When Good Writers Make Weird Choices

You note with pleasure that LA Citybeat newish hire Donnell Alexander, whose writing you have long admired, comes out swinging this week with a cover story on the Los Angeles mass transit system. And you do, in fact, enjoy the article. But you wonder: Why did he write the whole thing in the second-person singular? Weirdly, you felt the exact same thing about Bright Lights, Big City. Maybe you just don’t like the second person singular.