The Barbershop
Reflection in a Glass Wall
The reflection looked like a vintage motion picture, only without those stilted movements.
More Articles in The Barbershop
Dirt Thick with Known Dead
While wandering in a used bookstore this summer, I picked up Donald Hall’s String Too Short to be Saved. I enjoyed Hall’s stories about his grandparents’ farm (the book’s title is taken…
Food and “the job of getting it there”
In Charles Frazier’s 1997 novel Cold Mountain, a minister’s daughter decides after her father’s death to remain on their western North Carolina farm, rather than return to the genteel life in which…
Thinking and Writing in ¾ Time: A Few Thoughts on Jimmy Buffett
There are many surprising things about getting older. As I sit on the cusp of my late thirties, staring at that blinking cultural landmark a few years down the road, a couple…
Mama Gets a Bugle
It is a mark of the middle class to maintain a low-grade prowl on eBay or Craigslist for some odd thing. My prowl was for a bugle. The desire was neither idle…
On the Beat in the City of Hospitality
On my way to work at the local weekly newspaper, driving down East Mansion Street and then West Michigan Avenue in downtown Marshall, I pass three people I know. One holds a…
Messing About in Boats
In the nautical classic The Wind in the Willows, Ratty tells his new acquaintance Mole, “‘Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about…
The Facebookification of Local Politics: Extending the Wall of the Bathroom Stall
In 2014, Cambridge Analytica used an app called thisisyourdigitallife to surreptitiously obtain data from 50 million Facebook accounts. They then used all of this information in 2016 to help Donald Trump’s campaign create…
On Being Less than We Are
What you miss out on by not making the climb is too great a loss on such a morning as this.
Blowing Up the Bert: The Outside Story
Two years ago I witnessed the abrupt transformation of an old and distinguished literary magazine. For the people doing the transforming, of course, the changes were long overdue. The overhaul continued the…
AirSpace Colonizes the College Town
As a localist and a voracious reader, it is only natural that I would be deeply devoted to my local independent bookstore. Here in Lawrence, KS, that bookstore is The Raven. It…
Naftzger Park, Planning, and the Problem of “Growth”
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Naftzger Memorial Park was a small, pleasantly run-down city block of trees, grass, and benches, near the center of downtown Wichita, KS, just a block north of…
“Anything Less than Ownership is Unacceptable!”
Many Americans do not need a data visualization to see that their places, especially their cities, are sharply divided along racial lines. Even so, the Weldon Cooper Center’s “Racial Dot Map,” built…
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