Ok Boomer

Consider this hypothetical.  You’re standing in your kitchen, cutting slices of cheese with a razor-sharp carving knife.  You realize there are such things as cheese knives, but you don’t have one.  For those readers currently languishing in suburban opulence, who can’t imagine someone not owning a cheese knife, I’m here to tell you such people… Continue reading Ok Boomer

Read my latest at Splice Today . . .

    Read it here: https://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/the-new-york-times-is-rotting-at-the-seams

On Knowing If You’re Any Good

  If you’re a writer, you’ll live your life not knowing if you’re any good.  And you’ll die not knowing.  I think John Berryman said that.  After Phil Levine published his first book of poems, people said, yeah, but can you do it again?  Then he did it again.  Then they said, yeah, but have… Continue reading On Knowing If You’re Any Good

Writing the Hard Thing

If I could tell you the number of stories and novels I’ve begun writing and not finished, we’d be here too long.  But “not finished” doesn’t mean “discarded.”  It means what it says.  The difficulty comes when I’ve convinced myself that I’m one sort of writer (the consistent, cheerfully productive kind) as opposed the other,… Continue reading Writing the Hard Thing

Solving climate change one slick magazine at a time.

Read my latest in Splice Today: https://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/jonathan-franzen-can-t-solve-climate-change-for-anyone-who-matters  

Maybe being a success-bot isn’t the way after all?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJhUs1L_RQo

The Peanut Gallery: Purveyors of Fine Hatred Since 1880

When I began teaching as a graduate student, publishing in magazines, and generally moving my life forward in visible ways, I learned a difficult lesson that accompanies progress: people don’t like it when you succeed.  They don’t want to see it.  They don’t want to know about it.  And if they become aware that you… Continue reading The Peanut Gallery: Purveyors of Fine Hatred Since 1880

The Introspective Ferret’s Guide to Parties

The quiet introspective ferret feels he has only been to two kinds of parties: those where people assess each other from behind smokescreens of shallow small talk and those where people get as drunk and as high as possible to avoid being aware of such assessment.  Office / department parties tend to be a blend… Continue reading The Introspective Ferret’s Guide to Parties

The Precession of Symbols: Nocturnal Dance Steps, Speculation, and a Fish in the Moon

blue moon—n. 1. the second full moon occuring within a calendar month; 2. informal once in a blue moon: very rarely; almost never.  "blue moon." Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. 31 Aug. 2012. Writing counter-interpolative communiques on the night of a blue moon, the Speculator must observe the same ancient… Continue reading The Precession of Symbols: Nocturnal Dance Steps, Speculation, and a Fish in the Moon