ANEW: What’s in a Name?
Driving, Dreaming, and the Art of Showing Up
I’m somewhere between New York and Ohio, doing one of my favorite things: driving across the country and listening to podcasts and Broadway musicals. It’s early in the drive — hour three of eighteen — and I’ve switched from my usual Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! to binge-listening The Heavyweight, that gorgeously awkward, strangely resonant show from Jonathan Goldstein and Khalilah Holt.
If you’ve never listened, here’s the setup: someone has a lingering question, usually small but meaningful — an unresolved thing from years ago. Like, did your seventh-grade crush really like you? Why didn’t he give you that Valentine’s Day card? And the Heavyweight team gently, hilariously, goes back and finds out. It’s simple, and it’s genius. And it got me thinking about my own unresolved curiosities.
See, I don’t just listen when I drive. I also dictate into my phone — thoughts, fragments, blog posts like this one — always with eyes on the road, hands at ten and two, staying safe so that I can live to drive another day. But the writing begins here, in the movement. I find that my best thinking doesn’t come when I’m sitting at a desk trying to sound smart. It comes when I’m moving forward, quite literally, trying to make sense of what’s just behind me and what lies ahead.
Today, I started wondering about names — not podcast names, but podcast company names. For giggles. Why “Pushkin Industries”? Malcolm Gladwell’s choice feels like a wink to Russian literature, to doubt, to complexity. But I’ll admit something here: I don’t know Pushkin. I mean, I know of him. But I couldn’t quote him. I couldn’t even tell you the name of one thing he wrote.
Still, the name hits. Pushkin. It sounds smart, deliberate, and serious. It also seems to hold the weight of some Gladwellian history or mystery.
I wonder, if I were to name a podcast company, what would I call it?
The name that keeps circling back to me is Countee Cullen. That name has music. That name sings. I couldn’t quote or name a single poem right now, but the name itself has rhythm and soul. Maybe it’s the alliteration. Maybe it’s the memory of hearing it in a high school classroom, a Black poet in the Harlem Renaissance who made space for voice and verse in a world that rarely listened.
Maybe I’d call it Countee’s Cards—something playful, a little poetic, maybe even a nod to poker or strategy. A name with depth and mischief. A name with teeth.
After I land in St. Louis, I’ll dig deeper — reread Cullen, trace the lines back to where they began. But even now, I know what I’m really reaching for. It’s not just a name. It’s his legacy. It’s a frame for the kind of work Countee Cullen did for “the culture,” which seems important and smart. It’s what I want to be doing, which is something creative, lyrical, a little bit soulful, and grounded in meaning.
Speaking of meaning, that’s what this drive is really about.
For those who don’t know, I’m headed back to St. Louis, back to a city I love and a community that called me back. I’ve accepted the role of Interim Head of School at Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School. And let me tell you: this wasn’t just a “next job” decision. This was a soul choice. A choice made after a year of slowing down, rethinking, and reconnecting to what matters most.
I’ve been waiting for the right fit, to be called. Looking quietly for the right place that saw me, not just for what I’d done, but for who I am now. And this community did just that. They met me with warmth, clarity, and a shared vision.
At the same time, I’ll continue my other work—helping launch a new autism-centered school in St. Louis, consulting with schools for School First, and, of course, writing.
Oh yes—the novel. The one I’ve been revising off and on for years. Well, we’re here now. It’s happening. Manchild at Yale: A Novel will be released next year by my publisher, alongside three other books in their new slate. For the first time ever, they’re launching a full season of new releases — and my novel will be one of them. That’s surreal, beautiful, and the specialness is not lost on me.
So here I am, driving and dreaming, naming and claiming. May we all continue to dig into meaning — what it means to belong, to be seen, to show up for people in real time.
That’s what Heavyweight is about. That’s what Cullen was about. That’s what I want this year to be about. Thanks for riding along.
May it always be so.
Curated Listening:
In my own cosmology, I have been thinking about what it means to be human at this time and place in our history. That degree of self-reflection requires introspection beyond what most people would be comfortable with along with a heaping helping of humility. More than few years back, the singer Rag’n’Bone Man, did just that with his song “I’m Only Human.” Listen to it HERE.
So much good stuff here! Congrats on finding a publisher!
And congrats on the novel.