David Boles

Figure Eights The internet has decided that modern humans are developing zoochosis, the madness of caged animals. The claim is older than TikTok, and the truth underneath it is more uncomfortable than either the believers or the scoffers want it to be. ... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/19/figure-eights/

The Subtraction Economy How they take more, give you less, and train you not to notice. Pour two fingers of the vodka you trusted ten years ago and you taste grain, cold, and a clean burn that meant something had been distilled with care.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/18/the-subtraction-economy/

From the Barn to the Litter-Robot: Seven Things Nobody Tells You About Cats Anymore When I was a boy in Lincoln, the contract with a cat was short enough to fit on a matchbook.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/17/from-the-barn-to-the-litter-robot-seven-things-nobody-tells-you-about-cats-anymore/

The Ball of Violence: Joe Kenda and the Killer Inside All of Us Joe Kenda says extreme violence lives in everyone's DNA, waiting for emotion to overrule judgment. My friend is a great detective and a shaky geneticist, and the difference matters. ... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/16/the-ball-of-violence-joe-kenda-and-the-killer-inside-all-of-us/

The Unstealable Education: Why the University Will Bury Its Undertakers The undertakers are circulating again, and this time they have given the university five years to live.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/15/the-unstealable-education-why-the-university-will-bury-its-undertakers/

Begging for My Mother: Find A Grave and the Strangers Who Collect Our Dead This morning I signed into Find A Grave to update my mother's memorial and discovered that I no longer manage her page.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/14/begging-for-my-mother-find-a-grave-and-the-strangers-who-collect-our-dead/

The Voice Goes Off: Writing My Half of Back to Willowbrook On the first day of my classes at New York University, the voice goes off. I stand at the front of the room and I do not speak, and no one else will speak for the rest of the semester, because the language my students have come to learn does not live in the throat.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/13/the-voice-goes-off-writing-my-half-of-back-to-willowbrook/

Voting for the Cage: How Fundamentalism Married Politics, Made Dissent a Sin, and Persuaded Citizens to Surrender Their Own Freedom Democracy does not always die with soldiers at the doors of parliament. Sometimes it reports for duty on election day.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/12/voting-for-the-cage-how-fundamentalism-married-politics-made-dissent-a-sin-and-persuaded-citizens-to-surrender-their-own-freedom/

The Necessary Art: Taking the Title Back Today I am publishing a book about a theft at the center of Western culture, one its victims were trained to take as a compliment:... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/11/the-necessary-art-taking-the-title-back/

In Chicago, the Deaf Will Sing Don Giovanni Since we opened ASL-Opera.com in September 2023, one question has arrived more often than any other: how rare is it, exactly, for an opera company to present a foreign-language title in American Sign Language?... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/10/in-chicago-the-deaf-will-sing-don-giovanni/

The Séance Court: Original Intent and the Fraud of Speaking for the Dead Nine lawyers in black robes sit in a marble temple in Washington and commune with the dead.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/09/the-seance-court-original-intent-and-the-fraud-of-speaking-for-the-dead/

Hope Has No Shovel: Why We Fling Our Wishes at the Sky Watch what the body does with a wish. The child inhales before the candles, holds the secret behind her teeth, then gives it to the room with one hard breath.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/08/hope-has-no-shovel-why-we-fling-our-wishes-at-the-sky/

Two Words, Three Sources, Four Generations: How I Built The Wergild A novel can be assembled inside the space between two words, provided the words are old enough and the space between them has never closed.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/07/two-words-three-sources-four-generations-how-i-built-the-wergild/

Enthymemes: The Argument You Finish Yourself "Because you're worth it." Four words, running in L'Oréal advertising since 1971, and by the time you reached the period you had already done the heavy lifting.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/06/enthymemes-the-argument-you-finish-yourself/

The Late Edit: How Belief Turns Revision Into Revelation We have become a provenance culture, and I count myself an enforcer of it. Galleries now label machine-made images.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/05/the-late-edit-how-belief-turns-revision-into-revelation/

Two Hundred Fifty Years of What, and What For? A drummer boy surfaced in my pocket change this week, on a quarter so worn his tricorn hat has gone soft at the edges.... https://bolesblogs.com/2026/07/04/two-hundred-fifty-years-of-what-and-what-for/