At the heart of THE CONTORTED REGARD are two streams of thought, 1) that the flimsiest of pretenses frame a series of relationships that simultaneously coalesce and then collapse, and 2) that the notion of the “rant” may be used as a method of explicating the prevalence of existential threats. Although, to be fair, the rant is in most cases too self-serving, too contemptuous, too infantile to constitute anything more than what John Limon has called a “phallic excrementality.” Which is to say that the rant is in essence a form of purging of that, which is unwanted, that which we are haunted by - the rant is arrogance and mediocrity combined with pride, shame, and fear. The rant (arguably) is the last weapon against a cannibalizing outer world.