People who compulsively play video games sometimes get strange little twitches and glitches in their reality. Out of the game, back in real life, they are seized by brief snatches of hallucinatory game crosstalk. For example, people who spend hours playing Tetris might see bathroom tiles trembling, or bookshelves lurching rhythmically downward in steady chunks. […]
Miscellaneous
I recently picked up a copy of John Koenig’s beautiful little book, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and was pleasantly reminded of how satisfying it is to find a word for that thing that you’re feeling. Koenig’s book features dictionary entries of words he’s created to name human emotions, punctuated with short, thoughtful essays about […]
Four poems in the style of William Carlos Williams’ “This Is Just To Say” (written to my two-year-old, from whom I am always begging forgiveness for some imagined insult). This is just to say I have thrown the banana you left on the footstool and from which you had only taken one small bite Forgive […]
The fire started on the west side of Protection Island, on a spit called Kanem Point. A witness later reported seeing a boat near the shore shooting off flares, one of which landed in the driftwood on the beach. Smoke soon billowed up. It was early August so all the grass that covers the island […]
Like just about everyone else on this planet, I’ve been having a hard time lately. The world’s on fire, and denial and cruelty seem to be the law of the land. I’m tired and angry and heartbroken. It’s been more and more challenging to imagine a future or find pockets of joy, but I know […]
This is from 2020, but who cares? The pandemic is probably still happening [Ed.: def still happening] [Ed.: how can this be] [Ed.: pls explain] so we need this perspective again. Plus, cute animal pictures. You’re welcome. When I look in the mirror, though everything is mildly blurry, I can’t not see the signs of […]
1. Why should I choose an Exo™? Think about the costs imposed by your fragile organic body. Just one single aspect of its care and upkeep – sleep – steals 8 in every 24 hours of your precious life. And that’s just time – what about the money you have to spend on a bed, […]
In North America, the oldest images put onto rock date back to almost 13,000 BC, deep in the Ice Age. Those types are rare. Most of what you see — phantom-body figures, snakes, lightning bolts, shields, hunting scenes — come from the last handful of millennia, animistic hunter-gatherers and corn-bearing agrarians, the rise of Native […]