Enter Toph
I spent a good chunk of my prewriting time for this blog post keeping Satan at bay.
Ben DeVries (’15) graduated with degrees in literature and writing. He and his wife Jes, a fellow Calvin grad, live in Champaign, Illinois, where Ben is looking to add some letters behind his name. On the academic off-seasons, he reads fantasy and works as a glorified “go-fer” at the Champaign Park District. He’s been known to make a mean deep-dish pizza.
Looking At, Shooting At, and the Weirdness of Annihilation
We’re used to standing apart from the places we occupy, fillers and subduers of the earth that we are.
We Would Prefer Not To
Turning out in droves despite rain and wind and snow, we marched and chanted and beat on bucket-drums and blew on whistles and papered the campus with fliers. We disrupted classes. We shut down buildings.
In Solidarity: A Letter before Striking
I do not want to strike. No one wants a strike. But if it comes to it, Jes and I will be on the picket line February 26, bright and early, because at that point we will have no other choice.
The X-Files Season 11: Still Waiting on the World to End
Season 11 aired its first episode on January 3 of this year and picks up, sort of, where its predecessor left off. I say sort of advisedly.
Poetry and Padawans, with Apologies to My English Teachers
Still, having experienced it myself now, I can sympathize with the twinge I’m about to give my many well-meaning English teachers when I divulge this next bit of information.
Reticent Wizards and Founding Fictions
“Merdarth, general of the Dark Lord’s army, stood, terrified, before the Orb.”
Stumping for Calvin
If nothing else then, the Illinois Regional College Fair confirmed for me what I already knew: I would make a terrible salesperson.
Chocolate Milk
The smoothies are revoltingly healthful. One recipe, dubbed “The Beginner,” calls for pear, banana, pineapple, avocado, and a full six cups of kale.
Farewell, Orphan Black
Like any good sci-fi tale, then, Orphan Black is finally far less interested in predicting what might be, than it is in describing what exists now.
Wiggles and Jiggles
The cheese cube relish, while very much not my thing, had a sort of melt-away pickle flavor that was not wholly unpleasant.
Mega Screen
Two weeks ago, in the lead-up to a concert, I got to read poetry off a video screen that was larger than the end zone of a football field.
Cheesecakes and IRB Forms
Toward the end of the graduate bible study my wife and I led this past academic year, two things were almost always certain: cheesecakes and IRB forms.
A Name is a Name is a Name (?)
I’ve found that the mundanities of teaching quickly and quietly bleed a name of its import.
My Wife is a Saint; Or, A Review of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
But as much as this story would insist that Link is the star of this latest quest, the real star of the show isn’t a person at all. It’s Hyrule itself.
The Nineteen
The number nineteen appears with such frequency in this deposition, it begins to feel rehearsed.
This Review Will Wreck Your Evening / Your Whole Life and Your Day
The show excels in precisely the same way as its source material: it approaches its subject matter with a pitch-perfect ear for dark humor, and with an impishly ironic attitude toward storytelling.
For it is by Grace: Three Reflections
If this is grace, it’s as lovely as it is disconcerting. It takes the very ugliest of us and says, “I can work with this. Child, I can work with you.”
I Consume
and when it bursts I imagine in my place a heap of broken bylines allusions clickbaits hottakes jpegs gifs intros outros all spooled out on the floor
Fly the W
If anyone in contemporary America can sympathize with the frustration of first-century Christians awaiting the imminent return of Christ, it’s we Cubs fans.
I Want To Believe
Specifically, I want to suggest that irrespective of the cloak-and-dagger politics it portrays, The X-Files does an excellent job of exposing our secret pleasure in conspiracy theories.
Harry Potter and the Unfortunate Sequel
More crucially, the Time-Turner plot that comprises the latter two-thirds of the play codes almost as a kind of high-level fan-fiction.
On Gollum
Gollum’s torture reminds us of the hand that we the good, we the kind and generous-minded, have in producing “bad character.” We call forth the best and worst in each other.
A Game of Croquet
Jessica, meanwhile, cut against the interpretive grain. She saw in Stephen’s lurching movements, his silent fury, his body at war with itself, something that looked like her.
The Big Clean
I drag around furniture, scramble on top of kitchen counters. I dust, I sweep, I wipe. I also bleach and mop, neaten, vacuum, air, fluff, and polish.
A Reevaluation: On the Disabilities Panel at FFW 2016
During a Friday morning panel at the 2016 Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, writer Jessica Mesman Griffith said something that would later come to trouble me.
Secret Hitler Is the Greatest Party Game Since Musical Chairs
In contrast with games like Mafia, which lives and dies upon its players’ intuition, Secret Hitler introduces a mechanic that brings reason (or maybe reason’s bastard, hunch-prone son) to the table.
Miracle Drug
There are other rules too, in addition to these. Sit tight. Speak clearly. Press CALL if you need anything. Know your medication (Trivora, prednisone, plaquenil, Tylenol). Have insurance.
Review: The Shannara Chronicles
Shannara relies far too often upon chance encounters in forests—a kind of uncanny return, time and again, to the story’s protagonists.
A Sort of Homecoming
Recently, my wife and I watched all six Star Wars movies in preparation for The Force Awakens—a feat I hadn’t done in years—and I remember my vaguely alarmed reaction during the credit-crawl for A New Hope.
