Memoirous

The more things change, the more they stay the same: Happy MLK Day This is more musing than scholarly: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sixty years ago, in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, was a surge of public engagement in the most basic rights for fellow human beings, Americans pushed to the margins. In the south particularly but everywhere, Black Americans were living under segregation. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledged this and challenged the status quo—not without reprisal or the fear of death. He and his adherents, believers, did the right thing in standing up. As must we. But, he knew talk was cheap. In a talk delivered at Stanford in 1967 he credited advances that had been made (mostly under his leadership), but he said it wasn’t enough. He addressed the problem of Two Americas. One is living in sunny oblivion, unaware that a second America exists. It isn’t just about black or white, Black or White, but many Americans live in inequality, wi...

A creative nonfiction piece, commonly called The Essay—is out now! About a trip I took in 2007 to Albania, I know, no one goes to Albania. Albania is a weird mix of contradictions=cultural progress meets social mores, modernity butts up against resistance to change, hundreds of years of political upheaval. Versus. Versus. Turning towards. Against. Read No One Goes to Albania here :

So far this cold, cold season I’ve stayed warm in my Tiny House. It was still hot out and living in the converted outhouse was not quite out of the dream/aspirational stage—the sales guy came over to evaluate what I might possibly need to stay warm/cool in the various seasons. I’d met him through work, a mountain bike customer where when checking out at the register I asked about his sweatshirt logo and he told me he repped a heating/cooling company. “Can you come over and check out my Tiny House?” And, we exchanged details. Here he was, trying to decide what the heck I was contemplating. *was it properly insulated *the tile floors make for some cold mornings (was the understructure insulated) *was the roof just sheet wood and shingle These were all good questions. We knew—or at least he did—that Michigan winters were cold, long, unpredictable. He suggested a unit with 18K BTU: An 18,000 BTU ductless system (≈1.5 tons) is typically suited for 600–1,000 sq ft spaces...

“The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow”  “The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow" is a line from the famous Christmas poem, The Night Before Christmas . It’s an odd archaic, Victorian phrasing, but highly imaginative, top of mind last night as I walked home from work under a full-moonlit sky, the white orb casting long tripod shadows from the fir trees in the neighbor’s yards, spidery shadow webs of branches from the trees by the playground. There was the orange square glow of light coming from the front windows of houses—reflected upon the new-fallen snow. There’s always new-fallen snow, these days. The breast of new-fallen snow—is this some reference to the white bosom? Something about purity, something a man would write as an ideal? The ultimate in untouched beauty? The sacred body. A temple, undefiled. Supple, clean, comforting, giving succor. It was cold and I ran a little to keep warm. The crunch and squeak of snow beneath my boots. And, I thought of t...