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I’ve been kicking around this essay idea for some time. I first read a friend’s Savage Sword of Conan magazine many decades ago. I was a young man when I discovered Conan the Cimmerian—already enlisted in the Army National Guard but still in my early college years. I’d been a comics fan since middle school, but this world of sword-and-sorcery (free from the restrictions of the odious Comics Code Authority stamp of approval) was a whole new world to me. I felt an immediate tho

Sometime amidst the news deluge in January, I created a new Skype playlist that I called “Against the Fascist State.” I had some sort of notion that this playlist would be something to sink into in order to take back my own headspace. It would somehow be an artistic force pushing back against the incredibly unsettling and soul-crushing news out of my home state of Minnesota. The video footage of masked federal police brazenly disarming and murdering American citizens who were

When talking to my wife about great works of literature that become lifelong companions, I decided to finally read the Divine Comedy, something I've wanted to do for many years. As I searched for the translations I wanted to read (one modern and one traditional), I'd discuss this new goal with a few other people, and a constant theme of discussion was essentially: why on earth would I want to read Dante when the world already seems so terrible. I gave this due consideration,