“Women who die alone at midnight contributing to the end, to lost time, to the rain and flies, seeing the bird they saw trapped in the airport surviving by the water fountain” —Mary Ruefle, “Women in Labor” A few years ago, I had the opportunity to meet esteemed poet Mary Ruefle at a […]
College basketball fans everywhere know what March portends—the 2019 NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments. This post is not about any of that televised hoopla. No mentions of basketball or an impressive three-pointer will you find here. Nope. This assortment of words is about a different type of 64-team bracket, one probably no […]
The hard thing about economic cycles is that it is very hard to predict when an economy is sliding into a recession or moving to a period of sustained growth. Imagine that you are a fish in a fishbowl oblivious of the universe outside. Being in a recession is a similar feeling. The National Bureau […]
People outside Louisiana think of Mardi Gras as a New Orleans celebration, but those in the state who live outside New Orleans do not think of it much and have their own traditions. Louisiana Travel, a state booster site, breaks down Mardi Gras celebrations into regions: Greater New Orleans, Northshore [of Lake Pontchartrain], Plantation […]
If Us Weekly’s popular segment “Stars – They’re Just Like Us” were to compile celebrities’ personal moments from social media instead of paparazzi-stalking celebrities at seafood counters or walking dogs named after pieces of fruit, the American public might have to think more deeply about what binds us all. Case in point, Megan Mullally, the […]
The World Famous Cajun Extravaganza and Gumbo Cook-Off was held down at the Civic Center this morning. Gumbo is one of those traditions in Louisiana, like Mardi Gras itself, that is both down-home and serious business. Thousands filled the exhibition hall, and spilled onto the lakefront patio, as 60 teams of amateur cooks, Mardi Gras […]
This week, Dr. Caitlyn Collins, an assistant professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis who studies gender inequality, asked what it would take for the United States to consider providing safe, affordable, quality childcare for its citizens. To underscore the urgency of the question, Collins mentioned a story about an unlicensed daycare provider […]
Joan Didion’s nonfiction book Miami (1987) is a reminder of how good writing captures the problems of its time and—in time—proves them to be continuously-working parts in the bigger movement of history. Miami is more often referred to as reportage than New Journalism, but the “I” of Didion is always there, even when subsumed—making judgments, summing-up, […]
The weather in St. Louis is often as uncertain as our times. Many days it seems as if we live inside a giant Newton’s cradle, just waiting for a gust of wind to blow one metallic ball into the next. We observe the swinging temperatures, trying our damnedest to conserve energy and momentum as the […]
Carl ships and receives many packages each month, some internationally, for his online business. The plastic chicken he got in the mail from Cambodia last week was not expected. Someone must have sent him the Shrilling Chicken as a joke, he thought, since it looks like a sex doll and the customs form declared […]
