fiction and creative non-fiction from Brennan Quenneville
In his short story “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” Jorge Luis Borges—that miraculous, mind-fucking Argentinian—proposes an unusual premise. The titular Menard is shown to be obsessed with unusual literary feats and, as such, he decides to take it upon himself to rewrite Cervantes' classic, Don Quixote. He's not planning to translate the book or [...]
Three years ago The Decemberists released What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, the band's seventh full-length album which, like most releases from Portland's premier prog-folk outfit, is clever and catchy and thoughtful. Stylistically, What a Terrible World hews closely to The Decemberists' well-established folksy style but the album is no worse for being [...]
Ursula K. Le Guin, my hero, died on a Monday. On the Wednesday that preceded her passing, only five days before her death, I sent her the only piece of fan mail I've ever written. In it, I struggled to contain and express the boundless praise and thanks due to a woman who, despite our [...]
A little after 4pm on Sunday the Cleveland Browns lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers, plunging them to the NFL's second-ever 0-16 finish. The loss would have been soul crushing if only there had been any souls left to crush in Cleveland. Bad as the Browns season finale was, though, it wasn't the worst of the [...]
Okay, so that title is misleading. These aren't necessarily the best albums of 2017 - who am I to judge? - but they're certainly the new releases that I enjoyed most this year. (Presented alphabetically by artist.) I'm Only Dreaming by Eisley By the end of the album's very first song, it's clear that I'm [...]
On October 30th the San Francisco 49ers sent a 2nd round draft pick to the New England Patriots for Tom Brady's understudy, Jimmy Garoppolo. As San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan opted to take things slow with his potential franchise quarterback, Garappolo didn't start a game until December 3rd but since then, well, let's just [...]
In a feature literally named after the NFL's penchant for constant, unyielding incompetence, you might've guessed that today we'd be honoring (well maybe not honoring, exactly) the League itself again. And yet, even as both the Raiders and Steelers lost their games due to controversial-but-true-to-the-rulebook verdicts from their referees, there's only one place truly deserving [...]
(SPOILER ALERT. This post, written after only one viewing of The Last Jedi, is absolutely spoilerific. I'm going to ruin the movie for you if you haven't already seen it, is I guess what I'm saying. Continue at your own discretion.) As The Force Awakens drew to a close, Rey stood atop the scenic island [...]
When a yellow flag landed it was immediately clear what the call was going to be. It was also immediately clear that it was going to be the wrong call. https://twitter.com/thelionswire/status/939927384605777920 Detroit Lions defensive back Quandre Diggs had just leveled Tampa Bay's O.J. Howard, causing a fumble that was recovered by Detroit's Glover Quin. As [...]
Every Monday I play beer league hockey with a bunch of physically underwhelming and tactically inept schlubs like myself. In our darker moments, when our utter lack of coaching and ability rears its ugly, toothless head our defensive schemes devolve into little more than puck-chasing. As defensive strategies go, this one tends to be disastrous. [...]
Songs & Stories 