Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall

When Mice Roar and the Rest Assume They’re Lions

My senior advisor, Tom Restivo, pulled me aside one day and said “You know, most people in the school don’t support your causes. You know that right? It seems like you think that you’re constantly on the side of right but, even if you are, without the backing of a larger group of students, you’re never going to get algebra credit for the Math Team.”

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Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall

The World Is Now Your Therapist, So Have a Cheeseburger

Have you seen the new Emo Burger King ad?

I do not love the idea that in an age where nuance, humor, and snark are taken so literally that the perpetual class of whiners will take this as yet another permission to unload their emotional trash on the streets for all to see. Yes, it’s important to avoid stuffing your bad feels down under the sofa like dogshit you can smell but can’t find, but there’s a reason therapy is usually done one-on-one in a private office.

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Kari Castor Kari Castor Kari Castor Kari Castor

Book Club Made Me Read It | The Changeling

And holy shit if this book had ended right there, I’d be writing a very different review right now. The vibrancy of their early relationship with each other, the slow creep of horror as things become more and more wrong in the Kagwa-Valentine household, the awful question of whether Emma might actually be right, the visceral brutality of the final scenes… It works. It’s good.

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Poetry Contributing Writer Poetry Contributing Writer

look there instead

look here, they say,
but no; i want to look there,
my focus firmly fixed upon things
not so crowd-gazed. 

look there with me —
glistening, intricate mosaics
painstakingly crafted
in the arches of the museum stairwell,
unnoticed in the upward or downward rush
to view the expected. 

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Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall

I Like to Watch | Cobra Kai Season 2

The first season indulged in the Gen X joy of revisiting those nostalgic moments and was so successful, they decided to do a second and, in extending the story for ten more episodes, dive into some truly profound territory.

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Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall

When Facts Dispute Ideology, What Do You Do?

When facts dispute your ideology, please — PLEASE — access that one or two brain cells that control your ability for self reflection and understand that those facts mean your failed solution doesn’t need another shot. You need to come up with a different solution, dumbass.

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Erik Lewin Erik Lewin Erik Lewin Erik Lewin

A Venice Tale

Los Angeles. The sun - kissed taste of sandy freedom, smoggy alleyways and city tenements, stars, the heart of plastic grandeur, an American Dream personified.

I was holed up in a pad on Venice beach in between jobs. I had no furniture. It was after a break-up.

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Contributing Writer Contributing Writer

There's Something to Learn from Playing Cards

Whenever I see a deck of cards, poker chips, or talk about Las Vegas I think about all the memories with her, my siblings, and my grandpa — enough memories to fill a book or two — and can’t help but smile.

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