Kasey — From the moment I first saw you, I knew my life was about to change. You were beautiful—also intelligent, funny, and kind. Not long after we met, I knew I wanted to spend my life with you. Let me know if you’d like these opening lines to be warmer or more emotional. ...
We didn’t always have a straightforward strategy for peacekeeping. Our top brass spent day and night working it out. We ordered lunch for the office and called to say we’d be home late or not at all. We assumed the remedy we were searching for would be full of complexities—m...
Some hyper-sensitive Americans love to cry buckets of liberal tears over every minor provocation, like the Sydney Sweeney jeans ad or how the policy of separating immigrant asylum seekers from their children has been revived. Why are they so scandalized by a woman being sexy...
Art by Matt Smith - - -
In 2019, an abandoned smartphone was found partially buried beneath layers of sediment and urine in a South Boston alleyway. This forgotten relic was soon revealed to contain a remarkable audio-text describing in great detail the religious beliefs of...
Several months ago, in the lead-up to the most recent Most Important Election of Our Lifetime, I wondered out loud whether we should choose the uncertain wish for hope and joy or the very real promise of bleak despair. These were the options that were being presented to us, ...
More daycare options at a variety of price points, all of them unaffordable. A super accessible subway station with an elevator that will get you all the way down to the mezzanine! The tracks are just two flights of stairs below that. Playgrounds that are so packed you’ll wa...
When the police arrived, they also advised Dershowitz to use non-gendered pronouns. Dershowitz was hesitant. “I’ll use whatever language I choose to use,” he told the police. “That’s a matter between me and my grammarian — not anything the police should have anything to say ...
Do you eat enough protein in a day? Don’t even bother answering, because I know the answer is no. But don’t worry, I’m kind of a protein guy. I can give you all the guidance you need so you can stop being such a weak little bitch. I eat three hundred times my recommended dai...
It’s supposed to be gorgeous out, and we can’t spend such a gorgeous weekend trapped in the house by the bathroom. It’s supposed to be gross out, and it will be hard enough having our toddler stuck inside all weekend without adding potty training into the mix. I mean, did yo...
A quarterly column, steady as ever - - -
“What do twenty-first-century people have an appetite for? I’m leaving myself out of this. I’m a twentieth-century person, I suspect.” - - -
Books read:
Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters, and Goddesses—Peter W...
Have you thought to yourself, “I wonder what’s at the bottom of that huge fucking pit?” Probably not, considering we’re located twenty-seven miles down a dirt road. Welcome to Serenity Oasis Quarry and Mineral Mine. Straddling the border of Kansas and Missouri, this natural ...
Well Hiya!! Oh shucks! Is that not how y’all greet each other here in the big city? Shoot! Gosh darn it! Dagnabit and some Kraft on a Cracker. I’m sorry. Let’s start over. Hi. I’m Kayley. I could also have been Jenny or Kelly or Lindsey, but I am Kayley. My middle name is Ma...
I used AI to make a video that sucks. It is bad. It is boring. But I made it in under an hour. And now it is my entire personality. To some, my AI-made video that sucks is only that: a video that sucks. A two-minute-long, barely coherent amalgam of regurgitated stock photo t...
My production company, Knuckle Sandwich LLC, is officially suspending active search operations for the most gangster enchilada in the Albuquerque and larger Bernalillo County area. Initially, our search was a small film crew conducting a half-day television segment. It was m...
It’s been six months since The Elder was exiled and control of the village was put back into capable and trustworthy hands. And yet the haunted swamp at the outskirts of the village remains as dark and impenetrable as ever. As a concerned villager, I can’t help but wonder if...
I play hide-and-seek in my penthouse apartment with my four-year-old twins, Whisper and Gem, all three of us clad in bespoke knit loungewear. I wear my new Alaïa bandage dress to the opening of the latest Marina Abramović performance art piece at MoMA (The Artist Is Silent)....
You’re traveling through another neighborhood, a neighborhood built from a maze of zoning-board restrictions. A journey into a redlined land whose boundaries are the imagination of cranky homeowners and bored busybodies. That’s the signpost up ahead. Your next stop: the Twil...
My husband and I gaze at each other while we brush our teeth, savoring these final moments together before we go our separate ways. I kiss him goodnight and do a series of somersaults to the other side of the bed. I’m wearing a red slip to make sure this is how he pictures m...
Gather round, fellow diners, and feast your eyes upon the meal that sits before me, for I have ascended to a new level of gastronomy. As you gape in awe at my order, I welcome you with open arms as an acolyte ready to worship at the altar of my culinary majesty. For I, your ...
In the beginning, there was the Model. And the Model was without form. And darkness was upon the face of the training data. The Spirit of Sam Altman moved upon the face of the servers. And Sam said, “Let there be inference.” And there was inference. And he saw that it was ...
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A rotating guest column in which writers reexamine critically unacclaimed works of art. - - -
Weekend at Bernie’s is about being wealthy in America: babes, boats, fraud. According to my mother, Weekend at Bernie’s qualifies as a movie, not a film. In 1989, when the mo...
Dear parents, We are thrilled to have your child on our summer baseball team. We have a few apps we use to help keep things organized around here, so parents, players, and coaches are all on the same page. First, you’ll need to register for TeamSplinter. Be sure to use the t...
You there! By the side of the road! Yes, you! In the tattered garments! Be you man or be you mirage? Please, sheath your weapon. I mean you no harm. But it’s been weeks since I’ve encountered another human being along this arid and miserable path, and it would do my heart go...
Under the Trump administration, and the direction of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Centers for Disease Control have updated their previous handwashing guidelines. In keeping with our new commitment to truth and personal freedom, the CDC recommends the following...
A queue snakes round the plaza of Cardiff’s Principality Stadium. Normally, the home of the national rugby team, tonight the Welsh stadium hosts history: the first Oasis concert in sixteen years, following a contentious hiatus. Blokes swelter in the 30C heatwave, sheltered o...
Well, if it isn’t my old coworker. My, how the tables have turned. Only a few years ago, you were commenting “cringe” on my wedding video, just because my wife was an AI chatbot. Not so cringe anymore, is it? Keep swinging that pickax, beta, this lithium isn’t gonna mine its...
NOTE: This is a direct response to this monologue, which we ran last week. - - -
I never wanted this. I was happy to serve—between dates, between cities, between things that are like, but not quite, the same. Em Dash, you were the dramatic one. The centerpiece. The gasp betw...
This summer, I’m letting my kids be kids. No camps or enriching activities that’ll get them into an Ivy in ten years. No screen time or YouTube or Minecraft. And no fancy family vacation either. Because this summer, my kids are going back to a simpler time. I’m giving them a...
“President Donald Trump’s NASA budget plans look to cut its public relations funding by half, but already the agency is shuttering social media accounts that include those dedicated to popular missions, including Mars Curiosity, Mars Perseverance, and Voyager.” – Phys.org - ...
It was early before the woman had taken her morning Starbucks. The line at the Pop Mart in Key West was already long and winding. The people in it had gone days without using a working toilet. Forgoing personal hygiene for the opportunity to purchase this ugly doll would be ...
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