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Of a Higher Degree
When I was in eighth grade, my mother gave my grandfather a book called Grandfather Remembers to give to me as a Christmas present. It was formatted along the lines of your average baby book, with blank spaces for our family tree and stories about his ancestors as well as guided blank pages for recollections of his first car, his first job, his favorite meals and holidays, as well as his marriage and children....
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Reckoning the Marvelous
I wouldn’t call myself a pessimist, but I often focus on and assume the worst possible outcomes in life, because I think that keeps me aware and safe. Of course, it doesn’t keep me either safe or particularly aware, but I do it anyway. Perhaps that actually makes me a pessimist. I hope not. Who wants to be that guy? In his 1995 Nobel Prize acceptance speech “Crediting Poetry,” Seamus Heaney ponders....
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Teaching Ninth Grade (and Other Revelations)
With few exceptions, most of the new people I meet cringe perceptibly when I inform them that I teach high school freshmen. “Better you than me,” they might say. Or, “God bless you. That must be so difficult.” I think that the assumption that underlies that response is that teenagers must be terribly difficult to be around. And I think some legitimate reasons exist for that response....
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Gilgamesh and Me
One of the most brilliant moments from any episode of The Office takes place in season four’s opening episode, “Fun Run.” Michael Scott (Steve Carell) has organized a 5K to promote rabies awareness (long story), and decides to prep himself for the race by eschewing water all day and consuming a double order of Fettuccine Alfredo immediately before taking off. Because of....
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Food People
There are people who love to eat food, people who love to make food, and people who love to talk about food. I am all three of those people. I think there’s something in the primordial recesses of my Southern-ness that partially contributes to this. Yes, Mississippi is an obese state, but that’s mostly because we’re an impoverished state. Obesity has little to do with what I’m talking about—although my food obsession....
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Current Issue
Issue 71
Fiction by Larry Woiwode, interview with Joe Henry, art by Fabian Debora, essay by Barry Moser.
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