Eulogy for Ruth Ann Durkin (1941-2024) It's hard to know where to begin, so I'll begin with gratitude. I know how lucky my brother Glenn and I were.  One of the circumstances of my mother’s life is that she found herself divorced at a young age, with two raucous toddler boys to care for. It’s easy to forget now, but at the time, this circumstance carried far more stigma than it does today. She could have responded in all kinds of negative ways. Instead, she chose to step up for her sons.  I’m sure it must have been scary, overwhelming, and lonely for her. But as a child I never ..read more

[I was honored to be asked to write the following liner notes for my old bandmate's debut album as a leader.] Recently, I was introduced to Shine Thru—the debut solo record from drummer and composer Dan Schnelle—and I immediately knew I was hearing the soundtrack of a journey. Today, the last day of the year, my head buzzes with thoughts of the Webb Telescope, and its recent launch, and the prospect of a more granular understanding of the universe—even as much remains distant and inscrutable. Apropos of nothing, perhaps—but I can’t help feeling that Shine Thru would nicel ..read more

The first time I heard of Amazon was in grad school, in the late nineties. In a seminar, we were discussing the reading list, some of which couldn’t be accessed at the USC bookstore. One of my classmates, with a twinkle in his eye that I wasn’t sure how to interpret, pointed us to this new thing on the web. (It was new to us, anyway. The site had existed for a few years by then.) It might’ve been a devilish twinkle, now that I think about it. To a book-addicted twentysomething on a teaching assistant’s budget, Amazon seemed heaven-sent. It wasn’t. Even the name was a fake-out. You’ve probab ..read more

One of the videos documenting last Wednesday’s violence shows a mace-saturated woman named Elizabeth, upset that someone stopped her and her associates from “storming the Capitol,” because “it’s a revolution.” Those of us who weren’t there sift through these fragments of visual evidence, like the scattered pieces of some shitty, tedious jigsaw puzzle. There are a million details to get our heads around. I see this video, and maybe my thoughts are like yours. I don’t know Elizabeth. I’m sure she has people, and a past. I doubt she would have gotten away with a mere macing if she’d been Black ..read more

This year, for the first time in twelve years, I won’t be playing the organ for Faithful Savior Lutheran Church’s holiday services—just as I haven’t been there for any services since the pandemic hit. An agnostic from my twenties, I initially took the Faithful Savior gig in a professional capacity. But I grew to love it, too. Though I never became a believer, at times, the music, the people, and the moment all lined up just right, and I’d feel, if not the pull of faith, then something like Wordsworth’s “intimation of immortality”—a strong impression that I was part of something larger than m ..read more

  While responding to accusations that she’s a tyrant lying about the dangers of COVID, Renae Moch, public health director in North Dakota, asked a pertinent question: “Why would I want to do that?” This, to me, is the strangest thing about the resistance to common sense that is now making a bad situation much worse. It’s stranger than the argument about freedom, which lacks the self-awareness to notice its own compliance, evident in the belief that a retweeted meme counts as independent thought. It’s stranger than the argument about not living in fear—with its deep anxiety about masks ..read more

Life is so easy when you don’t have to make room for the experiences of other people. Theory of mind and the rhetoric of empathy can seduce us into thinking we fully understand what’s going on in each other’s heads. As a parent, I’ve seen the millions of ways—incremental, usually innocent, often problematic ways—we impose identity on children, before they’re even born, and before they can think and speak for themselves. I wish we could sit more with the uncertainty at the beginning of each life. To value each person for who they might become rather than how they are categorized by a pregnanc ..read more

My neighbor Jan  has been updating this sign every day for the past 250+ days. (I only know the figure because, on the other side, he’s also been tallying the number of days in quarantine.)   Mostly, I’ve appreciated this countdown. Whenever the shitstorm got too big to see, it was good to have a small, undeniable number to focus on—if only for a moment, during my morning walk with the dog. “November 3 is election day” turned out to be one of the few real-world truths that couldn’t be corrupted by delusion, woo-woo, or conspiracy-mongering.   It’s surreal, though, after four ..read more

As my middle-grade manuscript continues to wander through what is turning out to be a longer-than-expected submission process, I’ve tried to stay on top of my reading, grateful that it has included Aiden Thomas’s fun, powerful YA novel, Cemetery Boys. There are so many things to recommend this book. Strong, clear writing. Carefully paced plotting, and its corollary—tension built with fine-grained control. And the genre—“paranormal romance,” or a love story folded into a ghost story—makes it perfect for Halloween. (Though I’m down for a good ghost story any time of year.) Of course, one also ..read more

I guffawed when I saw this ad. It’s from Berlin, but even if you don’t speak German, you can probably tell who the middle finger is aimed at. So punk! I doubt the campaign will be effective—most studies suggest that shaming doesn’t change minds or behavior—but who cares? Sometimes you just need an excuse to vent.   Shaming might not change minds or behavior, but here in America, it feels like shame is all we’ve got. I avoid conversation with conspiracists—as Lauren Kerby put it, you can’t “bring facts to a feelings fight.” Still, you can protect the facts, holding them in your palm ..read more