Bollywood musicals!) But I have misgivings about the service's usefulness, especially compared with that of a real, well-stocked video store, and about the possibly harmful effect that Netflix and other online retail outfits may have on American society...
...YORK, N.Y. — Every time I meet B, a rising high school senior in my writing class at Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side, he makes me laugh. He delivers his jokes with a screwball exuberance that puts him in the tradition of zany black comics Chris Tucker, Chris Rock, and Dave Chappelle. At first, I couldn't return the warmth, and glanced at him awkwardly as he offered his hand for—I didn't know what. Perhaps I felt more at home thinking about sentence structures than pounding and slapping hands with street...
...writing sessions, I learned that B loves to think about psychology. Though his humor appears effortless, it is really the product of constant analysis. He makes hypotheses about what kinds of laughs might be associated with particular brain states. He keeps a running list of what people say about the mind as he watches television. He finds food for thought even in exercise competitions. "Harness your psychic powers to enhance your muscles and annihilate your opponent!" he remembered an overexcited host saying. B wondered why the show would portray the mind as so dominant over the body...
...B's conception of the psyche is more complicated. As a child, he gained a reputation for his skill at untangling knots of wires. He thinks of his mind as another knot in need of continuous untangling. He aspires to help others achieve mental order by becoming a psychologist. Already, he is working to make people healthier. As a peer sex educator employed by Henry Street, he journeys around New York City to give workshops on HIV/AIDS. He takes his job seriously. When I remarked that his workshops might save a life, he replied quickly: "Probably more." (His message...
Yesterday, I saw B and his coworkers across from my office, at the entrance to a complex of red brick housing projects, joking after a long day of work. I was wearing glasses, and couldn't see very well. But B called to me just as I walked outside. He had been slowly teaching me about greetings, and he extended a pound. I flubbed on the first try—maybe my mind was tangled. Then I asked B and one of his friends about handshakes. I had always felt that the pounders were somehow excluding me, and was sure...