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?
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.
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.
Hillbilly Epithet: A Comment on Prejudices and Caricatures
The senior faculty member at a student-faculty retreat introduced me to the student body as a hillbilly, the resident hillbilly.
A Reverie on Failure Part 8: Across the Road for a Change
We are prepossessed to think we can capture mutability, but the very notion is futile. It’s an interesting conundrum
A Reverie on Failure Part 7: Nature Selects for Deception
There exists a particular routine you get into: you scan the edge of the field for movement, but every so often, an animal simply materializes in the middle of the field
Wistful for War: The Flawed Nostalgia of the Steel Playground Slide
Those playgrounds and slides were built in the near memory of one of the worst things that has ever happened to the world
A Reverie on Failure Part 6: A Shadow Falls Upon a Friendship
I cast a first shadow upon a friendship. Oh, how petty Kid Icarus! Why didn’t I just punch him in the mouth?
A Reverie On Failure Part 5: The Dawn of Disappointment
I hereby confess to you, dear reader, that when I consider you, I am pitiless. In what manner do you deal out in judgment to me?
