Creative Destruction

We’ve heard this term spouted by those who want a gloss of legitimacy to pour over the violence of their actions, the hollow emptiness of their motivations. Everything from firing workers to starting wars has been done behind the rationalization that it is creative to wield destruction, after all, without that Asteroid killing those big,

Complicity and Contingency

We live somewhere in tension between complicity and contingency. It’s not a linear polarity, this space. These are not categories with any sort of rough equivalency. Complicity is a state. We are within a relationship to the forces that seek to destroy. Some of these we are aware of, others are hidden from us, some

Notes on the Sources of Art

This piece has grown during the writing, pushed ahead by the ambition of its title, only slightly modified by the insertion of the word “Notes…” I’m resisting the urge to break it up into my customary 1,500 words. I need to break that habit as much as we all need not to get too comfortable

Pushing Past Futility

I’ve always had a poor tolerance for futility. Faced with a task I sense is futile, I’m like a cat with a sock on its back. I just collapse under the weight of absurdity. This has rarely made me popular. The war of attrition waged by this on friendships forged under the sunny skies of