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 […]
Ours was a table conveniently located in the cool shade of a tree near the principal’s office. Nobody dared to sit there, even if they were the first to be excused for lunch; it belonged to us, the same way the area around the oak tree in the center of the quad belonged to the […]
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 at what was then Omar […]
When we watch Hoarders is it not a stark and somewhat darkly gratifying affirmation that our lives are not that bad? That we are somehow different, better, albeit a little cluttered, or momentarily disorganized than these poor souls, many of whom are battling compulsions much more pernicious than goat trails or leaning towers of boxes […]
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 of data: the usage of data exploiting vulnerabilities […]
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 so then, but things change. […]
These days, there is talk of a recession: A foreboding conclusion many economists and market experts seem to draw from a slowdown in economic growth. Of course, doom and gloom narratives outsell a rosy picture any given day. However, a slowdown in economic growth is not always a recession. To understand this truism, it is […]
Before access into Devil’s Icebox was restricted in 2006 due to the bats contracting white-nose syndrome, it was not uncommon for college students from around Columbia, Missouri to hang out in or around the perennially 56-degree cave, especially during the hot, humid Midwestern summers. Much like Austinites in Texas frequent the continual 68-70-degree Barton Springs […]
