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6:15 am6:15 am

The Ax Man Cometh, Again

By |Milwaukee|

Among the sleeve of tattoos on his left arm is a still frame from his favorite film, the neo-noir classic Le Samouraï. He wears his former Brewers number, 59, on his red Canadian jersey. He is two weeks shy of his 40th birthday.

6:15 am6:15 am

That Good Night

By |Essays|

By now I should understand that when every choice starts to feel like a miscalculation, a mistake, I’m up against forces bigger than myself. Yet I was secretly, irrationally angry at them for succumbing too willingly to death without any burning or raving or raging. If they’d just tried hard enough, I sometimes thought.

6:15 am6:15 am

A Pink Apocalypse in Elizabeth, PA

By |Essays|

Experiencing Danielle Mužina’s paintings at MadKat beside the river and the train tracks in Elizabeth was one of the first times I felt women were the subject of the sentence.

6:15 am6:15 am

Gordon Lightfoot’s Great Lakes’ Lives

By |Commentary|

No song better captures the terrifying power of the Great Lakes than Lightfoot’s tragic, captivating rendering. It is a sonic and literary achievement, translating the sudden confusion, fear, and despair as the Edmund Fitzgerald is unable to weather a November storm.

6:15 am6:15 am

Donora Death Fog – The First Days

By |Excerpt|

Tuesday was just an average day in Donora and vicinity, when nothing particularly special happened. Nothing, that is, except a confluence of weather conditions that would place an environmental lid on the valley.

12:15 pm12:15 pm

Willie at Ninety

By |Essays|

So, be you a Willie fan or not, when his 90th birthday tributes show up on television and radio this weekend, remember that he has in so many ways lived all of our lives and sung all of our songs in all our towns from Pittsburgh to Denver.

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