Giving Up the Ghost: The Gift of Mortality
15 May 2021 “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” -- Mae West I am 67 years old, the same age my father died,...
Sex and the Commons III -- Stunted Intimacy
Love cannot be disembodied even in its most sanctified forms, nor is it without sanctity even in its most fleshly. – Thomas Mann, Magic...
Tropic Discourse
I suppose I have been interested in metaphor and other tropes since I went to a conference on “Metaphor and Thought” back when I was in...
Working It Out
“So… what do you do?” When we ask this question, we are often asking what someone “does for a living,” but it means so much more than...
What We Do Not Want to Know about Ourselves
""...the dividing line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his...
How We Know Ourselves: b. Bodily
The tender pragmatisms of flesh have poetries no enigma--human or divine--can diminish or demean. Indeed, it can only cause them, and...
Naked, and You Clothed Me
One of the most iconic images of the Vietnam war era was of the “Napalm Girl,” Phan Thi Kim Phuc, her clothes burned away by American...
Family Drama
“This Be the Verse,” by Philip Larkin, 1971 They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the...
Supernatural Bones
Glendower: “I can call spirits from the vasty deep.” Hotspur: “Why, so can I, or so can anyone; But will they come when you do call...
History of Love II: Religion and Eros
"Love cannot be disembodied even in its most sanctified forms, nor is it without sanctity even in its most fleshly." Thomas Mann, The...