I’ve spent a reasonably large chunk of the last week shuttling myself to New York City to see one of my favorite bands, the Weakerthans, play all four of their studio albums on four successive nights. This may not mean…
Category: A Day in the Life
Indeterminate
It’s been a week. I realize, increasingly, that this space is a good inverse litmus test of some combination of how overtly busy I am combined with how ruminative I’m feeling about my life in general. While ideas and thoughts…
Too Much Space
My soul hurts today. I wonder whether YouTube or this blog will last longer. One would think that by the time this question needed answering, the answer wouldn’t much matter. But then again, there are times when Angelfire would have…
A Thought
I don’t think there’s a more devastating or demoralizing conviction a person can have than that their best years are behind them. People are extremely adaptable. They will go through almost any contortion to convince themselves to have more hope…
Rubber Soul
Emily bought us this doormat when we moved to Princeton that was bright and colorful and springy. It was made out of little cut up bits of foam-rubber flip-flops that had been recycled somehow. They were tied together with little…
Shadow Puppetry
Standing in the shower this morning, feeling the comforting jet of enveloping hot water as I was waiting for inspiration to strike on today’s Duck and Cover (didn’t happen till later), inspiration struck me on an entirely different matter. The…
On Superstition
One of my debaters asked me last weekend whether I was superstitious. It was a good question. I reflexively answered that I wasn’t, but then he started talking about debate superstitions about writing on the board and how and who…
Postcards from the Poker Table
They gather in a circle, an oval maybe, an oblong landscape of green felt with a surprising amount of give. They stare intently at their cards, their drinks, each other, the red-shirted personage before them who manages the distribution of…
Acting with Impunity
There has long been a debate in the community of moral philosophers and thinkers about the idea of being “good without God”. In the advent of a neo-atheistic culture in the United States and other post-modern, post-WWII Western societies, people…
Occupation
As most of you know, I used to counsel “emotionally disturbed” kids in a group home. That was my occupation. We used this system generally known as “behavior modification” whereby we rewarded good behavior and punished (to a degree) bad…