"Another function of these civilizational trances is the inoculation of the masses from outsider disturbances. This is achieved by hardening the audience to them, administering small doses of carefully excised and polished versions of their rabid and incomprehensible accents, smooth postcard images of toxic wastelands, little commercial apocalypses for atrophied imaginations." —Cergat Boş & Elytron … Continue reading Anonymous Sessions on 3:AM Magazine
Category: interviews
The Truth About Devo, America’s Most Misunderstood Band
"'So how do you change things? Subversion: that’s how. Who does it best? Madison Avenue; they get people to buy things that are bad for them every day...That’s what we wanted to do, use subversion to sell people things that they don’t know they want.' ...But to dismiss Devo as nostalgia compilation fodder is to … Continue reading The Truth About Devo, America’s Most Misunderstood Band
Steven Seagal’s Tears
"I once heard a story about Steven Seagal—this is another reason that I love this motherfucker—I heard a story from somebody about Steven Seagal, that a producer came into his—I think this story’s out now, but I heard it years before it came out—that he called his producer into his home, and he said, 'Come … Continue reading Steven Seagal’s Tears
Really Reading Means Being Open to Change
To really read any discursive text, whether a philosophical tract or a legal contract, is a disturbing and cognitively disorienting experience, because it means allowing another person’s thoughts to intrude into your own and rearrange your beliefs and assumptions — often not in ways to which you would consent if warned in advance. Even when … Continue reading Really Reading Means Being Open to Change
When Toast Was “The Tip of the Hipster Spear”
"For whatever reason, I felt compelled to go looking for the origins of the fancy toast trend. How does such a thing get started? What determines how far it goes? I wanted to know." —John Gravois "A Toast Story." Pacific Standard. January 13, 2014. I remember going to a bar once, and everyone was wearing … Continue reading When Toast Was “The Tip of the Hipster Spear”
Belief vs. Doubt
"Franzen thinks that there’s no way for a writer to do good work — to write something that can be called “consuming and extraordinarily moving” — without putting a fence around yourself so that you can control the input you encounter. So that you could have a thought that isn’t subject to pushback all the … Continue reading Belief vs. Doubt
The Pendulum Will Swing
"If you believe in something, you have to be willing to stand for something or you don’t really believe in it at all. There’s always going to be consequences for opposing people in power and there’s no doubt that I have faced retaliation, as has every public interest whistleblower coming out of the intelligence community … Continue reading The Pendulum Will Swing
Free Speech: A Magic Shield That Lets You Be An Asshole?
"The strategy of a lot of the people on the far right is to get us to attack our own institutions and not think that they’re valuable anymore. By waving free speech around as if it was a magic shield that lets you be an asshole, they’ve convinced a significant percentage of the rest of … Continue reading Free Speech: A Magic Shield That Lets You Be An Asshole?
How to Be a Stoic | RadioWest
"No matter where you live or what culture you live in, the question of how to lead a good life is central. And there is no shortage of answers, from fundamentalist religion to nihilism. For his part, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci has become a Stoic. Stoicism, he says, isn’t about suppressing or hiding emotions. It’s about … Continue reading How to Be a Stoic | RadioWest
The New 8-bit Heroes
"While visiting his parents’ home in Central New York, Joe Granato discovered a box of forgotten illustrations, designed by he and other eight-year-old neighborhood friends—concepts for a video game for the original 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. He decided it might be fun to try to realize those ambitions. But instead of creating it for a … Continue reading The New 8-bit Heroes
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