★ Essays
Travels with Jack Radcliffe: Michele Li Murphy
July 1, 2015
Photographer Jack Radcliffe and I like to talk when we travel, so I flipped on the GPS to think for…
The Mechanic Theatre :: A Retrospective
January 22, 2015
I originally sat down with this piece thinking that I was going to serve the death of The Mechanic with…
Heretic to Housewife
January 13, 2015
“Please tell my story,” was the refrain my mother, Judith, repeated to me frequently in her last several years. Her…
For the Love of God(ard)
December 17, 2014
When Adieu au langage/Goodbye to Language screened at Cannes this year, the audience reportedly broke out into fevered applause about halfway…
Start Me Up :: The Reality of Starting a Tech Company in Baltimore
November 24, 2014
Where Baltimore Works: Visualization Map by Dave Troy The word “startup” is now fully absorbed in our modern parlance. Maybe…
The Erotic Novel Adventures of Heather, Part One: The Readening
August 26, 2014
When we last visited our hero, she had bravely decided to accept the self-imposed mission of reading an extremely dreadful half-assed…
To Whip, Perchance to Scream: Eroticism Revisited
August 5, 2014
I remember trying to do this once before…and I remember it ending badly. I was tense, reluctant and extremely wary…
The New Gilded Age
August 5, 2014
“In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy and the market economy.” – David…
You Can Relax: Spree Killers
July 30, 2014
Good news everyone! You’re not going to be killed by a spree-killer! Despite what the media loves to convince us…
All Things Return: A Story of Love, Loss, and Addiction
July 22, 2014
Ari said the hard part wasn’t smuggling himself into Egypt, the hard part was getting to the US. After a…
The Butchering of Women and the Rape of Animals
July 14, 2014
This essay was inspired by Carol J. Adams’ lecture at Towson University, and her book, The Sexual Politics of Meat (1990). Quotes were pulled from…
Understanding Objectification and Mass Aesthetic
July 7, 2014
It took 5000 dancers and 62 years before The Radio City Rockettes welcomed their first dancer of color in 1987. …
Access Denied: What the banking crackdown on sex workers says about us
June 5, 2014
I believe in objectification. Meaning, I believe it’s an inescapable part of the human experience. Most of us are sexual…
Breakfast and Beer :: The New Monuments to Self-Doubt
April 9, 2014
Putting six plus years into the thankless profession of retail will absolve all but the most masochistic among us of the…
Candyland After a Neutron Bomb
March 26, 2014
“Life has gotten real complicated, and when you think of Enchanted Forest, it’s not.” …
Death To American Complacency
March 19, 2014
It’s Sunday night and Club Chuck turned the lights back on hours ago. Three friends and I are trying to…
The Ghost In The Shell
December 12, 2013
Allow me to get weird for a bit. When I was a snot-nosed young buck, accessing and thus enjoying porn…
Home Is Where My Head Is
September 26, 2013
Learning to love Baltimore has been a protracted and grueling process, but I came around. What does it mean to…
