In his recently published memoir, Christopher Hitchens wrote something that encapsulated all of the guilt I feel about my confessional writing. “For those I have loved, or who have been…
There’s one criticism of my writing that I’m especially sensitive to, the accusation of hyperbole. I’m happy to tangle with disagreement and often amused by personal insults and mockery, but…
Last week something unexpectedly terrible happened. I was rifling though some links of things I’d written and discovered that every Nerve column had disappeared. The links, when sent out to…
It’s sometimes unflattering to look back at the record of history one leaves behind. When I was twelve, I remember the mortification I felt when my dad brought home a…
Poetry is a lost art that no one rightfully cares about anymore. Modern media offers many more powerful and direct methods for expressing the abstractions in our lives. The dusty…
One of the roots of the word “right” comes from the French “droite,” which is derived from “du rois.” In this way a right was neither inalienable nor innately granted…
I used to be fixated on the idea of arranged marriages when I was in high school. Relying on other people’s judgment to get around the difficulties of discovering what…
Torture porn has lately formalized itself into a full-fledged, and mostly unwelcome, new genre in the same way as reality television. Precious fits neatly into this new pocket of sensorial…
When I was twelve my friend J got a guitar for Christmas because he was amazed by a Poison album called “Flesh and Blood.” I’d never thought about playing guitar…
Nina is my friend L’s dog. She’s black and furry, a mix between a Rottweiler and a Chow. Her tongue is dark purple and it hangs out of her mouth…
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