Reading Moby-Dick at the Newberry
Our feelings, thoughts, and memories do not change the great grinding universe. It is Ahab’s main issue, as well as Melville’s.
By Todd Decker
What is the Gold Mine?
Every gold mine breeds its own army, Hunter Thompson said. He was talking about Las Vegas, but I read Fear and Loathing when I was about 20 and was headed for the Army’s jungle warfare course in Panama, so I came to think of the phrase differently.
I remember landing…
Soldiers, Cell Phones, and Security
One problem for our armed forces is the same as it is for the civilian world: We use devices, the devices collect data on where we are and what we do, and this makes us vulnerable to “bad actors.”
As a recent report puts it, “Malicious use…
Sean Singer: Of Taxis and Poems
A few years ago I saw on social media that an acquaintance, who is an award-winning poet, drove taxis, Lyft, and Uber in New York City. Always interested in how artists earn their livings, I asked if he intended to use his experiences in his poetry. He did not think…
Stolen Valor Has Consequences
The photo of a US Army Sergeant First Class in dress blues appeared two days ago on a closed Facebook group for veterans. The petite, startled-looking man in the uniform, whose neck could use a good shave to bring him up to regs, has apparently seen a lot of action.…
I Eat the Ugly Food: A Father’s Resumé
I take the watch, morning and night. Check on your sleep. Kiss your foreheads. Wake you gently. Have made most of the meals you have eaten and give you the lion’s share, now you need it and I do not. Clean kitchen, clean plates, clean floors, clean toilets, clean tubs,…
Finding Your Way Without Digital Technology
GPS-enabled apps have changed things so completely, for the average person with access to a device, that it is surprising to remember GPS only became widely available to consumers around the year 2000. What did we do before we had talking maps in our pockets?
Printed out…
America the Blessed
Whenever I hear of ‘culture’… I release the safety-catch of my Browning [pistol]!
—A line in Hanns Johst’s play Schlageter, often misattributed to Nazi leaders
When I hear of Schrödinger’s cat, I reach for my gun.
—Stephen…
Giving Up on the Past
It is a mark of high intelligence when young people get frustrated with their elders for forgetting the past. They suspect somebody is hiding something, or has been careless with their legacy, or was being lazy. How hard is it to remember what relatives were like; what years certain events…
Only Mostly Dead
“[I]t is your duty to learn how to resuscitate a lizard,” a writer in Arizona told pool owners in the Southwest, on her blog, in 2014. She provided instructions for CPR. Three years later a woman in Nevada brought a lizard back from a…
The Welter of the First College Visit
College enrollments in the United States were down again last year, from the previous fall. That would not have been evident by attendance at Tulane University’s recent Louisiana Day. McAlister Auditorium was nearly full of state residents with enough interest in the kids applying to the school,…
Pressing Memories
Ever stop to memorize something you are experiencing, and it seems as if you can actually feel it grooving into the hippocampus, like cutting a record? Maybe you press harder on the details—especially if you do not have a camera, voice recorder, or even a pen—and go over them repeatedly…