Don’t pretend to be normal

Instead of a corsage, it was Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human. I was a freshman going to the prom with a junior named Doug. He was a deep thinker and thought I might be too.

Doug and his parents were from Chicago, which made them exotic in small-town North Carolina. They were also into new age spirituality. Doug learned the art of pranic healing – the cleansing of chakras with crystals – and practiced on me. (I think that my chakras were beyond repair even at the tender age of fourteen.)   Continue reading

Dear John Letter for Lena Dunham

Listen, Lena, this relationship is over. I just can’t do it anymore. Each episode of GIRLS drives us further apart.

In the show’s first weeks, I so looked forward to Sunday nights. Well, in truth, I looked forward to Monday mornings because I don’t have cable just “borrowed” access to HBO GO. But now, the happy anticipation I used to feel for your next episode is gone. And Lena, I’ve figured out why things between us have changed. Continue reading

Humanist Homily Homunculus

In the beginning, I wanted to call the book I’m working on Cogitate instead of Generation Special.

When I was in London for graduate school my mother made me go to church and the sermon was about misdirected charity. Basically, in the 1800s in London (and presumably elsewhere) there were public baths. Above the public baths, (the sermonizer claimed that) some rich English people had inscribed “COGITATE, COGITATE, COGITATE” because poor people were poor because of some moral failing that would only be redeemed through reflection. So, those of us made poor, desperate, etc. because no one wants to hire us because of the economy and the fact that no one prohibited us from majoring in philosophy, should also cogitate? But, not because we are to blame for our sorry state. Definitely not that. And then, someone said cogitate sounded a lot like masturbate, which I counted as a plus. Continue reading

Blog at WordPress.com.
Theme: Customized Esquire by Matthew Buchanan.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,147 other followers