American carnage tagged posts

The images overwhelmed, just as waves of gleeful rioters overwhelmed the shockingly sparse police presence in surging through mere barricades and glass windows, easily mounting the ramparts and invading the halls of Congress.

There they frolicked and trampled, leaderless lords of flies inspired by a malevolent cult figure who had incited them earlier with another in a long line of delusional, muddled rants that reeked of mental illness.

“American carnage,” 2021.

And dispiriting as it was, none of it was surprising. None of it.

He has been the chaos president because his life is built on his chaotic character, on the dark hole at the center of it, on the belligerence that is his animating principle. He savages everyone who gets in his way, which eventually is everyone, given the relentlessness of his self-regard.

It felt like a violation, as if this throng had entered our own homes, breaking through wind...

I have felt a longing these recent fine spring days for a wide variety of pre-virus pleasures, but perhaps none more so than Monut’s, a buzzy daytime eatery in Durham that makes distinctive New Agey donuts and sandwiches with perfectly balanced ratios of condiments to bread to fillings, along with a convivial, clattery atmosphere provided by young hipster servers, Duke students and professors, and friend pairs huddled intimately over tables trying to make themselves heard above the din.

Also: Ponysaurus, a local brewpub featuring my favorite crisp pilsner, where children and dogs romp across lawns dotted with picnic tables through the warm months, above which we climb metal stairs to a veranda, strategically parking ourselves to watch the sun set amidst the ever-changing cloudscape to the west.

These are among a host of local establishments whose “brands” have inculcated themselves into my life, reliable p...