Selected Essays
Harold Pinter and the Autistic Experience
There is a situational autism at work in these plays: cerebral, cold or artificial to someone who is only paying attention to the surfaces, but rooted in an urgent need to be understood.
On Forgiveness in Barry Season Three
HBO’s dramedy Barry similarly seems to be devoid of external divinity - this is an L.A. story, and that almost always involves alienated people, seeking connections in a place that aggressively discourages those kinds of relationships.
Somehow, YouTube Original Champaign ILL Is One of Hulu’s Best Shows
Champaign ILL was axed by YouTube in April 2019, only five months after it premiered. But that single season recently got a bump when it began streaming on Hulu, and curious subscribers noticed that, Hey—this show is really good.
The Absurd, Weird Masculinity of What We Do In The Shadows
The characters on the beloved FX series still have to deal with their identities, even when they're 800 years old.
Apocalypse Coming: John Carpenter's Degraded Heroes
Published in No Cinema Quarterly! Issue #1.4
Dagon Offers Sublime Damnation
The 2001 film Dagon remains one of the best articulations of Lovecraft’s work yet put to screen.
“The Good Lord Bird” is an absurd abolitionist Western
Ethan Hawke chews the scenery in a historical drama that gleefully plays around with the truth.
3rd Rock From The Sun, Autism, & Me
As someone with ASD, I’ve felt like an alien from another planet almost all of my life. So when my partner showed me the 90's NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, something about it struck a chord. I soon realized why: the aliens on 3rd Rock act like they’re autistic!
Poets Who Contain Multitudes
Recent poetry collections often defy the ballyhooed trend of authors writing concise pieces in order to reach more readers on social media.