It can feel kind of slapstick, until you remember that they will destroy someone’s life today, and that they can kill you.
"ICE vs. Everyone", Erin West for n+1
I read this essay on Monday; on Saturday, ICE murdered Alex Pretti in broad daylight on the street in Minneapolis.
Gaza presents a profound challenge: How can one envision creation in a context where the future is systematically undermined and every act of rebuilding carries the risk of destruction?
"Space, Time, and the Re-making of Gaza", Khaldun Bshara for e-flux Architecture
Submitted by Andrea.
New Yorkers are supposedly tough—yet hundreds of them will try to "reserve" on-street parking spaces outside their homes with stupid orange cones, get a ticket from DSNY for obstructing the roadway, then cry about it to the New York Post.
"One More Campaign Snafu for the Road", Hell Gate
Submitted by Natalie.
I, potato, am a web of feeling, pulsing outward, contracting.
"Interviews with Certain Vegetables", Anelise Chen for The Baffler
Runner-up sentences:
Sometimes the vegetables said things I did not agree with, but it was not my job to censor them.
What I'm saying is that we are all part of the monument to petroleum these days.
The Islamic Golden Age was the best time to rootlessly roam Asia in search of spiritual wisdom until the invention of the Volkswagen camper van.
"Good and Evil in Iran", Sam Kriss in his newsletter Numb at the Lodge
Submitted by Steen.
During the crisis years, in the second half of the twenty-tens, when poverty, violent crime, and civil unrest reached a fever pitch, my grandparents had purchased an armored Toyota Camry, the only bulletproof vehicle they could afford.
"The Lights Are Still On in Venezuela", Armando Ledezma for The New Yorker
Submitted by Chris.
Granger was chewing and spitting out images pinned to the wall; this artwork was made by Masters of Fine Arts student Nick Dwyer in collaboration with artificial intelligence.
"Student arrested for eating AI art in UAF gallery protest", Lizzy Hahn for The Sun Star
Extraordinary deployment of a semicolon.
We now live in an era of what I can only call synthetic virtue—the marketing of environmental conscience without the inconvenience of change.
Peter Ackroyd as quoted in The Idler
Submitted by Dan.
There is no suggestion that Veronika’s skills are evidence of the evolution of an ominous new species of super-cow.
"Back-scratching bovine leads scientists to reassess intelligence of cows", Ian Sample for The Guardian
Via John Darnielle on Bluesky.
Entire data centers are devoted to the debate about how much protein the everyday (mostly male, very online) American needs.
"I found the most complete protein. It’s not meat.", Michael J. Coren for The Washington Post
Submitted by Andrea.
But something stopped me, perhaps that sense we Chileans possess to an uncommon degree, the sharpest of all our senses, the sense of the ridiculous.
By Night in Chile, Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews
Additional bangers:
The country was populated by hieratic figures, heading implacably towards an unfamiliar, gray horizon, where one could barely glimpse a few rays of light, flashes of lighting and clouds of smoke.
And then the storm of shit begins.
In 1579, Drake missed the Golden Gate in the fog; in 2026, Sloan missed the Fresno Best Buy.
"Fogbound", Robin Sloan in his newsletter
Submitted by doug.
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