The Making of Umoja: There Is No Monolith

I will not lie: it is slightly intimidating to interview two individuals as beautiful as Biankah Bailey and Marcellus Nealy, co-editors of “Umoja: Black Diaspora Edition”, the latest trailblazing offering from ToPoJo Excursions. Fortunately, we do it over Zoom, which makes it just a tiny bit easier to keep my cool. On the screen, Marcellus […]

JOHN FRANCIS CROSS: I Enjoy Meeting You And Talking

There is something extraordinary about having a conversation with John Francis Cross. I’ve had the pleasure in a variety of locations over the years: A seedy, incense-and-cigarette-smoke-infused basement bar in Ikenoue A rooftop café in Sangenjaya Along the banks of several inner-city rivers A vast, Parisian-style underground coffee shop in Shinjuku, with elegant china and […]

Jeffrey Johnson Interview: The Irresistible Pull of Moonlight, Flamenco, & Noam Chomsky’s Brain

Meeting Jeffrey Johnson on the street in Setagaya on a sunny afternoon in October, you’d be forgiven for assuming he’s a moderately normal, well-adjusted man. He sports a neatly trimmed goatee and is dressed in the quietly suave manner befitting a professor of literature at Sophia University: well-fitted jeans, a black T-shirt, spotless white sneakers. […]