"It’s like being underwater: the loudest thing you hear are your thoughts. Voices are garbled syllables with distorted time signals, they are far off and distant. It is easy to ignore, easy to give in to the indulgence of living in one’s own head. This is what it’s like to be semi-deaf, to be increasingly [...]
How to be a better person in 2014
DISCLAIMER: This post is in no way, shape or form written by an expert, nor does it contain any secret keys to life. (Sorry.) Instead, it was written by a very faulty human who has some self-awareness and a sincere desire to humbly move forward and become a better person. By now, you’ve probably already [...]
My Top 10 Books of 2013
READ IT: My Top 10 Books of 2013 I hate listicles, but I like Mensah and books, so I agreed to write this. My disdain for the year-end tradition of list-making is trumped by my belief that sharing books we love and our reading practices are incredibly important for human beings. Some books that have made [...]
When you read something awful-terrible about yourself
“The act of hurling something to the Earth is an interesting one. It connotes a dismissal of physical/material form, both in terms of the thing being hurled and a violence toward the dirt-planet at one’s feet. Furthermore, the act of presenting an object to someone in this way exaggerates the act of looking down, and [...]
The Boston Marathon was bombed today.
I ran on the elliptical after work, my standard 30 minutes. I turned on ABC World News, a full half hour of pure horror, scene after scene of the aftermath, the debris, bloody marathoners and spectators, expressions of terror. I would like to quietly say now, then, that my heart goes out to everyone affected, [...]
In the last days of rock ‘n’ roll, a savior emerges: Leroy Powell & the Messengers
I wrote about Leroy Powell and his newest album for Rhythm of the Region. We talk music, his diverse playlist, and superheroes (of course!).
On Writing: The Anti-Narrative
I've been working on an essay lately, and it's doing all the things that working on an essay should: making me think, making me dig, making me research. More importantly, it's forcing me to ask questions of myself, to reexamine my opinions on literary trends and traditions -- narrative, to be specific. I'm the first [...]
ashley bethard 