Speaking / Storytelling

The Colonel (The Colonel, the NRA, and the Aliens from Mars)

The strange true story behind one of the earliest published alien-encounter accounts in a U.S. newspaper: an 1896 New Jersey night, a Civil War veteran and early NRA member, a mysterious airship, and beings that shouldn’t have been there. Told alongside the real “airship craze” that swept the country that year and the psychology of two people talking each other into the impossible. A history/UFO-curious piece (~9 min) for a bill that likes its supernatural stories with a footnote.

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An 1867 Brooklyn dare, a haunted corner near an old Revolutionary War fort, and a friend who never explained what he saw.

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Cropsey

A campfire legend about a hook-handed maniac who hunted children on Staten Island — and the real, disturbing history that got tangled up in it.

A walk through how we got to SNL — and the irony that its once ground-breaking variety show format is the only one left standing.

Related essaysthe written companion

Notes on a Play – fred chong rutherford

I think this is the last time I’ll post an essay to Facebook. During a period of my life where I was convinced I wasn’t writing, it turned out I’d poured hundreds of thousands of words here and on reddit. All of it practice, all of it scales, all of it worth it. Getting feedback […]

Humans have existed roughly 300,000 years, and we’ve had language for approximately 135,000 years. And we generally say that writing as langauge started with cuneiform script in Mesopotamia in 3200 CBE, which means humans have had language for roughly 45% of our existence, and only 1.7% of our existence has included written language. And over […]

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