Kurt Vonnegut grabs you. His books call out to you in a real voice. Slaughterhouse 5, his seminal novel, begins with the line, “All this happened, more or less.”  Immediately, you trust the voice and immediately you’re hooked.
But Vonnegut didn’t trip into his success or stumble into his style. He slaved over it. And, as Charles J. Shield’s new biography of Vonnegut, And So it Goes, shows us he paid a high price for it. …

I used to doze off at night chanting obscure citation formatting rules from all the major players in town: MLA, APA, Chicago, even Turabian on some particularly insomnia-stained evenings. For a brief period before I fabricated some semblance of a social life, my homepage was EasyBib.com. As a law-abiding citizen who only jaywalked when a red light obstructed a closing kitty-corner Chipotle, plagiarism seemed like a surefire way to win a date with the …

As a freshly minted college graduate waiting for the paint to dry on my diploma (there was a spill…), I’m still developing my capacity to complete the daily commute. I have heard horror stories of road weary professionals commuting by plane, train, Segway, or blimp to locations ranging from Andorra to Mordor. This stands in distressing contrast to my understanding of a commute, which during academia years meant the journey from my bed to the …

Part 2: Recycling a Plant
Ok here we go. A “Part 2”. This is a very adventurous and presumptuous endeavor on my part to attempt a Part 2 of anything. Part 2 suggests that I have some loyal audience that meticulously follows my work and was left trembling in anticipation at the end of my Part 1. I think George Lucas had it right in his Star Wars chronology. Next time I’ll start a blog post …

Part 1: Recycling Plant
What’s the difference between a recycling plant and recycling a plant? Just to clarify, I am not speaking about agriculture here; in my urban Chicagoland jungle, plant means industry. As is my nature, after moving to a new location, I frenetically bushwhack through metropolitan mulch. I dodge chain restaurants like weeds (aside from Chipotle) and sniff out those hidden flowers that flash the true colors of the city.
My recent harried wanderings have …

In “Champion”, Kanye West poses the self-referential question, “Did you realize that you are a champion in their eyes?”
By the final verse, West decisively answers the query: “Yes I did”.
West, often derided for his blinding hubris, certainly suffers (or benefits) from a case of acute bravado. However, West has cunningly co-opted this haughty bombast into his brand. With five platinum albums, fourteen Grammys, and a massive hip hop empire, West often flaunts his success in …