Tag: Margaret Moore

Chi Alpha Iota (XAI) diaternity’s annual drag show returned this fall in a night filled with dazzling costumes, charitable donations and energizing performances. Featured performers from the gender-inclusive Greek organization spoke with The Mercury about their experience planning and putting on an in-person show in these chaotic times, as well as what drag – an…

Interviewing Vietnam veterans was certainly one of my more formative high school experiences. I remember long nights in garages among folding chairs and spent beer cans, asking for permission to record and getting several expletives along the lines of “sure, why not” in answer. The context of these conversations gives a bit of background for…

Thanks, UTD PD! First of all, for jumping my car battery so I could get home for Thanksgiving. Second, for the officer who explained his deep and abiding hatred of Russia and everything it stood for when I answered his, “Hey, what are you reading?” conversation starter. He had particularly strong words for Vladimir Putin…

Remember your middle school edgelord phase? Imagine that, but in the context of rising political tensions and domestic terrorism in late 1970s Italy, and you’ve got the recipe for a fascinating novel. Recipes can only go so far, however, and the taste in my mouth after reading “Time on My Hands” leaves a lot to…

David Starr Jordan discovered a fifth of the creatures we call “fish.” A full fifth. That’s thousands of specimens, years of painstaking work, all to better categorize the disorganized world we live in. Author Lulu Miller was, understandably, intrigued by one man’s determination to sort out nature’s chaos, and it’s that intrigue that makes this…

“It is known where we come from, but no one much cares about things like that anymore.” Thus begins celebrated author Chang-Rae Lee’s dive into a dystopian future that honestly comes a little too close for comfort. Calling it dystopian prepares you for Hunger Games-level spectacle, Orwellian repression or Gilead-like depravity. However, Lee’s vision of…