May 9, 2014
A Utopian Formation
One day this winter, we had a dusting of snow that shut down the campus for the afternoon. Here in Oregon not much snow is required to bring the city […]
May 8, 2014
Russell Edson: A Farewell
As many of us are just learning, Russell Edson died a little over a week ago. His influence was enormous: he taught several generations of aspiring writers that poetry could […]
April 21, 2014
Sports Report
I used to want Calvin Trillin’s job at The Nation—and I still do, I guess—but the job I really want belongs to Beau Estes at NBA.com. Estes provides the commentary […]
April 16, 2014
Magical Mystery Tour: Science as the New Authority
In Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” passage from The Brothers Karamazov, the Grand Inquisitor’s plan to “correct” the work of God (in a sense, to establish the Church) was based on […]
April 10, 2014
Art Spiegelman, Through the Looking-Glass
Tonight in Ypsilanti, Art Spiegelman gave a talk titled “What the %@&*! Happened to Comics?” The crowd was a mix of EMU students and fiftysomethings in nylon windbreakers; Spiegelman took […]
April 8, 2014
First Sleep
I downloaded Karen Russell’s Sleep Donation last week on the same evening my partner and I were sleep-training (or trying to sleep-train) our four-month-old daughter. Why read about sleeplessness, when […]
March 16, 2014
Among Forty-Two Ferns
More than 54,000 people went to HealthCare.gov after watching President Obama spar with Zach Galifianakis last week; I went to the Between Two Ferns homepage and binge-watched the series’ other […]
February 17, 2014
Making Your Own Days, So to Speak
Another storm system is hurtling toward Michigan this evening. A half-foot of snow is expected, along with more gum-eraser skies. Haven’t we had enough of this already? Would somebody please […]
February 11, 2014
The Real Movie Star Is Really Dead
I’ve been meaning to finish the story I started (see here and here) regarding my movie stardom. But between episodes two and three the real actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman died […]
February 3, 2014
Hop To It
In Edgar Allan Poe’s glorious short story “Hop-Frog,” the title character, a court jester, plays a practical joke on the king he serves—a king who “seemed to live only for […]
January 29, 2014
“Who are the modern heirs of James Joyce?”
The New York Times Book Review has instituted a new feature recently, in which they pose a question to a pair of writer-critics. Generally the answers are constrained by the […]
January 26, 2014
Mittmentum, the Return
I have a wealth of Mitt Romney poetry that I fear isn’t aging well. Romney was my muse for much of 2011 and 2012; I wrote about forty squibs in […]