Writing
Here are some of my favorite pieces, updated periodically.
- Searching for Aptosis in the American Desert, §1 (from derbis.org):
Walking out on the strip, in sur-100-degree heat, bathed in blinks and strobes, is a harrowing endeavor. A mobile bill-board rolls past, “Babes to you!”, adorned with naked women arrayed in improbable positions and giving seductive glares indiscriminately. Teenagers, probably working their summer jobs, stand in groups and push business cards on passers-by, business cards that fit the most analytic definition of pornography and provide the proper phone number for an impressive selection of sexual tastes and tendencies. The teenagers, the guys passing these cards out, do this little snapping thing with the cards too, as they hand them out, and it makes it difficult to ignore them. I get the feeling that, to survive in Vegas, every thing must have its hook.
- Search for Aptosis in the American Desert, §2 (from derbis.org):
And I guess that’s my point, that the Grand Canyon offers some seriously and ontologically soiled experience. And I am part of that, no matter how much I might tell myself that I am set apart, that I am here to witness the natural spectacle itself, and that all this spectacular hoopla is just a nuisance getting in my way. Because I am so inextricably a part of that nuisance. And that’s probably what irritates me about the situation, that hoary quip about being most annoyed with others for things that we fear most in ourselves.