Entertainment
Summoning mothers to their power to fight climate change and inequality
On the Shelf
Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against “the Apocalypse”
By Emily Raboteau
Henry Holt: 304 pages, $30
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As the Northern Hemisphere slowly emerges from the dark days of winter, we welcome the extra hours of daylight. In Emily Raboteau’s New York City neighborhood, a different kind of daylighting may happen; the enormous proposed civic project to daylight Tibbetts Brook, from where it was buried underground, will provide flood control and create natural beauty. (Similar projects, in which paved-over streams are brought back to the surface, are occurring in various places in California.) For Raboteau, it’s an exciting project but also a reminder that her Bronx neighborhood is living on borrowed time. In Raboteau’s book of essays, “Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against ‘the Apocalypse,’” her care for her neighborhood and her maternal care for her children are connected as she faces an uncertain climate future.
The rising sea levels that threaten the California coast will have a greater impact on New York City, submerging the areas near Raboteau’s house. Daylighting Tibbetts Brook spotlights how climate change lives in the same ecosystem as race and class and the continuing effects of colonization. During our March interview via video chat, Raboteau reminds me, “The Lenape called [Tibbett’s Creek] Mosholu.
“[The project’s] messy,” Raboteau continued. “If it comes to pass, it will be the most expensive [$130 million] green action in New York. [But] should we be spending that much money on this climate mitigation act that is in a sense an act of reparation? Or should we be spending it to think about a managed retreat for the poorest people, in the low-lying areas, who know we’re living on borrowed time now?”
In New York, anxiety about an uncertain future and economic pressure are expressed in art. One of the essays follows Raboteau’s travels to document a local artist’s warning signs about the coming catastrophe in multiple New York City locations. She journeys to see many of the city’s public art projects — including a gorgeous photo essay on murals commemorating birds likely to be extinct soon — and other calls to action to mitigate climate change. The birds, it turns out, are also a way for Raboteau to distract herself from chronic pain — both physical and metaphysical — her body’s response to the weight of our changing world.
As the result of that wandering, she comes into contact with a broad swath of people, documenting their environmental fears but also their suspicion that such art projects are signs of gentrification and additional economic disparities. Raboteau calls our attention to the ways in which environmental pressures will create even more social inequality between those who can afford to move, and those who are rooted by economic necessity and lack of access to alternatives.
Living on land that has seen multiple generations of inhabitants creates another pressing question for Raboteau, whose book of connected essays is about moving through our new 2020s reality as a mother. She is deeply conscious of a challenge posed by Jonas Salk, who insisted that our obligations to future generations should be our biggest priority — not just the ancestors of the two sons she and her husband, writer Victor LaValle, are raising.
She’s aware that many of us don’t think beyond our immediate present. “[It requires] thinking about ourselves in the past as we consider the future generations, like that edict of the Iroquois law thinking seven generations ahead. That’s very abstract and challenging for us.”
As a scion of her Black ancestors, and the mother of a new generation, Raboteau keeps photos in her workspace to remind herself that she is the result of her family’s past struggle. “It’s a story commonly told in the Black tradition, and it was told to me by my dad at some point: ‘Your great-grandfather was a slave so that his child could be a preacher so their child could be a teacher so that their child could be a politician so that you could be an artist.’ I like being reminded that you are actually the fruit or the flower of a long process of ancestry that toiled so you could do this.”
Raboteau writes poignantly about her recently deceased father, scholar Albert Raboteau, whose work on the religious traditions of slaves is seminal in the field of Black studies. He came from an area of Mississippi devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and today, Raboteau’s family has left due to its aftereffects. While environmental catastrophe has scattered her people, so too have the effects of racism and poverty.
“When [my father] was in his mother’s womb, his father, who was a grocery store clerk, was murdered by a white man. This was in 1943 and the man was never tried and certainly never prosecuted for the crime. So my grandmother fled the Jim Crow South to save the life of my dad, who was not yet born, and his older sisters and they went to Michigan.”
Her father died of dementia in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. Her grief began before he died, as her sharp solastalgia for the man he was before illness mirrored her feelings about the changing Earth and all that has already been lost. “We see that solastalgia grafted on the landscape, but there’s also a kind of bittersweet element in parenting [in watching children grow and change].” She now sees her father’s image on the ancestor wall. “The wall reminds me to think about what’s come before, where we fall in this lineage and what we owe the next generation.”
During a research trip to the Arctic, she found herself sleeping in a tribal council office under an ancestor wall like the one in her office. It was a reminder of all that has already been lost, and just how perplexed she is by feelings of climate rage and grief.
“I was encouraged to speak to elders in that community who remembered the land, what it was like before the warming began, and I asked one elder, ‘What do we do with our anger?’ And he said, ‘That’s easy. We take care of each other.’”
Taking care of each other means moving toward collective action. It’s one way of combating the individual sense of being powerless. Raboteau is working with multiple groups across New York City that are combining social and economic justice with climate action. Tied to New York because they’re dependent on the income she and her partner earn in the city, they stay. She writes that her children, like many urban kids, suffer from the asthma associated with rising carbon levels. But the solution to stay and fight only works up to a point, Raboteau says. “I learned from my grandmother’s story the lesson of the fugitive. If something’s gonna kill you, you run when it gets to that point.”
Climate crisis is not the only variable she must parent her children through. As the mother of two Black sons, the murder of George Floyd added to her already vigilant state. During the Black Lives Matter protests, she noticed graffiti near her building: “All mothers were summoned when he called out for his mama.”
“There’s something metaphysical when it hits your heart like that,” she says. “[George Floyd] called out to his mother in the last moments of his life. It was an appeal for mercy. Not just air but mercy. It hit a lot of us, whether we’re mothers or not. You’re part of this pain and you have the power to be merciful and caring. It moved me to tears because it summons mothers to our power.”
Summoning mothers to their power is a way forward in climate survival strategies and in fighting for equality. Although Raboteau is quick to point out that you don’t have to be a mother — or a parent — to feel the same impetus and passion. “Saidiya Hartman says that ‘care is the antidote to violence.’ I don’t want to suggest that motherhood is the only doorway to which you arrive at care because certainly it isn’t. But for many of us, like me, motherhood has been a complete alteration of my experience in the world, like the shattering of your identity. There’s a loss there too; I feel a little nostalgia about myself as a person without kids and the freedom that came with it. But motherhood has been very politically activating.”
To replenish her energy, Raboteau finds great pleasure in gardening, another reminder of her family roots. Putting our hands in the dirt and bringing forth beauty is a way to acknowledge previous generations unable to access both bread and roses in the struggle to survive. Gardening has created community, and Raboteau feels a deep connection to others. She says joy and beauty are part of the struggle.
She tells me of one such moment in the South Hebron Hills. “When I was in Palestine, I spoke to one mother through a translator. She had had a hard life. She’s a Palestinian woman. Her home is more or less a tent that could be bulldozed by the IDF. But she had filled an abandoned tire with dirt and she grew roses. She found the time to do that, and I found that act really remarkable. This isn’t for sustenance. This isn’t to eat. It’s not growing olives to sell. It’s just for the pleasure of having bright pink.”
Pink connotes dawn, the promise of coming daylight. It reminds us that daylight often looks like hope.
The sixth outing in the director’s chair for filmmaker Kirk Jones, I Swear dramatizes the real-life story of touretter John Davidson (played by Robert Aramayo). Tourette’s Syndrome, for those unfamiliar with the condition, is a nervous system disorder that causes various tics, the most prolific being erratic and explicit language. However, as I Swear expertly showcases, the syndrome is far more than ill-timed outbursts of curse words. Davidson’s story is one of societal frustration, finding your people (both with and without the condition), and using your voice to help others rise. The subject and subject matter are handled with absolute care and understanding under Kirk’s measured vision and Robert Aramayo’s BAFTA-winning performance.
The film kicks off with the greatest exclamation to democracy ever uttered (*%#! the Queen!), as a nervous John Davidson prepares himself before entering an awards ceremony hosted by Britain’s royal family. Right away, the film tells us what it is: a triumph over adversity that blends humor and human drama with education. It’s an important setup, as the film flashes back to Davidson’s 1980s youth, where we see his time as a star soccer recruit flatline as his condition takes hold. Davidson’s life spirals from there. Some aspects, like school bullying and accidental run-ins with authority figures, are expected but important to empathizing with young Davidson’s (young version, played with heart by Scott Ellis Watson) new everyday life. The more tragic, a complete meltdown of his family system, is unsettling if quick. His father (Steven Cree) is never given enough screen time to explore his alcohol coping tendencies. However, his mother Heather’s descent into easy fixes and blaming is crushing and convincing. Harry Potter series actress Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle) gives a layered performance as Heather. Someone who loves her son, but also feels cursed by him as the entire family exits the picture. It’s bitter, she’s tired, and fills each conversation with ‘only medication and your mother can save you’ energy.
From there, the viewer and Davidson find refuge in a host of characters. Maxine Peake plays Dottie, the mother of a childhood friend and a retired mental health nurse. Screen vet Peter Mullan plays maintenance man Tommy Trotter. Together, they help Davidson build a life and an understanding of himself that carries the film forward into its second half. After that, the film is primarily a 3-actor show as director Kirk fills the screen with these tour-de-force performances. Peake and Mullan are great vessels to get the film’s main message across: patience, love, and a shared responsibility between the diagnosed and those who understand their struggle can help change the path for people quickly left behind by a normative world. Together, they are the soul of the movie, with the filmmakers clearly hoping the audience will follow their lead after they exit the theater (in my case, the beautiful Oriental Theater for the Milwaukee Film Festival). Both performances are perfectly warm and reflective and shouldn’t be left out in discussions of I Swear.
I say this because the movie is anchored by The Rings of Power actor Robert Aramayo, who leaves Elrond’s elf ears behind to bring an acute naturalism to his performance of main character John Davidson. Aramayo’s physicality and timing of the fitful Tourettes Syndrome never feel out of place or overplayed. In fact, the movie as a whole does an amazing job of never veering into sentimentality. While many moviegoers left with tissues dabbing their eyes, the filmmaking never felt like it was forcing that reaction out of audiences. It straddles the line between feel-good and reality with every story beat and lands squarely on the side of letting the real inform our feelings. Anyone with an ounce of empathy will grasp the film’s message and hopefully take it with them into life.
I Swear continues at the Milwaukee Film Festival on Tuesday, April 21st, and releases nationwide April 24th, 2026, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Several private equity firms and Hollywood power players, including United Talent Agency and longtime agent Patrick Whitesell, have expressed interest in buying parts of Casey Wasserman’s music and sports management firm after it abruptly went up for sale.
Wasserman became ensnared in controversy earlier this year after his salacious decades-old emails to Ghislaine Maxwell, an accomplice of child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, were released as part of the U.S. Justice Department’s trove of Epstein files.
The agency auction is in the early stages, according to three people close to the process but not authorized to comment.
Earlier this week, several interested parties submitted proposals to meet a preliminary deadline in the auction, two of the sources said.
The company, which changed its name to the Team last month, is expected to be valued at around $3 billion.
Providence Equity Partners holds the majority stake. The private equity firm has discussed selling the entire company or carving off Wasserman’s minority interest. Providence also has considered selling the bulk of the firm and staying on as a minority investor, one of the sources said. Another scenario could involve separating, then selling the individual business units that make up the Team.
Wasserman and Providence’s company boasts an enviable roster of music artists, including Kendrick Lamar, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran. Its sports marketing practice is viewed as particularly lucrative and has potential to grow in value as big dollars flow into sports that draw large crowds.
Wasserman, who declined to comment, has a veto right over any sale of the company that he has spent a quarter of a century building.
UTA, which also declined to comment, is among the most aggressive suitors, the sources said. The Team’s sports marketing and music representation divisions would dramatically boost the Beverly Hills agency’s profile and client roster.
Whitesell, former executive chairman of Endeavor, separately has been motivated to make investments in sports, media and entertainment since last year when he left the talent agency that he and Ari Emanuel built. Whitesell launched a new firm with seed money from private equity firm Silver Lake, and last spring he started WIN Sports Group to represent professional football players.
Whitesell wasn’t immediately available for comment.
European investment firm Permira also has expressed interest, according to a knowledgeable source. Permira declined to comment.
The New York Times first reported that Permira, UTA and Whitesell had expressed interest.
The sales process is expected to stretch into summer, the knowledgeable people said. The auction could become complicated particularly if Providence decides to unwind the business.
For example, UTA could not buy the entire company because of the Brillstein television unit. The agency is bound by an agreement with the Writers Guild of America that prevents it from owning television production.
Investment bank Moelis & Company is managing the sale. A representative of the firm declined comment.
Wasserman also is the chairman of LA28, the nonprofit group that will be staging the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in two years.
Following revelations of Wasserman’s 2003 emails with Maxwell, several musicians and athletes — led by pop artist Chappell Roan and soccer star Abby Wambach — said that, to stay true to their values, they would leave the agency then known as Wasserman.
Wasserman apologized to his staff for “past personal mistakes” and said he would sell the agency.
He had limited dealings with Epstein, flying on the financier’s jet along with former President Clinton for a September 2002 humanitarian trip through Africa.
Wasserman, a prolific Clinton fundraiser whose legendary grandfather, Hollywood titan Lew Wasserman, helped the Democrat win the 1992 presidential election, was joined on Epstein’s jet by his then-wife, Laura, actor Kevin Spacey, Epstein, Maxwell — who was convicted of sexual abuse in 2021 — and others, including security agents.
The LA28 board’s executive committee unanimously voted to keep Wasserman as chairman, citing his “strong leadership” of the Games.
Pizza Movie (2026) Director: Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, Star: Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone
Somehow, I got through an hour of this movie. I was seconds away from turning off in the first fifteen minutes because of the juvenile humor. Pizza Movie is too silly, repetitive, and the characters are annoying. Stranger Things Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone star as college friends, Jack and Montgomery. College angles are rarely seen in films right now, and that’s the one saving grace of the film. Similar to high school, people are also trying to fit in. The story and visuals were too corny. You can only watch someone’s head exploding for so long without letting yours.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) Director: Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, Stars: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy
I never saw the first Super Mario Brothers Movie when it was out, but I heard it got positive reviews. My brother always loved playing Super Mario video games as a kid, and I’d watch him. I tagged along with my friends to see Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and it’s a cute and fun film. I like it when movies explore the video game world. The animation creates unique worlds and characters. The characters are split into their own storylines, and for me, I felt like it worked. It adds more action, especially for kids who are seeing the films.
Emily in Paris Season 5 (2025) Creator: Darren Star, Stars: Lily Collins and Ashley Park
After a bright spot in season 4, I thought season 5 of Emily in Paris would continue its growth in the story and its protagonist, but no, it’s all drained out in the usual Emily (Lily Collins) mishaps. Ashley Park (Mindy) has become too good for this show. Emily and Mindy waste several opportunities because of their love lives. The whole relationship angle is ruining it. I don’t understand why Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) is still in the show. I thought writers learned their lesson, but by the last episode, they’re continuing to bring the past into an apparent season 6.
Sarah’s Oil (2025) Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh, Stars: Naya Desir-Johnson and Zachary Levi
There’s always history lurking right beneath our noses. Sarah’s Oil (2025) tells the true story of Sarah Rector, an Oklahoma-born African American girl who became the first black female millionaire in the U.S. Naya Desir-Johnson is fierce and driven as Sarah. Zachary Levi is also along for the ride as Bert, a man who helps Sarah. Kate (Bridget Regan) was another favorite character as an intelligent woman. Cyrus Nowrasteh was drawn to the subject for its story and its themes. Nowrasteh’s direction is compelling as he unearths a hidden story from history. The film is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Jack Goes Boating (2014) Director and Star: Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Ryan
Jack Goes Boating (2014) didn’t quite work for me, largely because of its slow pace and uneven storytelling. The film stars the late Seymour Hoffman as Jack, who also directed the film. This was Hoffman’s first and only time in the directing chair. Amy Ryan also stars in the film, giving a solid performance. This was also based on a play that Hoffman starred in. Jack wants to participate in a swim championship. That’s hardly what the film is about, tracking other characters’ stories. While the film aims for quiet intimacy, it ultimately drags, making it an underwhelming viewing experience.
You Kill Me (2016), Director: John Dahl, Stars: Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Luke Wilson
Meet You Kill Me (2016), yet another film that I found in the museum of underrated gems. The concept revolves around Frank (Ben Kingsley), a hitman, who is sent to an A.A. meeting to get his mind focused again. A different story happens, where Frank falls in love with Laurel (Tea Leoni). Leoni is one of my favorite actresses. It also stars the funny Luke Wilson. I liked the trio’s dynamics. You Kill Me is a mental health movie. It’s okay to make changes if you’re not happy. I recommended that you keep an eye out for this movie.
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