I never really understood the idea that nonfiction ought to be this dispensary of data that we have at the moment.

It’s almost impossible that an argument would naturally form the kind of arch that it does in ‘Lifespan’. So, the conversation is constructed.

Can we call the essay its own genre if it’s so promiscuously versatile? Can we call any genre a ‘genre’ if, when we read it from different angles and under different shades of light, the differences between it and something else start becoming indistinguishable?

I’m kind of fascinated by this idea that we can surround ourselves with information: we can just pile up data after data after data and arm ourselves with facts and yet still not be able to answer the questions that we have.

Yucca Mountain isn’t pretty. And it also isn’t large. From far away, the mountain‘s just a squat bulge in the middle of the desert, essentially just debris from a bigger, stronger mountain that erupted millions of years ago and hurled its broken pieces into piles across the earth.