Intellectual Freedom
I wouldn’t have agreed with my father on much–but here’s one thing.
Just to pass the time away
The past seems realer than the present to me nowI’ve got memories to last me –Warren Zevon Nostalgia gets a bad rap, often appropriately so. Indeed, I do not miss…
What’s That I Hear Now
Minnesota, music, and fuck ICE.
Joan Didion: A Love Song
[I heard] him tell the girl in a picture… that he would build her a house, “at the bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow.” As it happens I…
Over in Clay County
Warren Zevon (and me) on nature vs. nuture.
The Laura Index
With all due apologies to Harper’s. Please don’t sue me. Two incomplete lists… Things I have been asked to donate money to in the past month: Things to which I…
This Is Where People Disappear
A visit to ICE in eastern Iowa. This is ICE office in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It’s a 22 mile straight shot north of my house, the directions so simple I…
Some Notes on The Great Gatsby
Now would be a perfectly fine time to hit delete. I have started Tillie Olsen’s Silences many times but never finished it. In fact, I started it again just now…
How long can that banner still wave?
In which your errant correspondent hoists the flag briskly, and lowers it, ceremoniously, at sundown. They say that patriotism is the last refuge To which a scoundrel clings —Bob Dylan…
When in Danger or in Doubt
Go to the library For many years, I worked in public libraries, and among my duties I gave a report to the library board every year about my job and…