american politics On Texas Nationalism I'm sitting at the bar, sipping a margarita, and chatting pleasantly with two older couples.
poetry Anxiety and Creativity: Bartolo Cattafi, "No Escape" "There's no escaping from this room," Cattafi intones, leading me to ask: this room? What room?
american politics The 1st Amendment, "the right to be an asshole," and trust ...Jonathan Katz talks about "the right to be an asshole."
poetry Wisława Szymborska, "Puddles" Szymborska's riddling moral in "Puddles" fascinates both as a matter of craft and as a puzzle about our paranoia
poetry Kyla Houbolt, "The Yellow Submarine" Kyla Houbolt's "The Yellow Submarine" presents us with yellow everywhere.
philosophy Heidegger's "Unfaith" ...I want to look at some remarks of Heidegger which concern how faith relates to the question "Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?"
philosophy Introducing Heidegger's "Fundamental Question of Metaphysics" ...I was not convinced in the least that "Why is there anything at all?" was a good question.
heidegger On the Prefatory Note of Heidegger's "Introduction to Metaphysics" In my early twenties, I was assigned Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics for a class. I did not get very far.
poetry Emily Dickinson, “A Letter is a joy of Earth” (1639) Letters are not easy. I know this, but I write bad ones anyway.
poetry Emily Dickinson, "As willing lid o’er weary eye" (1050) ...the evening would not be the evening, nor the day the day, if we did not labor and require rest.
politics Generational Conflict and the Question of Value This moment feels more radical, as if the very possibility of change—I'm not even speaking of a specific change—were an affront to divinity.
poetry Innocence and Experience: On Kay Ryan's "Crown" The sacred as untouchable, inviolable, inaccessible makes sense to me.
Tucker Carlson's Departure Tucker Carlson being out at Fox is a huge deal. If I could organize a symposium of academics to talk about it, I would.
american politics Love thy neighbor I finish writing a short piece on nihilism, and then I have to confront the news.
philosophy An Ordinance of Reason A number of events have me wondering about Aquinas' definition of law.
poetry On Creation: Emily Dickinson, "I dwell in Possibility" ...genuine expressions of identity are nothing less than poetry.
poetry "Eternity waits:" On Adam Zagajewski's "Gulls" (from "En Route") "Eternity doesn't travel, / eternity waits." Zagajewski proposes a mystic truth. Before we can debate it, we have to believe it in some sense.
poetry Not beyond pain: Emily Dickinson, "Presentiment — is that long Shadow — on the Lawn" (764) There are days of disappointment.
poetry Our Daily Bread: Paul Celan, "I hear the axe has flowered" So many times I've been told pain is necessary for growth.
poetry Comfort and the Soul: Vsevolod Nekrasov, "The Soul" When I was in graduate school, two words were too much.