We sold ten-dollar juice to people who say, “fuck the rules” while, simultaneously, making the rules.
Portraits, Ghosts, and Winters
Though there are days when I can see snow on the peaks of the San Gabriel mountains, the only other way I know how to have a feeling of winter is to see an image of it in a painting or movie, or to read it, and sometimes to write it. I admit that I write and read partly for escape, or maybe to travel is a better way to say it.
We are caught in a loop, and the museum, tasked with preserving history, is instead watching while history leaks and circles around maddeningly.
After Before: El Libro de Carmen Boullosa
As I’ve gotten to know Carmen Boullosa’s work, her invisibility has become harder to take.
The Romance Isn’t Dead (Or, Playing the Shakespearean Video Game)
Time provides a second chance; it lets us play again.
Blood you can wash off. But not whiteness. It’s underneath the blood.
When we try to flip through any one of the volumes lining the desert island’s shore, we find that its pages have been bleached by sun and surf.
Think of how it must feel to lose everything you’ve ever worked for to the showy unpredictability of a nature growing over the millennia. No one is ever safe.
What Machines Know: Surveillance Anxiety and Digitizing the World
Mass surveillance and predictive policing are all the rage. And in the act of performing identity online, ordinary people help make the world more machine-readable. Why do we play along?
Is the bossless office egalitarian, or does it simply camouflage inequalities and portend the further erosion of organized labor?