A Reverie on Failure Part 14: Coping with Urgency
While it’s true I could be using my time better, say, to finish a PhD dissertation, my disposition improves with each passing hour of sitting and observing.
Author: John David Duke Jr
David was begotten and conceived in the ordinary way in the middle of 1972, possibly on his father's birthday. Since then, it's been an unremarkable go, except for the time his dad took him to help disarm a Cherokee woman who was shooting at her mother with a rifle.
A Reverie on Failure Part 13: Imparting Experience from One Friend to Another Friend
Moreover, reading experts is not so impenetrable for me as for the inexperienced novice, as I remember being.
New York City, For We Are Many
Is it wholly representative? I argue that it is. If you come to New York City, and only New York City, you have truly been to America.
An Unexpected Illumination
I saw several young men who were related to me only via my bank account, all peering into the sky through that hole.
The Percolated Pot: An Instruction Manual For Decent Coffee
I hereby condescend to show you the way to a decent pot of coffee, to give you confidence and consistency in your caffeine efforts.
The Boundaries and Conduits of Writing and Publishing
The human condition includes the need to be heard, and for many of us who can type, writing is one channel to speak that need.
A Reverie on Failure Part 12: The Stupid that Dwells Within
Evil in a woods: it really was just a random natural process, wasn’t it?
Home for Christmas: A Portrait
The very notion of “home for the holidays” betrays the transience of it. It loops around on itself, as to say, there is a home and there is not home
A Halloween Revelation: Samuel L Wilson, RIP
Ten years after The Event I can finally tell the simulation that I was with him at his end, the damn fool. So many upgrades, bugfixes, and hardware changes have come and gone that...
Wildlife Management and Bambi
I enjoy hunting for a number of reasons. However, recently, two of those bedrock principles were challenged.
A Reverie on Failure Part 11: The Discourtesy of Poaching
Poaching gives hunting a bad name; this is the stuff we conservationists have to bear in order to make our case.
Children of the Grunge
We might just see the first child of many children stepping out of the grunge, moving toward us, towing behind them three generations of debt and indebtedness
Reclining at Gravestone
When I told him about my father’s obsession with graveyards and genealogies, he asked, “What do you think he was looking for in there?”
Stolen Dishonor
What a tragedy! I have committed a great injustice against him. I have applied a dishonor upon him, ignorantly, and out of shame.
Inside the Fishbowl: A Follow-Up to the Letter to the Children of Pilgrims
In this I intended to tip the fishbowl a bit, and reveal too much information about us, but it wouldn’t be fair to them.
A Personal Letter to the Children of Pilgrims
I am eating my bread with a glad heart, toiling away until I am taken away, occupied mostly with my occupation, suffering a few slings and arrows from outrageous fortune.
A Couple of Deaths and The Great Reset
A couple of deaths intruded into my life, and it took me a while to get myself together so I wouldn’t pen an insufferable introspective.
Giving Thanks for the American Bacchanal
As we prepare for the inauguration of the six-week American bacchanal, running over children and old ladies for the last bottle of brandy to pour over the last bag of off-brand cranberries
A Reverie on Failure Part 10: Crossing Mental Lines
I recollect it as if it happened to me, as a kind of ultimate-stakes thrill ride, defying a collective mental construct: a painted yellow line.
A Reverie on Failure Part 9: To Dominate This Mortal Briar Patch
I spent my writing time carving out that little zone, a place for myself. The intense labor of doing so reminded me that the world is a kind of thicket.
