“I Would Prefer Not To”: Adventures with Bartleby in Office Space

(Contains Spoilers for 1999’s Office Space)

Traditional office jobs have never really been my pace. My first place of employment straight out of Trinity University was a local law firm, a partnership between two attorneys that has since dissolved.

Long after my time as a legal clerk had passed, one of said partners defended the disgraced San Antonio Police Officer who fed a literal shit sandwich to a homeless woman—just to give you an example of the characters that sauntered through our doors each day.

“Never Bet the Devil Your Subhead”: Why Write about Horror?

(Contains Spoilers for 2008’s Martyrs)

Three years ago, I planned to meet my friend for a quick happy hour drink at Faust, our favorite watering hole on the St. Mary’s Strip in the Midtown District.

The bar’s namesake is a Goethe novel about a doctor who infamously sells his soul to the Devil, which tells you plenty about the locale’s dark and spooky atmosphere—but, I would add that we also have a handful of nicknames for Faust, including “The Trinity Vampire Lounge” and “The Coziest Little Hellhole in Texas,” which may or may not tell you more.

“Any Better Society”: The Blithedale Co-Op

“What, in the name of common-sense, had I to do with any better society than I had always lived in?”

—Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance

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Every now and then—that is, much too often—I momentarily escape the shitty baseline of my personal status quo by imagining my life as a completely different person somewhere in Austin, Texas.