The word essay derives from the French infinitive essayer, "to try" or "to attempt". In English essay first meant "a trial" or "an attempt", and this is still an alternative meaning. The Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was the first author to describe his work as essays; he used the term to characterize these as "attempts" to put his thoughts into writing.
god is a casino: notes from the urgent care waiting room
because i am also not immune to messianic pretendings.
Semiannual Book Review
While they’re still relatively fresh, here are reflections on some of the best books I’ve read in the first half of 2021.
Fragments on the notion of “everyone”
I do not say these things because they are true, but because they are false—because they are false and, above all, because I can say such false things.
The Cult of the Lesser Evil
What are the implications if we suggest that an encounter with the “Absolute” is missing from American politics? That desire for the Absolute haunts us? That it Could be Present/Is the Presence of an Absence/Is a Presence experienced as Absence/Is Made Present by the very Conditions of its Impossibility?
What Kind of Ghost are You?
While I work on getting a longer essay ready to publish, I made this quiz for y’all
For want of an Apocalypse: Thoughts on the Covid-19 Timewarp
Three months into quarantine, I began to dream of the end of the world.