Category Archives: Commentary

What happens when a culture no longer has the freedom to have fads? That might seem like a bold statement. Who took that freedom away? More importantly, why would anyone take that particular thing away? Is it possible the answer … Continue reading →

Today I left the house without my jacket. In the Midwest, a blizzard is swallowing highways. In California, someone is ordering a Blizzard to cool off. We move through weather whether we’re prepared or not — wind, heat, stillness, the … Continue reading →

A few months back, I wrote a one-act about a chair. I was partly inspired by Sarah Bernhardt, but mostly by the imagined possibility that common objects might carry some faint aspect of sentience. It was important that the chair … Continue reading →

I’ve been having this feeling more and more. Maybe it’s age, or simply the accumulation of years. There are things I once knew without thinking that now sit like dust bunnies under the couch. “Yeah… that seems familiar.” This isn’t … Continue reading →

I’ve been making keychains. Not because anyone asked. These are unbidden keychains, capable of gaining a key, capable of organizing many keys. But no one has asked me for them. So, naturally, I plan to give them away. I didn’t … Continue reading →

The world convulses as it moves through the cosmos—spinning on its axis, tilted in its orbit, bound to a solar system in a galaxy near the edge. Even with all that motion, the skin of our planet shivers. Plates press … Continue reading →

  A Pocket Lint Post   This has been in a folder for over twenty years. Not hidden. Not lost. Just… waiting.   Nine hundred letters, give or take. Some readable. Some so faint they look like breath on glass. … Continue reading →

(From an early post) I’ve never had patience for ghosts—the TV kind, the séance kind, the cold-spot theatrics. My upbringing doesn’t lean that way, and my mind prefers a world with hinges. Still, the most accurate way to describe my … Continue reading →

(From an earlier post) Obert showed up over winter break with a new .22 pistol and suggested we go shooting. I had my .22 Ruger and my dad’s 38/.357 he’d bought at the same time. We grabbed ammo, drove as … Continue reading →

Sure, the Andes have their show-off credentials. Super-high mountains. Lake Titicaca—the highest navigable lake in the world, and definitely the best lake for mischievous elementary boys who need a good story later in life. But the Andes also gave us … Continue reading →