Spencer Dew

A few weeks ago the stars were realigned. The Archimedes’ Lever of this cosmic shift was, of all places, in Minnesota, where a newspaper published an article quoting an astronomer on an issue involving the accumulated result of long, slow gravitational pull. These comments went viral online at something close to the speed of light, leading to reevaluation of the Zodiac, panic among horoscope followers, assorted tweets defending or regretting tattoo selections, and some attempts at explanation from astrologists as to their systems of making sense of human existence through claims about the pull of the stars.

There’s a scene in Martin Preib’s recent and remarkable collection of essays where he describes pulling over to the side of the road to scribble down a note, deep in conversation about the work of Walt Whitman, about what that work accomplished and how. “My terms are useless:…

While Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell didn’t say anything about Wicca, per se, when she talked about “dabbling into witchcraft,” her more recent “kill the witch” comments will surely distance her further from pagan communities used to dealing (especially around Halloween) with this confusion between the swirling cultural tropes of “the witch” and those who embrace “witch” as a religious self-description.