Featured Essays
Wordle is unique in that it’s an addiction you can’t indulge to your detriment.
Joplin blew out a hit. The smoke hung and twisted in the sunlight, and he studied it there, looking for an answer or sign.
The other day I drove over to the bank and closed my one and only credit account. I was inspired by Daniel Suelo.
I don’t know how best to tell you this, but you’re wrong. You’re wrong about me, and I fear you are wrong about the world.
Michael Pollan’s contribution to the psychedelic renaissance reinforces the very power structures that the countercultural psychonauts opposed.
A life unfolds in weeks, days, seconds, even infinitesimal moments. But it's made sense of and recalled in chapters. And chapters span years.
I presented the following speech at UVU's My Word!, a ceremony that celebrates student art and writing as published in the English department's journals.
This essay is for anyone in recovery who senses that sometimes it's the people who want the best for us that hold us down.
The first rule is to know that you will die and, barring a house fire, your photos will not.
There's a popular story going 'round that sounds something like this: excellence is achieved by doing one thing well.
People have been teasing cats with cucumbers. According to some, if you laughed at these felines’ expense, you’re wrongheaded. And if you went so far as to sic a cucumber on your cat, just to see what would happen, you might even be sociopathic.
Meditation has inspired me to "let go." But how can I engage the good fight if I give in?
Adulthood is often marked by a zombie-like dance between meaningless work and just as meaningless entertainment. But youth is alive. That's why we must fight to stay young.
Nearly every artist dreams of being well-known. But holding onto this dream makes creative work a nightmare. To recoup the dividends of art, we must move beyond desires for fame and fortune.
A 20-year-old vagabond, misfit, poet and artist stamps his soul on letters sent home before disappearing forever.
If Plato were alive today, he might be a hipster. He’d have the beard, for sure; he’d challenge ideas coming from institutions and people in authority; and he’d likely embrace a life of minimalism.
The moments we want to catch are rare not only because the event is rare, but because the event in combination with the right lighting is. In fact, the thing we look for, the thing we're chasing, is light.
As a kid, I was a bit of a rebel. And I believed I was this way because there was something wrong with me. At least, that's what they told me. Well they were wrong. They were wrong about me, and they're wrong about you.
People often want to change the world because they want to be recognized for doing so. That's not to say they don't have good motives, too. But those who really make a difference in the world aren't motivated by the idea of being admired.
My grandfather, just before leaving life at the age of 94, left these parting words of advice: Be kind to everyone. These four words, reflecting the wisdom of a century of living, now hang as an epitaph on my mother's living room wall. Seems simple enough.
Last weekend I was shuttled to Las Vegas for a conference and I unexpectedly learned a lesson in compassion.
Featured Letters
In a letter to my eighteen-year-old daughter I reflect on the nature of ambition and purpose.
The book you hold in your hands is considered a “prose masterpiece” and the best that Edward Abbey ever produced.
I’m writing because my wife and I are interested in buying a house that currently belongs to you.
I don’t know how best to tell you this, but you’re wrong. You’re wrong about me, and I fear you are wrong about the world.
I remember nights on your patio, admiring your handiwork and greenthumbery, drinking whiskey or playing guitars, talking...
I believe, as Freud and Nietzsche do, that our motives remain unknown to us. So I can't tell you why I do photography. But I can theorize.
Profiles
No Access
I first met Ryan Muirhead on a stoop in 2009. He sat effeminately, knees pulled up to his chest, ankles crossed, arms wrapped around shins, one hand clasping one wrist. This was before he was Instafamous, before he globetrotted, speaking at audiences of seasoned photographers seeking more depth. I didn't recognize in him then artistic aptitude or uncompromising vision. But then, I wouldn't have. Mostly I saw an awkward flannel-wearing longhair whose scratchy voice seemed always one note from breaking, like a dam holding back hurt.
The Boxcar Kids
Sometimes in the late hours, usually between one and four a.m., when the night is taut and black and all that remains of the crowds is echoing whispers, three or four or six overgrown youth will circle within the gold light, among the stuffed beasts and skeletal fragments and vintage tools, and share wine or whiskey or whatever alcohol can be found hiding in a dilapidated desk drawer. The stars turn overhead. Those gathered begin to skip and leapfrog their words, so that they end up communicating more through vibes and frequencies than actual language.
Investigations
Inside Heroin Addiction and Homelessness in Salt Lake City
At ten dollars a pop, a balloon—or “B” for short—carries one-tenth to two-tenths of a gram of your favored drug. Once sold in tiny water balloons—hence the name—ten-spots now come packaged in a small patch of garbage bag that has been folded over, twisted like a loaf of bread, tied off, and double layered. To keep things orderly, heroin comes in black plastic, cocaine in white plastic.
Spice on the Streets
Essays
A Meditation on Giving Up
I wasn’t focusing on the word "essence," but this particular idea of essence, as a kind of substance that inheres in everything, the substratum of existence. The embryo of “this.” Soul. The thing I feel toward.
Interviews
In a letter to my eighteen-year-old daughter I reflect on the nature of ambition and purpose.