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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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Global Neighbors
In the last few years, my school has made a huge push towards what our Global Studies’ Director refers to as “glocalism." In essence, glocalism encapsulates the idea that we are all of us citizens of various communities, both local and global, and that being glocal citizens entails envisioning ourselves as active members of both a local neighborhood community, as well as a world community. He often uses the image of concentric circles to illustrate this....
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Current Issue
Issue 72
Memoir by Lauren Winner, Poetry by James Harpur, Art by Guy Chase and Adrian Wiszniewski
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