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Mary Gaitskill’s punk realism
Enough time has passed since the ascendance of the “literary brat pack” that we might be able to reorient its parts more accurately. Because they came at the same time in the 1980s, wrote about the same kinds of people, shared the same publishers, and caroused in the same clubs, the media made a diversified […]
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A very short play about the future
Scene: Television studio for a public broadcasting talk show. A HOST, in a dark suit and a warm and earnest expression, sits at a circular table across from a large ROBOT wearing a bandana over its glassy top. HOST: Good evening, viewers. My guest tonight is the TITAN 9000, the latest operating model of a verbal processing AI unit made…
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A koan
When you survey the state of your life, spending Saturday night watching five movies straight and making consistent progress on a $13 12-pack, you think yourself a modern-day Caligula. Yes, Caligula would live this way if he were alive in 2021 AD and not 21 AD. Caligula would wear high-top Chuck Taylors holding onto dear…
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How punk rock is censorship?
No one in their own conscience believes themselves to be capable of censorship. Certainly not the censorship they imagine, handed down across the decades like civil libertarian lore. No one wants to reflexively suppress ideas they find repugnant. No one wants to ban pornography, violent video games, to obscure perfectly natural nudity, or edit out…
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Eyeball Vampires
Anyone can ignore distractions and provocations online. Fighting off eyeball vampires takes more skill.
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In Defense of Ugly Children
Pronatalists promise a dystopia where the strong prevail and the weak do customer service.
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The Strange and Unusual Society
A goth state is unthinkable in the same way that civil war and nuclear annihilation are unthinkable. But neither is it entirely out of the realm of possibility.
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Culture for Pigs
When hating clout and mediocrity betrays an obsession with clout and mediocrity.
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Passing Notes
What we lose when correspondence goes paperless.
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The Right to Disappear Completely
The recluse, whether as scapegoat or hero, is little understood.
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Up From Bimboism
Feminism under the iron law of vibe shifts and the mandatory fun of online irony.
Where tech aligns