Words represent the world we’re in. Words can bump together and spark meaning, cause conflict, salve wounds. Sometimes they do nothing at all but sit parked there on some schmo’s spot on the Information Superhighway.
When passing through this world, when They let me, I try to find a few words to represent it. I really can’t reason why I am so compelled to cobble together so fleeting a representation, as if shouting all I saw when falling down to the bottom of a great and terrible hole where only those falling after me will hear anything I say, if at all, then only echoes, and then eventually the silence that follows the arc of every life.
From my (inherently self-serving) reckoning, that’s reason enough. To you, dear reader, I direct this momentary benefit of an echo of what once was seen during a great fall.
Below are a few selections of things I’ve written for lay audiences. Some are short, others long. I offer a wide variety of topics including people, places, and things. Please do enjoy.
“A heartbreaking tale of slowness” — A celebration of what the life of one scientist caretaking for one long-running, slow-going experiment means to the human endeavor.
“Dayton, Tenn., July 10 – 21” — A reflection of the Scopes Monkey Trial nearly a century after it began sitting on a bench outside the Dayton, Tenn. courthouse reading the trial transcript.
“The problem with ghosts” — An argument against the existence of ghosts based on what they represent in such a majestic universe as ours.
“Minidoka” — A visit to one of the U.S.’s historic internment camps
“Why we feel cold” — An explanation for every chill we feel
“Shanghai” — A simple portrait of a complex city
“What was the UW Encampment Protest?: A brief study of a brief moment” — A report on an encampment protest to cease Israel’s destruction of Gaza