PERSONAL ESSAYS
Floater

I had been ready to die, pretty much. To close my casket from the inside. To entomb myself in a little plastic pod filled with […]

ESSAY: While listening to Philip Glass I think about the ocean

As I listen to the first knee play of Einstein on the Beach, I struggle to make out the words.   Would it get some […]

CULTURE: The Astro Lounge at the End of the Universe

The astro lounge is where you go for insider info on all things astronomy, like whose classes to avoid, what research groups to get into, or which scholarships to apply for (the current advice is to apply to the NASA Connecticut Space Grant Consortium, featured on a large colorful poster in the lounge).

PERSONAL ESSAY: Twelve Fox Years

Foxes have long been a thing in my life. I grew up in Fox Point, Wisconsin, watched Fantastic Mr. Fox compulsively, and sketched on fox-themed stationary. I’ve never seen a fox in Fox Point. 

PERSONAL ESSAY: Hammy

Pork rinds are underwhelming. They’re underwhelming in the same way gay sex is underwhelming.

A Response to Daffodils in Mexico City

“ ¿Unas flores, señorita?” the flower vendor asked. He picked up another bunch. "¿Violetas?" he inquired. "¿Astromelias?" He took them out so that I could see the drooping pink petals. "Narcisos," he finally said. I felt the name with a pang but could not recall its English translation until he held up the yellow bouquet. Fair Daffodils. With delight, I paid for the flowers thinking of Robert Herrick. Herrick was an English poet who once wrote, "Fair Daffodils, we weep to see / You haste away so soon."

Watching People, People Watching

The people we’re watching are watching. It has long since been remarked that this dynamic makes us perpetual performers, always on stage in front of […]

The In-Betweens

Bursting into the kitchen, in a twelve-year-old’s piercing soprano, I started a fervent reading of Wong Wai’s “Yearning” in Cantonese. My mom was unimpressed, even after my five-minute lecture on how, prosodically, Cantonese makes the poem that much more meaningful. Scoffing, she said: 「相思你識條鐵咩」 (loosely: “what the hell do you know about yearning?”). In that moment, though, I felt like I did know what it was like to yearn — for validity, if not anything else.

PERSONAL ESSAY: The Pole Climb

  The pole seared into my right shin as I hung four feet in the air. Sweat developed between my death-grips and the stainless steel. […]

HUMOR: Inventing (H)Anna(h)

Here it was, dropped into my lap, the Next Big Story.

NONFICTION: Carcass Balancing

The walk-in freezer is stuffed with carcasses. The air is fragrant with oxidation and decay. Sunlight glints across the weathered orange skin of the lambs […]