February 21, 2018
Commodities, Bodies, and Budgets
The Trump administration budget request for fiscal year 2019 made the news this week due to many of the changes proposed. There are now tons of articles discussing the drastically […]
February 15, 2018
Uncle Jack and the Three Georges
Oscar Elmer had never liked his name. The moment he enlisted in the military to fight fascists as a young man, he told the recruiting officer to call him Jack. […]
February 6, 2018
Stripped
“You gonna clean my balls?” my grandmother asks, slowly sliding into the closest espresso stained wooden chair. I hold my breath. She sees. “Somebody’s got to do it & damn […]
August 23, 2017
Charlottesville Fabulous
My big brother lives in Charlottesville. We grew up together in Groveport, Ohio, rode the bus with a girl whose dad was a Columbus cop, whose grandfather was a World […]
March 6, 2017
Painting the Since [Then]
This World is not Conclusion. A Species stands beyond – Invisible, as Music – But positive, as Sound – It beckons, and it baffles – —Emily Dickinson, “This World is not […]
June 25, 2016
Memory is Elsewhere
“I want you to tell me a story ‘bout when you were a little boy,” says my four-year-old girl every night. I tell her things I remember, and things I’ve […]
May 16, 2016
In Praise of Older Siblings, Part I: Fact-Checking My Life
I remember it like this: I’m a child, daydreaming in my mother’s minivan as we drive along a winding, mountainous highway in Pennsylvania. One brother is beside me, and the […]
March 5, 2016
Ghost City
Yesterday, someone asked me if I missed Columbus. I said that I missed certain people, and that I supposed I missed the city, too. “What places do you miss?” she […]
November 25, 2015
Poison Gas and the Origins of Data Preservation
“After reading [an] account of the astonishing possibilities of only one small branch of the 170,000 known families of insects, I began to wonder if there might not be some […]
September 22, 2015
On the Wings of a Power Ballad: Atonement and Yom Kippur
* Phoenix the pyre the self-resurrected Obscures everything ardently briefly with ash —“Zone,” Guillaume Apollinaire When I fast on Yom Kippur, my prayers sound like this. In the film Under […]
September 18, 2015
Not-Quite Goodbye (Aseret Yemei Teshuva)
I mean, you must take living so seriously that even […]
September 11, 2015
Septembers
I think my hip hop band, The Wick, had a rehearsal the evening of September 11, 2001. I know I had British Literature with Dr. Summers. We had planned on […]