Standing in an underground railway station built alongside a highway in the middle of summer slippy-hot that falls on you like a damp blanket your mother had been heating in the over on the lowest setting to lie over you when you were sick the cars themselves are no better the air conditioning roaring helplessly [...]
Not everybody lives in the monoculture, of course, but it takes a very specific effort to not fall into it. Since one of the qualities of culture is that it is ubiquitous, the monoculture cannot simply be removed; it has to be replaced with something else every bit as encompassing and central to the identities [...]
“This is a good vintage.” He scooped a handful of soil and let it run through his fingers. It fell in loose clumps, a dark brown shade, and landed back in the rough burlap bag on the floor. “It looks fantastic. That color is so rich, so deep.” He licked the few remaining moist flecks [...]
1. Half-price Easter chocolate tastes strangely of dusty bread and a hint of sour grapes. 2. and to tell the truth, I love you. and to tell the truth, when I say that I’m lying. 3. When you came on the television chopped off at the waist and speaking in tongues, I wanted to turn [...]
I wonder what history will call this part of our age, this crumbling disaster movie played over and over before us? Will there be a history as we know it? Or will I live on as nothing more than a background character in the epics that wandering bards will tell of the fall of mankind? [...]
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Posted 02 April 2010
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I prostrate my mind before you tonight after hours upon hours of television-watching with the dog, which has given me a headache that could kill the pope and still have enough left over to take down a couple of those fancy Swiss guards of his. And I do this for your amusement. At least try [...]
The speakeasy exists in American culture as a wonderful relic of the Prohibition era, when gathering together under the same roof as a bunch of other people in order to get sauced was completely illegal unless you all happened to be drinking wine and having little crackers to go with it. It’s a relic of [...]
Trent Reznor is a big, scary dude. Best known as the man behind Nine Inch Nails, as well as having tackled a major addiction to drugs and alcohol in the mid-’90s, he decided to set up, in late 2008, a twitter account. “Hanging on the bus,” he announced. He started using the short-message service seriously [...]
Los Campesinos! – Romance is Boring Wales hipsters trade in clever optimism for clever heartbreak. Los Campesinos! made their high-energy debut two years ago with a pair of albums about six months apart: Hold on Now, Youngster… and We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed. These immediately made them critical darlings of the indie press, showing [...]
“Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted” – Hassan i Sabbah, through the pen of William S. Burroughs. To begin, a story: Two 20-somethings walked up to the customer service desk at work a few days ago. They were both dressed all in black, the guy in what I’d call ‘casual gothic’, black jeans and a [...]
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Posted 23 January 2010
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