Interviews

Nick Reding

Clayton Trutor

In the second edition of our monthly interview series, American Polymath editor Clayton Trutor chats with journalist Nick Reding, author of Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town. Methland is the product of nearly a decade of research into the crystal methamphetamine epidemic which has proven particularly destructive in rural America. Reding focused his research on Oelwein, Iowa, a town of just under 7,000 near where his father grew up in Eastern Iowa. Methland describes the lives of people on all sides of the epidemic: dealers, addicts, victims, and members of the community struggling to save their town. Oelwein was once a booming agricultural and meatpacking center. The consolidation of big agro-business and the move away from high paying union work in favor of a low wage, service-based economy sets the backdrop for the story. Reding shows how addiction and drug-related crime both exacerbate and reflect the marginalization of the rural working class. Methland is undoubtedly one of the most important books of 2009. Like preceding generations of Midwestern writers, Reding is a witness to his times, one who merits the attention of everyone interested in preserving the dignity of everyday American lives.
READ

Fiction

Humility

Patrick Nevins

Ben Easy had hoped to get out of Halloween, but his meeting isn’t until eight, and the trick-or-treaters seem to come earlier every year, so he’s answering the door and handing out mini Snickers and Milky Ways and 3 Musketeers to children in store-bought SpongeBob SquarePants costumes, while his wife, Kristin, due in two weeks, relaxes on the love seat and watches the news. She’ll sip cranberry juice and watch the Halloween episodes of a few sitcoms, on which the children will be professionally outfitted as vampires and witches and werewolves. To be fair, some of the children that come to the door have gone for those classic characters; smeared white makeup and a black sheet worn as a cape makes Dracula; a plush black cat in a girl’s arm and a witch’s hat from the Halloween outlet in the mall makes… a witch. But with at least two hours of light left in the day, it’s hard for Ben to feign even amused fright for them.
READ

Culture

The Beardcore Manifesto

Clayton Trutor

This decade in music will be remembered for the further splintering of popular music into discreet subcultures. More music is being recorded than ever before, but, in many ways, fewer people are hearing any specific artist than at any time since the origins of radio. A number of technological and cultural shifts, as well as the further extension of niche marketing by Corporate America, have rendered popular musicians not nearly as popular as they were even twenty years ago. Lady GaGa, the Black Eyed Peas, and Katy Perry combined are not nearly as culturally significant as, say, Whitney Houston was in 1992. Individuals have an unprecedented ability to tailor their cultural interests and avoid genres of music, film, and television that do not interest them.
READ

Society

What’s Your Favorite Fruit Flavored Soda?

Diabetics beware. American Polymath’s panel of experts have spent the past month rotting the teeth out of their heads, revisiting all of their favorite fruit flavored sodas.
READ

Society

FROM THE CRANK FILE: The Pitfalls of On Demand Service

James R. van Houtte

Last night, the wife and I, having exhausted Netflix and animal sacrifice, turned on the idiot box. Not the television, mind you, that’s a source of great information as long as it’s printed on a Digital Versatile Disc. No, we turned on the cable box, the gateway to disappointment late on a Sunday night. After musing about watching Rocky V with commercials, the DVD not ten meters away, we decided to check out Comcast’s "On Demand" service. Since I’m the "Society" guy according to the lummoxes who paste this website together with string and the distended anuses of used hamsters, this will have a point, but it might take a while.
READ

Society

153-2

Barry Trutor

The day was grey. The departure from little Benson. "Just Over the Hill" the sign out by the main highway says. My mother was reserved. I don’t remember any visible tears on either side; I am sure they were there inside; she and I were both scared shitless. The drive in the IH pickup with my father garnered little conversation. Dad dropped me off at the Vermont Transit bus station in Rutland and with a handshake and a “Give it all you got, Pal”, I boarded the bus to Worcester, Massachusetts and the regional Coast Guard Induction Center.
READ

Fiction

Caterpillar

Mike Gormly

Unfortunate looked up from the wheel briefly and turned to Baron von Concentrate.

"Bare, are you sure this is the right street?"

"Yeah, but like I said, we have to stay on it for like, ten minutes before we get to the house. I think it eventually just turns into a driveway"

"If this guy wanted this much solitude why didn't he just live in the goddamned Northwest Territories?"

"Well you can ask him when we get there."

Baron took a long swig of his blue-flavored Powerade and gazed down at the city as the car crept higher up the mountain road. He listened carefully for the sound of the back road as the pavement switched in quality. He checked his reflection in the rear-view mirror. His olive eyes looked as calm as they could be, his oval face wasn’t more pale than usual, and no beads of sweat were forming on his brow. All he noticed was that he could use a shave. Turning to Unfortunate, he noticed that he also looked largely okay in his almost-healthy complexion. His brown eyes were set on the road and seemed ready and focused.
READ