Appalachia Kicks

I live in Appalachia. Supposedly, this, too, is North Carolina. I live here because it’s cheap. Economics is the great leveler. I eat what I can grow. Why is that supposed to be a humiliation. This is the land of No One Makes Much Around Here Anyway. We are not…

porch

He sang songs in this rocker. And he forgot his hat.

What Are We Sure Of

The end of democracy. The end of class and caste. A chicken for every pot. If we could all just work together. For togetherness. The end of patriarchy. The end of the hierarchal pyramid that protects the American paradigm that does not work. All of the cultural institutions like education,…

Writers Should Plan Their Escape Now

If I was a journalist who wrote this, I would look for a quiet place where I might hide from the Night of the Long Knives. The Night of the Brown Shirts. The Night of the Executions. The Night of the Long March. The Night of Old Suitcases. The Night…

Tim Barrus: New York Times

Is Maureen Dowd Irish.

Michigan Was Not a Life

I am autistic. I have wondered and wondered. I lived on the wrong side of the river. Rusted ugly town of rusted ugly people. There was no blue sky. The coal cars stunk like corpses and the sulphurized-yellow clouds that drifted through our homes and lives, and as it lifted…

Tim Barrus: The Predator Among Us

That greater darkness creeps receptive fatigue and that is where the lost are living. Denial is a weary mistress. Mistress takes no prisoners. Denial is impetuous. Americans live in a dreamy sleep even as the night has ended, where is the light. There is no light. We are the comatose.…

Tim Barrus: Jared Leto

I would not have minded if the book critic had taken issue with my work. But no. They always go after me as a human being. I am, of course, the monster, the criminal, the itinerant, the Boogeyman, Coyote. I will gladly take Coyote. The coyotes around my cabin eat…

Book Publishing Has Always Been a Train Wreck

For Pam Paul at the New York Times: Publishing lives and dies by the blacklist. The blacklist decides. Not the editor. Not the PR guys. Not the publisher. It simply shows it’s not about what you write. It’s about the writer. Why did you write this. How many children do…

Tim Barrus: Minority Rule is Usually Ruthless

We are ruled by ruthless masters. They are called the aristocracy. They are unfit to rule anything.   https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/opinion/minority-rule-majoritarian-democracy.html?campaign_id=0&emc=edit_cr_20221021&instance_id=0&nl=comments-notifications&regi_id=56243886&segment_id=0&user_id=acf7e0fa0ccfaa274c5a8c73c0976c4a#commentsContainer&permid=121057070:121057070

Tim Barrus, New York Times

The relationship of patriarchy to republican authoritarianism is one we need to study like what the fuck is this. What rock did this snake crawl out from under. Republicans should commit suicide. I do not like to slice the head off with a shovel because snakes eat mice. Don’t even…

Tim Barrus, New York Times

I hear they go naked under the robes. It’s fun to poke them because it robs them of their ritualized validity. Satire is protected speech. Since this is not the New York Times, I can say that they have no authority and even less moral authority. Make me pay this…

Tim Barrus, New York Times

Tim Barrus, New York Times

I can hear them grit their teeth at the New York Times. Turn on the AI, Zelda. It’s coming for all of you.

Tim Barrus, New York Times

I do not mean to single out another writer. It’s not her fault that publishing deals fundamentally with not just a blacklist, but a set of blacklists that work like flawless machinery that could separate the good from the bad and the bad from the bad and the good from…

Tim Barrus, New York Times

On any given day, I am apt to see everything from bears to coyotes. The mountain is an awesome thing.

Tim Barrus, New York Times

Tim Barrus, New York Times

Publications who produce this kind of landed gentry pornography, are dealing with the materials of selling history as something you can wrap around you. The hush hush secret to this castle are the dragons in the back.  

Tim Barrus, New York Times

Entire packs of wolves behave exactly like humans posing for position. It’s fundamentally all about power, but women have to work harder at it, and for less. Don’t ask me to paint any kind of picture as to who and what Homo sapiens means. The jury remains in session until…

Tim Barrus, New York Times

Dogs are not usually on the front page of the New York Times. When they are, it’s an event.

Tim Barrus, New York Times

The old rules are not the old rules. There is always something older than the rules. The laws of physics demand it. Why are we looking at the electron differently. Is it a wave or is it a ping pong. Are there zillions and zillions of electrons in the universe…

Tim Barrus, New York Times

The very idea that conservatives can be “cultural warrors” is fraught with problems. Like the nature of reality.

Tim Barrus, New York Times

For a self-identified liberal publication, the New York Times takes a dim view on noncomformity. It begins with security in their building. It’s like walking into a vault. The New York Times publishes lots and lots of the POV that noncomformity is unacceptable. I am a radical. They can take…

Tim Barrus, New York Times

To use the idea of “fun” as a weaponized guided cruise missle that hits the wrong wedding in Oman, I am here to tell you that “fun” has little to do with survival, and if you have survived the contemporary world, you have validated yourself in a terrain where validation…

Tim Barrus, New York Times

I am actually hard on the South. A jaundiced eye. Never use a radiator. We grow great corn around here. I’ve never seen a still. But I have heard whispers about them.