“This is my soundtrack, a concoction like the meals that graced my family’s table.”
“Compiling this playlist, it hit me—I’ve been very into Tears For Fears for the past five years and FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, A Calendar Is a Snakeskin is a book about allowing the tears to come, to confront the fears.”
“Punk is rock ‘n’ roll and rock ‘n’ roll is Black music, no matter what the colonizing Elvises of the world want you to think.”
“It isn’t possible to separate music from the eras that created it – which is why I’m so enthralled with the notion that some of the most joyful music in American history was created by artists living under the ongoing tragedy of Jim Crow…”
“Music was so meaningful for me when I was sick with a brain tumor in high school.”
“Music is an essential part of any culture.”
“While I can’t claim musical expertise, I can speak to what moves me, and the songs that landed on my playlist moved me—and did so in a way that harmonized with the seventeen stories in What Makes You Think You’re Supposed to Feel Better.”
“Music is all over Ringing in Your Ears.”
“I’m thinking of a new look at logic, deforming laws of nature in the world as we know it. Perhaps speed (fast, slow), gravity, relativity, causality, the alternate…”
“This playlist is for you, whether you’re an emo aficionado or not, to discover that there is a happier side to emo.”