Sunday night before brushing his teeth, my kid said, “There’s a new kid at school.” He was looking at me in a way that suggested I should understand the significance of that. And I thought […]
Academia / Art / Culture / Literature / Politics
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Style and the Status Quo
Raymond Chandler said that “The most durable thing in writing is style.” He used the word durable because he was concerned with what makes writing last. But when you look at writing that has lasted, there’s no consistency of […]
Consumerism / Culture / Labor / Media / Technology
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The Big Disappointment or Why AI Is an Oxymoron
The lights and outlets in certain rooms would blink on and off. Being an old house in which the previous owner and a few before him had died, I assumed that the place was haunted. […]
Culture / Drugs / Labor
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The Neurodivergent House Painter
When my wife hired a guy to pressure wash the front of our house, she warned me that he was “probably on the spectrum.” She also said that he was a magician. I instantly thought […]
Academia / Class / Culture / Literature
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What Is Taste? A Study in a Boy of Ten
Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of taste (taste is a function of class) may be true when taste is determined by classist institutions like The New Yorker. But Bourdieu’s reduction of taste to keeper of the social pecking order falls […]
Class / Culture / Media
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Journey to the Center of the Manosphere
A good friend invited me to a local Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the interim UFC Lightweight Championship. He explained that it was going to be a big night. The contestants were Paddy Pimblett and […]
Culture / Literature / Media / Politics
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From Public Intellectual to Public Persona
When Jordan Peterson was at the peak of his popularity, I made the mistake of bringing up one of his ideas—”Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them”—at a family get-together. […]
Culture / Literature / Politics
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The Emperor Doesn’t Need Clothes—You Do
The Emperor has no clothes because the Emperor has no shame. Only his subjects must cover themselves. The Emperor, like God, “giveth and taketh away.” What he giveth and taketh away is your importance. The […]
Culture / Labor
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The Electromagnetically Odd Cashier: An Area Consumer Experience
It was New Year’s Eve. I had a 20%-off- wine coupon that was set to expire at midnight. I went to the grocery store that issued the coupon and pulled a case of wine—4 bottles […]
Culture / Drugs / Media / Technology
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Bored, Lonely and Safe
We’ve finally taken notice of how safe and boring things are. How our experience of the world has become predominantly digital and life strangely devoid of ground-breaking music, literature and art. How culture is cannibalizing […]