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published Work

things judged worthy by someone aside from me

All commentary criticism creative academic reporting

The Ambiguous Artisan

North Carolina’s most important furniture maker was a free man of color who owned slaves. He also might have been an abolitionist. Is the state ready for his story?

Type: reporting

Part 4: The Running of the Bulls

Four key questions will play a role in shaping the outcome of Durham’s municipal election.

Type: reporting

Part 3: At Home With the Matadors

Durham is quite literally being remade. You don’t have to believe in the housing theory of everything to see how the council’s development decisions are shaping the city’s future.

Type: reporting

Part 2: Dances With Death

An apparent détente in the police reform debate might prove to be only a temporary ceasefire. A single shooting could still spark a political firestorm, and the legacy of marquee crime prevention strategies will depend on the next council’s budgets.

Type: reporting

Part 1: Chaos in the Bullring

Following two years marked by chaos and scandal, the INDY is launching a four-part investigation into what brought Durham to this point, how it’s impacting local government responses to the pressing issues of crime and gentrification, and what comes next.

Type: reporting

The Uncomfortable Truth About Why Buying Furniture Is So Miserable

Shopping for a simple couch or dresser is driving Americans mad. The cheap stuff breaks (or never arrives) and the good stuff is unaffordable. What does the future hold for one of the nation’s most important industries? North Carolina furniture makers are at the center of the struggle.

Type: reporting

Roy Cooper’s Wager

When the governor endorsed a primary challenger to an incumbent Democrat, he waded into a complicated state Senate race—and may have risked his veto power in the process.

Type: reporting

Inside the Elite, Underpaid, and Weird World of Crossword Writers

Efforts to diversify the industry might be having the opposite effect. And although puzzles are an important part of The New York Times’ business strategy, only a handful of people actually make a living from crosswords.

Type: reporting

The Courage to Change

Three years ago, one of the best women’s soccer teams in the world was the centerpiece of a potential $2 billion investment in the Triangle. Now they’re mired in scandal and protest.

Type: reporting

Football, Soccer, Fútbol

Big investments in professional soccer could reshape North Carolina’s sports landscape and its biggest cities.

Type: reporting

Review: The Bonds of Inequality: Debt and the Making of the American City

Examining the role municipal bonds played in building today's cities.

Type: criticism

We Need a New Kind of Socialist Organization

The hierarchical vs. horizontal debate is old, tired, and getting us nowhere.

Type: commentary

A Home Truth

How the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequities in the Triangle's housing market—and what we can do before it's too late.

Type: reporting

Home Icons: Starter Table Saw

Tracing the bourgeois idealism of woodworking.

Type: commentary

We're Stuck in Kevin Costner's Waterworld

Our political imagination is as bad as failed '90s blockbusters.

Type: criticism

The Time of the Bombs

A review of Joseph Andras's novel Tomorrow They Won't Dare to Murder Us.

Type: criticism

Novel Times

Ali Smith offers a meditation on time, art, and politics.

Type: criticism

The Hedge Maze

Mysterious out-of-state money owns more of Durham than ever, and there's little the city can do about it.

Type: reporting

We Should Use the Coronavirus Pandemic to Fight Mass Incarceration

Prisons have always been unjust. This crisis makes clear why.

Type: commentary

I’m Upset: I Have Wasted Years of My Life Reading Product Reviews

Online reviews offer me the hope of making an informed decision, but there are so many of them I can’t make any decisions at all.

Type: commentary

The Face of the Franchise

Sports video games don’t simulate sports so much as the thrill of building a brand.

Type: commentary

Disabled, Athletic, and Not Trying to Inspire Anybody

Heroic tales of disabled athletes celebrate the exceptional, and exclude those who are simply trying to compete.

Type: reporting

The Currency System in ‘John Wick’ Is a Mess

The Continental’s use of gold coins raises more questions than answers—though it’s a bit of nonsense that may actually be a sneaky good depiction of real life.

Type: criticism

The Radical Possibility of Common Sense

Clear, persuasive political messages require making people see the obvious.

Type: commentary

The Political Case for More Free Time

Some people are burnt out while others are simply exploited. We can organize around the shared interest of making our free time actually free.

Type: commentary

The Future of Rural North Carolina Isn’t Written on a Ballot

What makes Down Home North Carolina different is that it sticks around.

Type: reporting

Zoned Out

Eight years ago, Chapel Hill enacted the most progressive affordable housing policy in the Triangle. Here’s how it failed.

Type: reporting

What Would Improve Life in the Rural South? Ask Rural Southerners

The revolutionary strategy of actually asking people what they think.

Type: reporting

In Praise of Ordinary Art

The everyday in a post-blog world.

Type: criticism

A Highway to Progress, Foiled by Old Values

The road to a New South.

Type: reporting

Against Personal Politics

We’ve abandoned politics for consumption.

Type: commentary

Overcoming Individualism

To become an interracial movement, DSA must build institutions.

Type: commentary

Democratic Discontent

The stories we tell ourselves aren't helping.

Type: commentary

Mind the Gap: Who Does Farm-to-Table Serve?

Comparing rhetoric and reality.

Type: reporting

The Farm-to-Table Movement and Rural Gentrification

Does farm-to-table help farming towns?

Type: reporting

Accounting for Home

Growing up, finding home.

Type: creative

The State of the Triangle Beer Scene

The past, present, and future of beer in the Triangle.

Type: reporting

#Content: Expanding Entertainment, Collapsing Criticism

We get the Tronc we deserve.

Type: criticism

What It Means to Believe Prisoners

To change anything, we must listen.

Type: commentary

Garden and Gut

On authenticity in the New South.

Type: commentary

The Radical Collective Action of Disney's 'Newsies' Is Still Relevant Today

Newsies as a lens for our political situation.

Type: criticism

White Silence Is Tragic Silence

Antiracist proclamations as white absolution.

Type: commentary

Branding the Commons

Community for profit.

Type: commentary

Bookslut | Massacre: The Life and Death of the Paris Commune by John Merriman

The Paris Commune, in light of Ferguson, Eric Garner, and Occupy.

Type: criticism

The Restless Supermarket by Ivan Vladislavić

On Ivan Vladislavić's The Restless Supermarket.

Type: criticism

Bookslut | Desperate Clarity by Maurice Blanchot

Fighting through Blanchot for the first time.

Type: criticism | academic

LSE Review of Books | In the World Interior of Capital

A frustrating and wandering treatise-cum-cultural history.

Type: criticism | academic

Bookslut | The Shadow of Things to Come by Kossi Efoui

A brilliant, Kafka-esque Togolese novel.

Type: criticism

Bookslut | Almost Invisible by Mark Strand

On some truly gorgeous prose poetry.

Type: criticism

LSE Review of Books | The Right to Housing

Critiquing Jessie Hohmann.

Type: criticism | academic

ASAGE | The Politics of Interpretation

A conference paper on Cavell, Heidegger, and Thoreau.

Type: academic

Bookslut | Fallen Land by Patrick Flanery

A novel as ambitious as it is flawed.

Type: criticism

LSE Review of Books | Race: A Philosophical Introduction

Paul C. Taylor's lucid philosophical introduction.

Type: criticism | academic

Forge | America II

A Ginsburg riff I like much less in retrospect.

Type: creative

The Rebel or the Militant

On universality and political violence.

Type: academic

Enough with the Armageddon Talk, Already!

Analyzing the uses of apocalyptic language during the 2012 election.

Type: commentary

SongLyrics | Life Is Good

Shockingly suburban, but still Nas.

Type: criticism

SongLyrics | Skelethon

Gushing over Aesop Rock's wordplay.

Type: criticism

SongLyrics | WIXIW

Diving into Liars' stunning album.

Type: criticism

SongLyrics | Bloom

On the infectious Beach House album.

Type: criticism

SongLyrics | The National('s) Image

Cataloging the National's best lyrics.

Type: criticism