A Brief Counter-Point

There’s been a lot of speculation about who Tennessee Talking Points is, but I think today, at the least, we learn it is a white person who does not understand one fundamental truth to politics. Proof he or she is a white person? Let’s face facts. Barack Obama isn’t going to win in Tennessee. We [...]

Jump and Shout

This is not a good song for happy days, really, but I still like it.

Some Thoughts on Weight-Loss Aids

This weekend, the Professor and I were talking about the prescription version of Alli, in which she informed me that the materials that come with the drug just basically tell you that the drug works primarily by conditioning you to eat differently, because, if you don’t, you will shit yourself. The whole “shitting yourself” thing [...]

Too Excited to Post Coherently

“Frank” is in Apex Magazine. You can read it right now! You can read the awesome interview they did with me. You can dance around the house singing Muddy Waters songs in happiness (or just me, that’s cool). Shoot, you can read “Bone” for old time’s sake. Folks who aren’t fans of horror have expressed [...]

Why We’re the Home for Wayward Architecture

Poets are Weird

It’s not that I don’t love you guys, I do. But if we are all of the belief that poetry does not sell and some of you are of the belief that $250 is not too much to give someone to publish something that–no matter what promotional efforts might go into it–won’t sell, why would [...]

Things I’m Thinking About

I’ve been spending a lot of time researching Sue and Ben Allen and trying to get a feel for the Nashville they would have grown up in while I mull over what kind of story I would like to write about them. And the thing I’ve been thinking hardest about is how to write a [...]

Finally, Another Interesting Relative

I already knew we were related to the bad guys in The Crucible on my mom’s side. But I’d been disappointed to be from 400 years of relatively boring people on my dad’s side. Until I was researching some this afternoon on Nashville at the turn of the century and I noticed that Faust played [...]

Jacob, Called John?

So, my dream is to find a contemporary account of evidence of the Allenes’ seances. It doesn’t even have to be a first-hand account. I just want to know that there were stories at the time of this happening. The closest I’ve found is Hamlin Garland’s Forty Years of Psychic Research: A Plain Narrative of Fact [...]

A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD

Okay, yes, this book deserves every ounce of praise piled on it. And I think that, if it had ended with the PowerPoint chapter, I would have come away feeling great about the book. That seemed to me to be hopeful–there will be children–while being kind of uncomfortable about the future–they will know you in [...]

Random Things, Including Monsters

1. This is Dr. J’s school and I think she just left the country, but I don’t think those two things are related. Though I would be equally horrified and awe-struck if they were. I plan on discussing whether the Professor has been hiding a motorcycle gang from me very soon, just in case this [...]

My Dog is a Jerk and I’m Changing Her Name to Hank III, Jr.

Don’t be fooled by her cuteness. My dog is a major asshole. Our friend, A., is in town on his way to some music thing over in Cookeville and Mrs. Wigglebottom loves A. with the intensity of a thousand fiery suns. Not that she doesn’t love everybody that much, of course. But all night long, [...]

This is the Thought that Scares Me

Okay, we won’t speculate. Who knows what happened? But let’s just throw one more possibility out there. Not saying it’s what happened. Not saying that it’s not. It’s now pretty widely known that you don’t have to have concussions to suffer from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, even mild, but repeated brain injuries can cause it. So, [...]

Now It Can Be Told

Woo-hoo!

Some Thoughts on the Nashville Slut Walk

Here’s a story about it in the Tennessean. Here is my thought. My incoherent with rage thought: Gail Dines can suck my butt. “They should be in New York outside the DA’s office that let (Dominique) Strauss-Kahn off,” she said. “A lot of women who have been raped are getting the word ‘slut’ thrown in [...]

More Blathering on About Sue Allen and her Peeps. Fair Warning.

I found that some of Sue Allen’s nieces and nephews’ descendants believe that the Thomas Hayes she married was her own age and died in 1880 and is buried out in Mt. Olivet. This does give her time to marry Ben in 1883, but it doesn’t jibe with other things. First, the Tennessean article says [...]