Second
Thoughts
A home for personal meditations, critiques of art and literature, politics, sketches, and deconstructions that dive beneath the surface of thought. Experiment with form here, relate with current events, read and talk about a book you’ve never read or perhaps want to read, and criticize something, anything, everything.
The Mundanity of Apocalypse à la Centralia Pennsylvania
Last summer, I finally made the drive up from Philadelphia to Centralia. Reddit posts warn that little draw remains. Gone are the pits spewing white smoke that Bill Bryson described in A Walk in the Woods while commenting that Centralia is “the strangest, saddest town I believe I have ever seen.” The stretch of Route 61, cordoned off due to the fires and transformed by taggers into a shifting canvas affectionately named "Graffiti Highway,” was buried in 2020.