Took a boxing class for the first time yesterday… Lots of anger came out, bunching the bag picturing the faces of fascists and bullies. I wonder if learning to box would help to release my anger? Or if it would … Continue reading →

When I’m angry about a situation, trying to take space to cool off never helps because I usually end up thinking about why I’m angry and rhetorically stylize my self-righteous indignation.

As the writing process helps me to become somewhat more conscious of my anger, I notice that I am often angry with inanimate objects. My cellphone is too slow. WTF! I wash a cup and place it in the over-crowded … Continue reading →

A few years ago my sister called me, panicked, and she said that she was worried that her step-son might become a school-shooter. At this time, my sister lived with her then-husband, my brother-in-law, who a large collection of guns, … Continue reading →

I grew up in a rural Appalachian town of less than 1000 ppl and one of my early writerly projects was, when I was 16, this group of redneck boys let me hang out with them, and we worked on … Continue reading →

Recently it’s become common for commentators like David Brooks to suggest that the red/blue divide has to do with the gap between the college-educated and the non-college-educated, and to suggest that the Democratic party only appeals to people with B.A.s … Continue reading →

Sometimes in NYC among academic colleagues or fellow artists, I’ve mentioned my childhood in Appalachia; and unfortunately people’s only real frame of reference these days is J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. It seems that the experience of rural whites is under-represented … Continue reading →

In trying to understand the appeal of Trump for rural white working-class voters, I want to draw upon studies of domestic abuse (Lundy, Why Does He Do That? and Jules Falquet, Pax Neoliberalia), and think about the rural white working-class … Continue reading →

AI is stealing our jobs? In Energy and Equity, Ivan Illich suggested that the desire to build robots is the reflex of a society built on slavery… And is there not then a racial subtext to the discourse which claims … Continue reading →

As I’m trying to fry some eggs over-easy, a yolk breaks, and I yell: GODDAMNIT. Anger of this sort—seemingly out of proportion to the situation—is a habitual affect of my own daily life, embedded in my body since childhood, growing … Continue reading →