Born in the swollen belly of the American demographic python, I struggled to understand the dizzying upheavals of the politco-cultural landscape of my childhood and early teens. Escape to a thoroughly idiosyncratic and unrealistic anarchosyndicalist left-pragmatist communitarian pseudo-marxist bohemian ideology allowed me to fitfully and only incompletely resolve the absurd problematic of living a pointless alienated life in a meaningful yet ironically poignant manner with moments of joy and grace in between the mundane groveling for enough space to eke out survival. Warner Brothers cartoons, episodes of Judge Judy, and a steady respiration of Newports help maintain some balance. And so forth.

Paul Burneko adopted the pseudonym “Hemlock Andashes” in 2012 when the nature of his employment suggested that expressing his views under his own name would reduce his income to roughly none. Having become disabled and subsequently retired by a liberating health catastrophe in 2014 (yet, no regrets about those Newports…), he is no longer bound to an obscured identity but has developed an affection for the name. Oh, what fantastic journeys we perambulate when first we practice to prevaricate (yikes!).