Turtle Lake

Those who did it from a distance erased the people’s language. Once they could claim their fiction of terra nullius they flooded in close and put up fences. They erased the history of their conquest and they erased the lake’s history too.

2025-02-03T07:59:11-05:00January 27, 2025|

On Raymond Thompson’s “Appalachian Ghost”

Thompson captured photos of the place — the hills of WVA folding into each other like origami, holding mist and dew in the hollows. And he staged new photos which conjure these working men, bearing up under hours of physical labor, covered in white dust, looking otherworldly but also fully human and integral to the achievement.

2024-06-27T13:59:35-04:00June 20, 2024|

May Day is a Rust Belt Holiday

May Day isn’t just an estimably American holiday, it’s a particularly Rust Belt holiday, forged in the cauldron of Chicago’s streets and factories, born from the experience of workers in the mills and plants of Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland.

2024-05-06T11:00:54-04:00April 29, 2024|

My Midwestern Fleetwood Mac

She came from a dying Rust Belt town in southeast Ohio, and I came from a famously dying Rust Belt town an hour north of Detroit. We were both oldest children, with the same letter leading our first and last name. Our birthdays were one day apart.  And, we both loved Fleetwood Mac.

2023-07-19T08:13:43-04:00July 15, 2023|