In this episode, perhaps the only of Season 2, Joe ponders viruses, snow, aging, and the end of the world. Transcript: This morning, Friday, March 13, snow has come to Portland. This is how the world ends. Or begins. I’m not sure. This recording is not, really, a Weekly Reading. I’ve debated how to continue… Continue reading S201 The End of the World

“It is a Sunday night, and I, with my cat, am in my mother’s basement: a forty-seven-year-old man, who earlier that day delivered a sermon on Ecclesiastes to a congregation of Lutherans, surrounded by that tan masonite paneling, corresponding with a woman in Oregon on an online dating app, and thinking he ought to exercise,… Continue reading Loss (memoir): Ep46

“It was after the third attempt, the one with the pills, that Wallace really understood the business of suicide.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com

“When Eleanor Whitney was young, the nipple on her left knee was a simple oddity. And like many genetic oddities (birthmarks, cleft chins, red hair), Eleanor’s was easy to ignore: it had always been there.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com

“I don’t think I’m going through a midlife crisis, that barrage of decisions and doubts that hit (according to movies and TV) men turning 40.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com

“They stand on stage like individually / wrapped, Halloween Kit-Kats and Hershey’s bars, / fun-size adults in rayon packaging.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com

Tardy groundhogs / huddle on sidewalks / outside strip mall offices… Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com

“It didn’t matter that Pearl Jam, Radiohead, and the indie bands embraced the LP. Vinyl lost to the digital download and Mythic Records fell.” Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com

Nostalgia, Netflix, and new movies. Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com

Soldiers return to America and face home in this poem and companion flash fiction. Theme music is “Holiday Gift” by Kai Engel, via Creative Commons. For artist information, see http://www.kai-engel.com