_“ less than a week after voters loudly repudiated Trump, how are Senate Democrats—including minority leader Chuck Schumer—responding? By negotiating a shutdown deal with Republicans that will give Trump almost everything he wants, entrench the GOP’s austerity budget, and deepen the affordability crisis.” —_ The Nation - - - Well, everyone, it was a valiant and brave endeavor. We refused to capitulate during the Dread Lord Nyarlathotep’s nationwide psychic siege for over forty days. Sure, we already conceded on almost everything to keep the Necro-Regime open for another season of blight, including the subclause ensuring we keep delivering innocent souls unto the Wraith Brigade’s Trauma Division. But we knew where to put our foot down, and held strong in our demand: Death cultists, refill those fountain pens of yours with goat’s blood and add a protection incantation against the Affordable Care Act’s “Pound of Flesh” Premium. For weeks, we made it clear that enough is enough. And I think I can speak for all of us in saying that the response from our constituents was nothing short of remarkable. All across this national hellscape, millions of despondent, demoralized, and maimed voters started poking their heads out from their hovels with looks of—dare I say it?—hope. They began murmuring to one another… “Did the Black Pharaoh-in-Chief actually forget to remove the spines from the backs of all their elected officials?” What’s more, they learned that a few competent daemon hunters were still among us—arcane conjurers ready and willing to fight back against the Crawling Chaos. Most of us distrust this young and exuberant lot, but even I have to admit the Archmage Mamdani has a great smile. And if all that weren’t enough, even some of Nyarlathotep’s cultists appeared to stir from their eternal, shambling slumbers. Could it be that they started to suspect the record-breaking psychic siege was entirely of their Dread Lord’s conjuring? That their (clearly disintegrating) Elder God cared nothing about them except for their value as sacrificial pawns in his infernal chess game? It was a heady few days, that’s for sure. But we now face a critical crossroads: Do we allow the rising tide of animus to continue to swell against the jackboots of these rancid, grotesque husks of humans? Or do we think the death cultists learned their lesson? I think I can speak for all of us in saying that this psychic siege has gone on long enough. It is time to break maggot-infested bread with our frothing sadists across the aisle and come to an old-fashioned, bipartisan agreement. The fires inside Charnal House must be lit once more. I’ve gone ahead and notified Nyarlathotep’s hierophants that we’ll give them everything they asked for, and will also throw in a few sacrificial firstborn children for the inconvenience. In exchange, they informed me that they promise to hold a vote on that Pound of Flesh Premium after we pass another couple of Blood Moon cycles. This is a difficult era in our nation’s history, and it may even be our last. But right now it’s about the little victories. Yes, millions of innocent people may soon lose chunks of themselves to satiate Health Haint RFK Jr. But don’t you see? Everyone is talking about how awful everything is now. And that’s something they weren’t doing before we supplicated ourselves before Nyarlathotep’s writhing tentacles. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to proofread our next fundraising email. These voluntary supplications don’t pay for themselves.

This letter is to inform you (the author) that your intellectual property (middle school diary) has officially entered the public domain due to your failure to secure a copyright for these works. What does this mean for you? Essentially, the materials you authored from sixth through eighth grade are now free and available to the populace (everyone) for adaptation, publication, and general enjoyment. We understand that this notice may elicit certain feelings (confusion, embarrassment, anger), but the copyright services have been available to you at all times. Our records indicate that you took a field trip to Washington, DC, in 2008, which would have been an ideal opportunity to stop by our headquarters and secure the necessary rights. You may be wondering how these materials came into our possession in the first place. You will recall that during your last visit home, your mother (Sheila) told you she was cleaning out the attic and asked if there was anything you wanted to take. You failed to answer in the affirmative, so the materials were disposed of (dumped into a bin at the local Goodwill), where a copyright field agent is stationed at all times to sort through donations for any sensitive works. Why are we here at the Copyright Office bothering with seemingly trivial materials like your diary at all? Well, like many of our fellow federal agencies, we have grown concerned with the current (massive) (sweeping) (devastating) government layoffs. So, in an effort to appear more useful and occupied than we typically are, we have expanded our jurisdiction to what we are calling “non-creative civilian works”—i.e., shopping lists, Sticky Note reminders, children’s letters to Santa, and, in your case, diaries. You will be pleased to hear that your work joins the ranks of other celebrated materials to enter the public domain, including _Ulysses_ , _Mrs. Dalloway_ , and _The Great Gatsby_. While it may be a tad premature to classify your diary as a “literary classic,” we believe it to be a polarizing work. We should clarify: In most instances, the materials that come across our desks are swiftly processed and passed along. But in the case of your diary… well…. we just couldn’t put it down. “New Fall obsession” is the phrase most commonly heard around the water cooler when describing your work. Heartbreak, angst, public humiliation—your diary truly has it all. We even have a weekly book club meeting to pore over the countless juicy details within. I especially love the imagery you use to describe seventh-grade crush Tommy Buchannon’s frosted tips. You might also be pleased (devastated) to know that several Hollywood studios are interested in adapting your diary for the big screen. In fact, we were able to procure one of the screenplays Sony Pictures commissioned. It makes the bold choice of opening during Trisha McMillan’s sleepover when you called your mom to pick you up after accidentally peeing yourself during that pillow fight. Unfortunately, you will not be entitled to any compensation or residuals. But having your sordid story come to life for all to see should be rewarding enough. We have included an advance copy of the hardcover edition of your diary, which Simon & Schuster will be releasing this winter. We think the photo of the time you laughed so hard in the school cafeteria that milk came out of your nose makes for a perfect cover. And Margaret Atwood’s blurb—“A devastating portrait of American adolescence”—will certainly move some books. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact our offices via phone (disconnected) or email (unmonitored). —The US Copyright Office

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Other than lawsuits, losing track of a child is every school district’s worst nightmare. We haven’t lost anyone yet, but an EdTech company has painted a compelling picture of this as a possible future problem that can be pre-solved with EdTech. Therefore, we’re pleased to introduce some cutting-edge yet profoundly user-unfriendly technology. You’ve already been given an app for reluctantly volunteering to run the book fair, an app for viewing your kid’s hastily prepared report cards, and an app for lodging complaints about our apps. Effective immediately, we’ll also be tracking your child’s whereabouts on three additional apps. First, if your child is going to be absent, log into your PITA, which does not stand for “Pain in the Ass” but for “Parents Informing Technology of Absences.” If you forget your login, call our wonderful school secretary, Marjorie. No, you can’t just call the office to tell Marjorie your kid is sick; you’ll need to call the office to retrieve your PITA login information, then log in to PITA to tell PITA your kid is sick. Second, if your kid needs to leave school early for a doctor’s appointment or orthodontic torture session, log into your Dismal. (Dismal is an abbreviation of “Dismissal.”) You will also inform us of your child’s early dismissal when you arrive at the school to pick them up, at which point Marjorie will confirm that the dismissal has been logged in Dismal. If you forgot to log the dismissal in Dismal, everything will be the same, except that Marjorie will log it for you. Unless she forgets. Third, if your child will be staying after school for an activity, log it in your Ass (“After-School Stuff”). Of course, you already completed the permission form in Piss (a shortening of “Permission”) and paid the activity fee in the _other_ Piss app (“Paying Incessant Sums”—and yes, we know from the app complaint app that you’re confused by the two separate Piss apps). So when you go to log the activity in your Ass, we already know which activities your child is doing. You know, your child knows, the principal knows, the school secretary knows. Still, we need you to log in and tell a piece of Ass software what we all already know. Since many after-school activities recur daily or weekly, we initially worried that parents would resent the repetitive task of re-inserting everything into their Ass every week, but the Ass app company assured us that once they get used to it, people love putting things in their Ass. Yes, it’s true that one warm and competent woman used to do the work of all these apps with nothing more than a pen and a little notebook. But don’t worry, Marjorie is still our school secretary. Plus, more great news: We hired a few new part-time assistant secretaries to help Marjorie manage all the apps. Is this time-effective? Of course not. We’re dispersing the labor previously done by one person across five paid employees and hundreds of parents and guardians. But is it cost-effective? Also, no, we’ll be paying for the apps, the part-timers, and Marjorie, who used to perform many interesting and varied tasks but now mostly just clicks things in apps, and she is no longer warm and feels incompetent. So, will these PITA, Dismal, and Ass apps prevent your child from going missing? Absolutely they will, as long as all parents and guardians in the entire district, along with Marjorie, and Gill and Jen and Martin and Amy (the new admins), use all three apps consistently and no parent ever forgets to log their child’s whereabouts and the apps themselves don’t ever glitch or scramble information or lose service and no child ever does anything unpredictable. And if, somehow, one of those ironclad links in the chain breaks and a child goes missing, don’t worry, the outcome will be the same as ever: We will find them in the bathroom texting on their phones. But this way, if we are ever sued, we can now mount the flawless defense “But we have all these apps!” Or to explain it more succinctly: If a new technology exists, how could we _not_ implement the most cumbersome version of it?

_One Bidoon father’s all-consuming and occasionally illegal efforts to assemble the perfect personal library._ - - - When it came to books, my father had absolutely no shame. On his first day at the ten-day Kuwait International Book Fair, he’d pile stacks of books at a publisher’s booth and ask him to keep the books under the table because he feared they’d sell out before his salary hit his bank account. The publishers happily agreed, as they knew he was a serious buyer. But sometimes they fell too easily into his trap. When one of them went to use the bathroom and left his booth unattended, the monster would go into the booth and swiftly grab the bags of books from under the table, before proceeding on his daily tour. When I anxiously protested this scheme, he rehearsed the various scenarios with me: “If someone stops me, I say that it’s my bag, and I left it there because it’s heavy. If the seller himself catches me, I play nice and demand to know where he was: I was trying to find him to pay him his money.” With the kidnapped books in hand, my father would make runs to the parking lot to place them in the car trunk, before returning to search for new victims. The book purchases, too, weren’t always innocent. Sometimes they acted as covers for hidden thefts. “I’d say I gave them a good deal: paid for five books, and took two extra,” he’d explain to me, a “fair repricing method.” He’d remind me that we did not “steal”; we simply “took” books that we loved, and would read. Sometimes he’d take my cousin Youssef with him, or one of my siblings. I didn’t mind covering for my father; everyone found me adorable, especially when I discussed books with them. Dad would gesture to me to distract the booksellers as he dropped the jewels into his bag. He’d then join in the conversation, waving a book: “Ustaz, how much for this one? What? Three dinars is a lot. Where is my discount?” He’d heckle them, joke with them, engage them in twenty-minute-long conversations. My theft skills were mostly limited to distracting sellers, though sometimes we reversed roles, if we had already negotiated what books we needed from a given publisher. But at no point was I to become as good a thief as my father, or as my cousin Youssef, who has since made a life out of bookselling. One time, my father and cousin declared that they’d be stealing a ten-volume encyclopedia: Jawad Ali’s _Tārīkh al-‘Arab qabla al-Islām_ (History of the Arabs before Islam). I stood in my place, terrified, too speechless to talk them out of it, too short for their sight line, lost in between them. They discussed the steps quickly, filled with excitement. I protested their plan, saying I couldn’t come along, and they agreed that I should stay behind. My body couldn’t move an inch, but my head was turning left and right, scanning the surrounding area, as if I’d have dared to warn them if someone appeared. My cousin grabbed seven volumes in one fat hug and walked toward the door, aiming for the parking lot, while my father slipped the remaining volumes into his bag. They walked to the end of the aisle as my father chanted gibberish words after my cousin, in hysterical thrill and laughter, then continued on his tour of the fair. My father’s bookish interests would come to define much of my childhood and adolescence. As a young person, I took his intensity to be that of a passionate reader and collector, but as an adult, I began to connect it to his past. Spurred by my own experience of loss and separation after moving to the US, I started to unpack the many stories he told of his books, those dead and alive. - - - #### 1. The local bookstores were a different story. They were a red line for his thefts for reasons he didn’t disclose. It could have been because he was a favorite customer. They took care of him, admired him, always tried to get him the books he needed. They appreciated his thorough scanning of their shelves, how he emerged from the dust with decades-old books that had been recklessly shoved to the back to make space for new ones. Almost every Friday, we’d get up early, while my siblings were still asleep. My mother made breakfast, and the three of us would enjoy some rare moments of quiet, eating eggs, scrambled with tomatoes and onions, with sides of feta cheese, olives, and pita bread. If one of the little devils got up early, we’d send him to get fresh bread, or chapati. When we finished our breakfast, leaving my mother to clean up after us, my father and I would get into his 1987 gray Chevrolet Caprice, which my siblings and I had named the Titanic, a car always on the verge of breaking down. On these trips, I’d sometimes have a list of titles written down, books that my father didn’t have that I had come across in my reading. I was in pursuit of “comprehensive knowledge,” as my father taught me to be. “You can never be a good writer if you don’t read all sorts of books. A poet who only reads poetry can’t go far.” He’d then proceed, quoting Gramsci: “A comprehensive knowledge is essential for the organic intellectual,” though I wasn’t sure if Gramsci ever did write such a statement. Something my father was certain to do was to name-drop. In the same sentence, he’d open with one name, link up to another halfway through, then close out with a third. Usually they were Western writers and thinkers; he was a big fan of the Enlightenment. He called them his “universal tribe,” his glasses lingering on the tip of his long nose. I soon came to realize that even when my father had a brilliant idea of his own, he preferred to credit it to one of his favorite great whites. When the Titanic arrived in Hawally, one of the main urban areas where Arab immigrants are concentrated, we’d go first to al-Orouba bookstore. (In the ’80s, the demographics of Kuwait consisted of a majority of South Asian and Arab migrants, a 40 percent citizen population, and an undisclosed percentage of stateless Arabs, or Bidoon, which included my own family. After the Gulf War, these percentages didn’t shift much, but certain groups, such as Palestinians, Iraqis, and Bidoon, were painted as coconspirators in the occupation and targeted with various forms of forced displacement.) Al-Orouba was a small shop established by a professor of Arabic literature at Kuwait University. We’d get to the bookstore before the owner himself was there for his daily check-up visit, perhaps because he went to Friday prayers and my father never did. Located on a narrow street covered in potholes, where it was always a struggle to find parking, the store had a wide glass front that offered a good view of its interior. Once you entered the L-shaped shop, the checkout counter was on your left and the magazine section on your right. The ceilings were at least ten feet high, every inch leading up to them stacked with books. Beyond the front section, the rest of the shop was organized around two aisles and a storage room at the back. The bookseller, Mr. Adel, was an Egyptian man of my father’s age. He had a white beard and a quiet manner. He was always happy to see us, especially since most people entered the store by mistake. He’d patiently clarify to those lost souls that “it’s a bookstore, as in we sell books, not notebooks,” before directing them to the stationery shop next door. At the time, it was an insult for any bookstore to carry notebooks and pens, a bad look that could scare away serious customers like my father. But in the late 2000s, al-Orouba devoted its entire front section to notebooks and pens, in an attempt at survival. Before we delved into the shelves for the next hour or two, Mr. Adel would voluntarily provide us with updates on his inventory. I took these updates seriously. He’d point with his index finger, and in his calm voice say, “We just received those titles from Cairo, and over there are the ones from Beirut. Outside, there are a few new issues of the usual periodicals.” Sometimes my father would have a follow-up question about a book he had requested, even though he knew very well how long it took to order and receive one. “End of the month, inshallah,” Mr. Adel would respond. My father and I had two approaches to book shopping. Sometimes we began in the same section, and while shopping we brought each other’s attention to certain titles, exchanged opinions on whether a book was worth buying, which translation was better, what publishers to avoid because they were too commercial and therefore less rigorous. This was the slow approach. Other times we each began in a different section, and at some point met in the middle. I’d go to my father for feedback, or to impress him with a book I had captured. My father taught me not to leave a single bookshelf unturned, at least the ones within my physical reach. Even the books hidden behind other books must be checked, because on rare occasions, the ones in the back were the special titles, out of circulation, not glossy or new enough to attract customers—but to us, they were treasures. My father loved dead books, though he didn’t necessarily care for first editions or nice covers. He cared for “good translations, good writers.” He was naturally a comparatist, and he owned all Arabic translations of Cervantes, Dante, T. S. Eliot, Whitman, Gabriel García Márquez, and would indulge in long explanations of which translators had failed and which had done a good job, without having read the originals. He was obsessed with translation traitors: His monolingualism was a source of anxiety, and he wanted the translation to be faithful, to be a mirror, because why would anyone dare interfere when translating the greats! After an hour or two at a given bookstore, we’d have completed our search, proud of our picks, tired and dehydrated, our lungs agitated by the dust. We’d conclude the trip with a private meeting in a corner of the shop, as far as possible from the bookseller and his customers, calculating the overall cost, estimating the probability of a discount, and assessing if there were books to leave on hold until our next visit. Although al-Orouba was not the only bookstore in town, it was our favorite—reliable, focused on literature and philosophy, with a small inventory of regional magazines and periodicals. Some weeks, my father might find himself energetic enough to suggest that we visit other bookstores. We might go to Qurtas, in the old city, which enjoyed a bigger space, modern and brightly lit, with a traditional faux mud facade. The books at Qurtas were more expensive, focused on history and politics. Although I published my debut with Qurtas, the publisher never offered me an author’s discount, perhaps because they were too broke to be generous! There was also al-Rubayan’s disappointing bookstore, which we visited to kill time or to check on its owner, Mr. Yahya al-Rubayan. Once a vibrant place that functioned as a press, a bookstore, and a gathering space (or so I was told by my father), the al-Rubayan’s I knew felt more like a haunted and suffocated place. Mr. Yahya seemed to have given up on his shop, often complaining that people didn’t read books anymore. The inventory didn’t change, as he rarely bothered to acquire new books. As he aged, so did his curatorial taste, which seemed traditional and out-of-touch. My only enjoyable visit to al-Rubayan’s was when Mr. Yahya declared bankruptcy in 2007, opening to the public the store’s massive storage basements, where books were sold for the equivalent of one dollar each. The basement contained many books printed in Iraq prior to the Gulf War, after which they could not be showcased, due to an official ban on anything Iraqi in Kuwait—whether it was a book printed in Iraq, a cassette tape of Iraqi singers, or even a TV show whose closing credits included the name of an Iraqi actress! But following the execution of Saddam Hussein in 2006, the Kuwaiti state relaxed, and Iraqi books and songs were no longer prohibited materials to be exchanged in secret. A fourth bookstore, one we rarely visited, was That al-Salasil, where a Palestinian bookseller once managed to provide us with a copy of Abdelrahman Munif’s _Cities of Salt_ , which was banned for its criticism of the oil state and satirizing of the Arab Gulf’s ruling families. Today, That al-Salasil and al-Rubayan’s continue to operate, but Qurtas and al-Orouba had to close. That al-Salasil switched to a commercial model that relies on selling popular books, while al-Rubayan’s was saved by a special presidential grant after declaring bankruptcy. In 2012, a year after I left Kuwait, I found out that a fire had erupted at al-Orouba, devouring thousands of its dusty books in the span of hours. - - - _**Read the rest over at The Believer.**_

_“Jeff Bezos says the future is so bright, he doesn ’t see how anybody can be discouraged who is alive right now… ‘In the next couple of decades, there will be millions of people living in space. That’s how fast this is going to accelerate,’ he said.” — Yahoo Tech_ - - - If you’ve been lying awake worrying about creeping authoritarianism, economic collapse, or climate disasters, have you stopped to consider that in our lifetime, some small fraction of humanity may reside beyond Earth’s atmosphere? I mean, picture it: By 2050, as global temperatures blow past the 1.5C target set by the now-abandoned Paris Climate Accord, there may be millions of people living in space. Sure, the human population will be ten billion people, and roughly ten billion of them will still be terrestrially bound to this planet in whatever condition our runaway catastrophes have left for them. Still, you have to admit that it sounds pretty cool, at least if you stick to astronauts and moon walks and not think too deeply about the realities of life in a metal box desperately trying to protect you from the inhospitable void, divorced from walking freely among Earth’s natural beauty, breathable air, and the sun’s warmth. Though those won’t exist here for long anyway, so might as well try to survive in zero Gs. You may be thinking that the central problem the world faces is not the lack of settlements among the stars but the hoarding of wealth by a handful of man children who never learned to share; their imagination of progress begining with sci-fi fantasies of rocketships and mars colonies and ending before the inevitably dystopian second act while more salient and solvable issues like hunger, lack of shelter, and labor exploitation go unchecked. But while the billionaires promising to launch humanity into the future are the very same who spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding an administration that’s gutting all manner of programs designed to make life livable here on Earth, they’re the only ones with the vision and resources to bring humankind to the cosmos. Because they also defunded NASA. Feel hopeful in knowing that after strip-mining the only habitable world we have, they may build themselves a second one somewhere colder, lonelier, and even easier to keep away from the rest of us. Unless you are one of the lucky millions to make it off world. In which case, if you thought today’s techno-feudalism was bad, just wait until no one can hear you scream.

_“ New York millionaires are plotting their exit from the city after the election of Zohran Mamdani, the socialist who plans to increase the taxes of the rich.” —_The Telegraph - - - Well, looks like the unthinkable has happened—Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City. As the founder of a bro culture clickbait site who has been repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct, I hate to see this city going in such an obviously bad direction. If New York City is no longer going to be an unaffordable police state run by crooks, I’m taking my hard-earned sex-pest dollars elsewhere. When I heard Mamdani had won the Democratic primary a few months ago, I was so incandescently angry that I scissor-kicked a hole in my drywall. I couldn’t stand the thought of a socialist running a city that is supposed to be managed by egomaniacal kleptocrats. Still, I held out hope that Mamdani’s sex-offender opponent would ultimately prevail. Now, my fellow wealthy serial molesters and I have no choice but to move our ill-reputed businesses elsewhere while we find other towns full of unsuspecting women to harass. Good luck without us, Gotham. It’s appalling that Mamdani is going to use his new position of power to make New York more livable for average citizens at the expense of industrious job creators/alleged rapists like myself. I earned every penny of my fortune the hard way—by eating pizza and talking about sports—and I am not about to fork over an extra cent just so dishwashers and barbacks can afford to buy groceries. If I had a choice between my taxes going up by 2 percent and every New York schoolchild getting enough to eat, you better believe I’d be letting those little brats scour the subway for enough loose change to buy a chopped cheese. Starvation builds character. When I’m in the city, I want the authentic New York experience—getting served a hot slice of pepperoni pie by a Turkish immigrant who commutes in from Pennsylvania because he can’t afford to live anywhere in the five boroughs. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer a city where everyday residents have to work three jobs and are under constant threat of eviction. Anything short of an excruciating existence for the working class just doesn’t cut it for me. New York City municipal politics is supposed to be a Kafkaesque bureaucratic machine designed to benefit the elites. The mayor of New York should be a mustache-twirling Batman villain whom everyone despises, not a handsome, bearded Zillennial whom crowds cheer for every time he hops on stage at the club to explain his plans to freeze rent. What happened to the old New York, where creepy freaks could make an honest living running manosphere blogs that advertise virility pills in between slightly racist hot takes on sports? What happened to the New York that catered to Wall Street coke heads, shady tech founders, and crypto-fascist billionaires? What happened to the New York that was run by predators, _for_ predators? Instead, New York is going to turn into a communist hellhole where poor people are barely exploitable anymore. If that’s the case, count me out. I’m packing up the offices of my toxic masculinity troll site and taking my miscreant talents somewhere they’ll be appreciated, like Florida or Texas. Let’s see how the Big Apple fares without frat boy media companies and our sexual-deviant dollars. Millionaire perverts are the lifeblood of this city. Plus, I’d much rather swipe the apps in a city where I’m not already on all the local dating-safety watchlists.

As we all know, the worst part about eating pizza is how the cheese gets stuck to the insides of your pockets. I can’t tell you how many good pairs of slacks I’ve ruined just because I love pizza and I lead an on-the-go lifestyle. Like most people, I eat pizza every single day. I’m way too busy to sit down and eat it as a meal, so into my pockets it goes, even if that means my car keys are always covered in tomato sauce, my wallet is filled with pepperoni, and my iPhone’s charging port is clogged with soggy chunks of mozzarella. But what can I do? _Not_ put hot slices of pizza into my pockets? Just hold it in my hands? I’m a busy guy. How am I supposed to complete all of my daily errands if I have to hold hot slices of pizza all day long? So when Little Caesars announced that they’d finally discovered a solution for a nation of pockets soiled by gloopy chunks of melted cheese, I was ecstatic. With Crazy Puffs, the latest addition to Little Caesars’ menu, which they describe as “pocket-sized pieces of pizza bliss,” they have finally created a pizza option for people like me who love pizza but are just too busy for monotasks like sitting down to eat a meal over a plate. Pocket-sized, you say? I’ll be the judge of that. I nuked a few slices of pizza, stuffed them into my pockets, and drove to my closest Little Caesars franchise as fast as I could. Crazy Puffs come in three different flavors: cheese, pepperoni, and you guessed it, cheesesteak. Imagine a handheld pie about the size of a hockey puck, filled to the brim with cheese and tomato sauce, all neatly housed within a flaky, golden-brown crust. It’s drizzled with a buttery garlic flavor and dusted with a secret blend of Italian herbs and spices. I wouldn’t deign to know the secret in the seasoning blend, but if I had to guess, it’s probably ambrosia, the sweet nectar of the gods. Biting into one of these guys is like sinking your teeth into a giant pizza-flavored Gusher, the cheesy center bursting through the crust like hot magma exploding from the earth’s core. I was so excited to dig in that I scalded the roof of my mouth. But hey, it’s better than the second-degree burns I’ve been suffering on my thighs. All three flavors pair wonderfully with Little Caesars Crazy Sauce. By the way, here’s a tip for all my busy bees out there: dump the sauce _directly_ into your pocket before shoving in the Crazy Puffs. That way, you don’t have to waste valuable time dipping bite after bite—after a few minutes bathing in your pockets, the entire surface area of the Crazy Puff will be pre-sauced for your enjoyment. It’s just $3.99 for a four-pack, and if you pack carefully, all four should fit snugly in your pockets. It’s no exaggeration to say that Crazy Puffs have radically changed my life for the better. Let me paint you a picture of my day pre–Crazy Puffs: I wake up. I’m ravenous. I go to the fridge. I talk to myself as I poke around, saying things like, “What do we got here… what do we got here… ooh, pizza from last night. Yum.” Sure, I could eat the leftover pizza cold. But I’ve got to get to work. I don’t have time to fold up a few slices of cold pizza and stuff them into my pockets. So I toss them into the microwave. It’s easier to fold them when they’re hot. Once the cheese is bubbling and splattering the inside of the microwave like an active volcano, I yank the slices out as quickly as I can, fold them into a thick rhomboid shape, and then stuff them into my pockets. They burn me like crazy, but now my pizza is in my pockets, and that’s the important thing here. In retrospect, I can’t believe how much time I wasted folding pizza slices to fit in my pockets. But thanks to Little Caesars, I don’t have to. The Crazy Puffs fit in my pockets with _zero fold_. Little Caesars describes their Crazy Puffs as “bite-sized pockets of pizza perfection.” If you ask me, they’re completely underselling it. I know what you’re thinking: Food that’s meant to be transportable in an average pocket? That doesn’t sound crazy. In fact, it makes a lot of sense. I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s a total misnomer. Crazy Puffs? More like Very Sane & Reasonable Puffs! Now, if someone could just come up with some kind of pocket-sized rotisserie chicken, I could stop ruining my backpack.

_Answer all questions in the form of a song title._ #### 1. The Rob Base Postulate Given that a number greater than _1(x)_ is required to make a thing go right, and that the exact equal number _(y)_ is necessary to make it out of sight _(x = y)_ , what is the minimum whole number required to achieve both outcomes? #### 2. Three Dog Night’s Loneliness Proof Let _L_ = loneliness, and let _X_ = maximum _L_ , which is bad. If, theoretically, another number (2) can be as bad as _X_ , and there are no whole numbers since _X_ that are more _L_ , complete the statement: “ _X_ = ___” #### 3. Paul Simon’s Missing Elements Theorem Let _N_ = the number of ways to leave your lover. Four examples of _N_ are given: * Slip out the back, Jack * Make a new plan, Stan * Hop on the bus, Gus * Drop off the key, Lee Given that Roy need not be coy and is also encouraged to achieve emancipation (though no exact method is offered for his departure), and that a total of 10x the provided number of lovers (including Roy) must exist, write a statement that describes the total number of departure methods there must be. #### 4. Tommy Tutone’s Numeral Identity Paradox Let _N_ = digits found on a wall. Also, let _J_ = the most common girl’s name of the 1980s, someone you can turn to, and who can likewise give you something to hold on to. ASSUME: _N + J_ = a good time, and you are desperate enough to be combing bathroom walls for companionship. Solve for _N_ (provided _J_ has not yet changed the number). #### 5. Spin Doctors’ Decision Dilemma Let _P_ = a male royal who adores you. Let _P_ = a male royal who adores you and also loves you, but has no future or family. Additional assumptions: _P_ has diamonds in his pocket and some “bread.” _P_ will allow you to call him baby, tell him maybe, buy you flowers, and talk for hours. Describe what you find kneeling before you. #### 6. Don McLean’s Lost Innocence Problem If 3.14 = a uniquely US-centric and poignant elegy for idealized but lost innocence, even further diluted by whiskey-drunk, piano-bar bellowing, and off-key rye-induced campfire reimagining, what expression best describes the profound disappointment of driving your Detroit steel to an embankment, only to find it desiccated and haunted by the ghost of your heroes who died too soon? #### 7. The Convergent Genre Unified Theorem of Identity Draw a Venn diagram representing the overlap of unity, PTSD, and solitude as expressed by Bono, James Hetfield, and the lead singer of a band (hint: see problem #2) whose name nobody knows. #### 8. Jay-Z’s Limited Problem Set Let _x_ = the set including Jay’s total number of possible tribulations (maximum = 100). GIVEN: One of the set __“a bitch.” How many other potential quandaries might Jay-Z face? #### 9. The Clovers’ Sexual Chemistry Corollary A set of aphrodisiacs is numbered sequentially with the constraint that a successful tonic must occur before the even, natural, composite number that is the base of the decimal system. Assume that oysters, rhino-horn gas station pills, green M&Ms, pheromone cologne, Blue Chew laced martinis, Marvin Gaye records, and lying about your bank account have all proven unsuccessful. Create a generic name for the final viable integer that must prove successful. #### 10. The Beatles’ Temporal Conjecture of Counterfactual Reasoning GIVEN: One week contains exactly seven days. ALSO GIVEN: Love is needed and can be provided for more than seven days a week. ASSUME: One distrusts established conventions, rejects the Gregorian calendar, and is pathologically horny. What irrational yet compelling duration best conveys this surplus of desire? ## Extra Credit #### The White Stripes’ Overconfidence Corollary GIVEN: A subject who is a braggart, prone to violence, and fond of hyperbole. ASSUME: Nation-states are willing to form a coalition against this individual but will only deploy land forces (no naval or air support). What combined fighting force might this person claim would still be unable to hold them back? - - - #### Answer Key 1. “It Takes Two” 2. One 3. “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” 4. “867-5309/Jenny” 5. “Two Princes” 6. “American Pi” [_sic_] 7. 8. “99 Problems” 9. “Love Potion No. 9” 10. “Eight Days a Week” (“Thirty-Two Days a Month” may also be accepted, but isn’t as catchy.) EXTRA CREDIT: “Seven Nation Army”

_“ I’m skeptical. The odds are that Mamdani’s victory is actually less significant than you think.” — Ross Douthat,_ New York Times - - - I was as surprised as anyone about the election results. The polls were a little too unified, so obviously, I assumed it was a conspiracy. But I now have to accept reality. He will be our next mayor. But before we jump to any conclusions about what this means for the future of the party, let’s remember: He was up against a deeply flawed candidate. His opponent was universally despised. And that’s our bad. But how could we have known that voters were tired of old sexual predators? Still, with the benefit of hindsight, we acknowledge that we should have run a more pleasant and authentic candidate. Or at least, someone we could make authentic with enough media training. We shouldn’t try to generalize his victory to a national stage. New York City is not America. In fact, it’s barely in America. Look at the map, it’s super close to the edge. And who’s to say voters in Arizona want affordable housing? They’re cowboys, they live off their cows. We don’t want to make any quick changes. No one actually likes him. They just hate the other guy. That’s the whole premise of Hinge. If you see enough men holding fish, you settle. It’s not his victory; it’s about his horrible opponent. Even the consultants we hired weren’t enough to fix such a flawed candidate. And the solution is obvious: We need more expensive consultants. Sure, his policies appealed to an overwhelming percentage of voters. But let’s not pretend that the few who opposed his policies don’t matter. Multi-homeowners have feelings too. I mean, he barely got 50 percent of the vote. That’s underperforming compared to past mayoral elections, in other cities, where there were only two candidates. In normal times, against a normal candidate, we have no evidence that picking a friendly, relatable, likable candidate without a history of sexual abuse will work. Let’s not read too much into it. The most important lesson we can learn is that sometimes you shouldn’t try to learn a lesson. Look, he won only because his supporters are chronically online. Real voters—the ones who exist and therefore matter—don’t have time to “read about policies” or “know what their representatives are doing.” They’re busy, working three jobs to afford rent, which isn’t conducive to civic engagement, and that’s exactly why we shouldn’t change anything about anything. No one actually wants their rent frozen. By doing things voters wanted, he set unrealistic expectations. Soon, voters will expect ALL politicians to represent their interests. Then where will we be?

Kathy is a soon-to-be-retired small animal veterinarian in the greater Des Moines area. She was once reviewed as a top veterinarian for rats on a local rat forum. In her office, she has a preserved dog heart suspended in fluid filled with heartworm. She once gave this heart to her nephew, my cousin, for keeps, but her sister made him return it since it was too horrifying to have in their home. Kathy is nothing if not entirely secure and confident in who she is, which I think would make her the ideal _Golden Bachelorette_. Recently, at a friend’s wedding, my mom drank a large amount of wine provided by a random older gentleman. When we pointed out to her that if she were to start dating again, she would have an easy time finding older men, she said, “Yes, Emily, I know.” My mom will be bringing her dog(s), and you can’t stop her, so it’s not worth asking. She repeatedly brings her dog(s) to my house in New York State despite my asking her not to because my husband is allergic. This means driving unwanted dogs across multiple state lines only to be refused entry upon my doorstep. She does not totally believe being allergic to dogs is a real thing, so it’s very important that all candidates are not allergic to dogs. Actually, wait, on further reflection, it doesn’t really matter, because she will ignore it even if they are. Kathy will not wear a gown or heels, so please tell all male candidates to wear athleisure, sweatpants, or last year’s matching Christmas pajamas (seasonal). She will be wearing leggings with a dog-themed pattern and a hooded sweatshirt from vacation, probably with a puffer vest. She recently sent me a picture of her gardening while wearing a pair of gym shorts I had in high school. I am currently thirty-three years old. She will only wear practical shoes and, if in a dress, will wear Birkenstocks. My mom’s dream date is watching the NBC nightly news while eating peanut M&Ms on her couch, which I think will play well on national television. In her living room, she has one couch for people and one couch for the dogs, which she calls the “dog couch.” The couch for people was inherited from their friend Clark, who died suddenly. I found out about Clark’s death via a text photo from my mother about their “new couch.” This new couch seats only two people and one dog, provided they leave the dog on the couch. So, for the inevitable hometown episode, when visiting my mother, you will either have to sit on the dog couch or, like my husband, who is allergic to dogs, bring a kitchen chair in from the other room and be vaguely uncomfortable for whatever length of time you are watching TV. It is important to note my mom’s taste in men. My mother once said that if she could marry any celebrity, she would pick Ed Begley Jr. So, please include as many men who look like Ed Begley Jr. as you can find. Kathy would prefer a man who drives a hybrid and takes public transit, much like Ed Begley Jr. She also has a crush on her mechanic. What else to say about my mother, our future _Golden Bachelorette_? There are many, many qualities that make my mother a perfect candidate for _The Golden Bachelorette_. * She is a good sport. * She loves to play Kick the Can. * She once ate Easter candy that was over six months old. * She has been known to eat a microwaved unseasoned beet for lunch at work. * She has run a half-marathon. * She can take a joke. * She is good at giving Christmas presents. * She once cried very, very hard at a documentary I showed her about walruses. An adventurous spirit is also required, as her husband of forty-plus years hates traveling and trying new things. Several months ago, my mom became convinced she was going to move from rural Iowa to Uruguay because they have a “more stable democracy.” Interest in Uruguay is obviously a plus. That brings me to an important note: Kathy is not currently single. My dad is alive, and they are not divorced. This is irrelevant to the fact that I think she would be an ideal choice for _The Golden Bachelorette_. On her first date with my dad, my parents walked on the beach in Northern California, and my mom picked up a mollusk and showed my father the anus of said mollusk. As I said, Kathy is confident. I appreciate your time and consideration of this special woman.

No, of course we appreciate the gesture. It’s just that, well, this menu is a little inconsiderate. Sure, all these loaves of bread, that’s very impressive, coming out of thin air and whatnot. The thing is, though, we’re gluten free. Before you ask, no, this isn’t a Celiac thing. This is about respecting our gut microbes. Given how bloated some of the apostles are, you guys should give it a try. Go thirty days without gluten, and you’ll see the light, we swear. We all saw the way your disciples looked at us. “Oh, hey, a bunch of hicks,” they said to themselves. “Let’s give them the usual. Bet they live off of junk food anyway.” That sort of holier-than-thou attitude isn’t doing you any favors. I know we’re poor desert people, but we care about what goes into our bodies. I guess that’s more than you can say. It’s like you’ve never heard of the glycemic index. Is it so much to ask for a gluten-free banquet? How about some fresh fruits and vegetables, or grass-fed beef and organic kefir? We’ve been really into kefir lately. Why don’t you conjure up some local honey to pair with our kefir? Or, for a real miracle, you could make gluten-free pizza that actually tastes good. Why do you think we had only five loaves to begin with? Because most of us have the good sense to avoid that kind of processed crap. We actually care about our blood sugar levels, unlike your crew. Five thousand hungry souls and what do you come up with? Basket after basket of inflammatory, indigestible garbage. Empty carbs for empty stomachs, how generous. Honestly, we were worried something like this might happen. Health isn’t exactly a priority for your movement. We heard all about your booze cruise over in Cana. Newsflash, buddy: Alcohol is literally poison. When someone tries to hydrate, don’t swoop in and turn their water into cabernet sauvignon. And these fish, don’t get me started. Yes, they have protein. Omega-3 fatty acids, that’s great. But what about sustainability? Do you know how many toxins are found in seafood? You might as well feed us spoonfuls of mercury. Next time you whip up some magic meal, Christ, put a little more thought into what goes on the plate.

I opened this café with the best of intentions: to provide a salon par excellence with a focus on good food and live entertainment, a third place to relax and slow down against the rising tide of modernity. A space where one might, after a long day of work, sip a drink, nibble a pastry, or maybe even kick a raunchy can-can. But absolutely not to paint shit. Please understand that I am in no way attempting to pish posh, or worse, call ballyhoo upon the many wondrous distractions this city has to offer. I’ll have you know that the electric lights of the penny arcade are one of my great pleasures. Window-browsing through our arrondissement’s many fine boutiques? A parsimonious joy. And don’t even get me started on the opium dens. But I’m sorry, the buck stops when a dude in a chore jacket takes out a goddam pastel tray during our nightly cabaret. Withal, I recognize how the tastes and cultural mores of the audience are subject to change. I myself recall lifting an unwieldy lamp of whale oil upon hearing my favorite brass band’s signature ditty. But times are different now. This is the Belle Epoque, and also, that was a huge fire hazard. Simply put, it’s not 1859 anymore, guys. This is not your blue period. You are not in your watercolor era. You are just a cheap asshole who is quite adept at depicting this bawdy revue. Speaking of frivolity, our itemized waybills indicate an alarming new trend: Many of you fuckers will sit for hours on end with nary an absinthe drip in sight. Don’t you unimpeachable geniuses know that the service industry is all about turnover? And how about ordering a petit four? Or five? Last week, I watched a flaneur spend his entire afternoon staring at a blank piece of cardboard. When my manager asked what he was doing, the man responded that he was “kinda just raw-dogging the Montmartre, waiting for the light to hit.” If anyone knows what the hell this means, please inform me immediately, and I will overlook the meringues you’ve been sneaking in under your bowler caps. How dare you paint my business in a way that attracts more customers? This windmill-themed restaurant, funded by eight generations of the French aristocracy, was doing great without your brilliant Fauve ass. And yet, I must admit such reproductions can be affecting, that there is a palpable delight in both eating a ridged tea cookie and, decades later, remembering the simple pleasure of ingesting said buttery sponge. But you oil-based brohemians can’t even bother to arabesque through a routine quadrille, much less shake a leg. And sure, your canvases may be filled, but what of your dance card? Empty, I’ll bet. Now, if only there were a word in 1898 for a group of men who involuntarily choose not to celebrate. Look, maybe it’s just me, but does anyone else find it a little sad to see the glamor of the night before contorted into commerce and alienation by these mimetic simulacra? After all, a beret on one’s head does not require an additional beret, does it? Which is why you’ll have to excuse me if I am quick to dismiss your post-Impressionistic masterpiece of lithe brushstrokes that perfectly captures the balletic movements of today’s matinee with singular color and grace. Hang it in the Louvre for all I care. For 130 years. As for me, I will be on the dance floor as you breathtakingly portray the very good time I am always clearly having. Oh, and also, no sculpting. You can shit in the street, but apparently, clay is a major health-code violation.

This lady’s video went viral after she tasted kombucha and made a weird face, and now she has a podcast and a YouTube talk show. It’s just like a normal talk show, but it’s on YouTube instead of TV. A lot of people watch it, actually. - - - She was popular on TikTok, and then she was in a Gen Z, gender-swapped remake of _She’s All That_. It was terrible. Also, there was a big internet drama because she was best friends with Kourtney Kardashian, and people thought that was weird because this girl is like twenty years younger than Kourtney. Anyway, now she’s an edgy pop star. - - - This guy hosts a YouTube show where celebrities eat increasingly spicy chicken wings, and he interviews them while their mouths are on fire. Yes, it’s a real thing, and they get real celebrities. They had Viola Davis and Mark Ruffalo on. Yes, you do know who Mark Ruffalo is. He’s been in a bunch of stuff. He was in _Spotlight, 30 Going on 30_ , he was the Hulk… hold on, I’ll get a picture—you’ll know him if you see his picture. - - - You don’t have to know about this celebrity. For the record, though, it’s pronounced _hock two-ah_. It’s not a slur, but still, don’t say it. If you really want to know, just google it. I’m not going to explain it to you. - - - This kid yodeled in a Walmart, and people just went nuts over it. Yeah, I don’t know either. - - - Okay, so this man used to be a YouTuber, but then he made a video where he went to a Japanese suicide forest, and people got mad at him. He sucks. Then he pivoted to like, boxing? And he has a brother who also sucks. He also does boxing, and he fought Mike Tyson, even though Mike Tyson is almost your age. Then there was a reality show that followed the brothers, but I don’t think anyone watched it. Also, I forgot to mention, but they both started on a Disney show. No, it wasn’t one of the big ones; it was just some random show. - - - He’s a kid, and he makes a face like this. Are you looking at me? Like this. Like with his fingers like this under his chin. And then he purses his lips like this, so it’s like he’s thinking. And it’s funny because he’s just a kid. Rizzler. Like Twizzler. It’s because he has rizz. “Rizz” is like charisma. Well… because the “chasrismazzler” doesn’t sound as good. - - - This guy gives away a bunch of money but makes people do unhinged stuff for it. He makes videos like, “Stay in a burning building for ten hours and you can win $500,000” or “If you live in this underwater bunker for a week, you’ll get $100,000.” I don’t know where he gets the money. Yes, it is kind of like those horror movies I was telling you about—the _Saw_ franchise. - - - She conducts interviews with celebrities while they eat chicken and French fries at a fast-food place. Yes, I guess it is kind of like the hot-wing guy, but for this one, the celebrities aren’t in pain. Also, she’s awkward in the interview. Yeah, it’s on purpose. It’s funny. It’s like awkward and funny. - - - That is Nicole Kidman in a wig.

_“ Walmart and McDonald’s are among the top employers of beneficiaries of federal aid programs like Medicaid and food stamps, according to a study by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.” —CNBC_ - - - It is unconscionable for the government to let SNAP benefits lapse when emergency funds are available to cover the program. Yes, suspending benefits could teach a lesson to those undeserving food voucher recipients, 40 percent of whom are children, who have been living large on an average of six dollars a day in assistance for far too long. But it wouldn’t be worth the cruelty of denying the program to those vulnerable Americans who genuinely deserve it: corporations. How would less fortunate corporations like Walmart, McDonald’s, and Amazon get by without SNAP and other programs to subsidize their sub-poverty level wages that leave many of their workers reliant on benefits? And without that subsidy, how would they be able to continue making record-breaking profits by selling food at such low prices that SNAP recipients trying to stretch their grocery budgets have little choice but to spend their vouchers there? I am deeply concerned about the level of suffering that would occur if this funding lapse lasts longer than a few days. Poor, disenfranchised corporations, just trying to get by without having to pay their employees a living wage, could really suffer if they have to absorb the costs of the nearly 13 percent of SNAP recipients who aren’t able to afford food anymore, or of workers having to miss a shift to stand in line at a food bank. That should never happen to a corporation in this country. It is one thing to take a program away from people who rely on it to survive, even when there are clearly funds available to keep it running. In fact, doing so for the purpose of political leverage is a deeply rooted American tradition. However, it is downright un-American to take a program away from people who rely on it to make themselves richer. Imagine being a single father who supports a series of younger and younger ex-wives on just a CEO’s salary, and having to tell your semi-estranged children that the caviar on their plate tomorrow night might be Osetra instead of Beluga, or that they might only inherit eleven megayachts someday. Whole families, going to bed profit-hungry, worried they might take a 0.00000001 percent hit on their net worth. Some might argue that corporations making billions in profit should not further profit from programs like SNAP and instead use a small fraction of their earnings to pay their workers a living wage. And that the government could make that happen by raising the federal minimum wage for the first time in over sixteen years, so corporations, not taxpayers, pay their employees. But it would be inhumane to expect the families of immense intergenerational wealth who own corporations just to suck it up and make do with nothing changing in their lives in any way, because one billion dollars is one thousand million dollars. A CEO shouldn’t have to stay up late experiencing every parent’s worst nightmare: wondering how will he be able to feed his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson white truffles at every meal he ever eats, freshly grated by one of his twelve nannies, even when he is well into his thirties. Sure, it’s tempting to send a message to those lazy SNAP recipients, who are happy to sit back and work as required if not disabled or elderly, that they can no longer take advantage of government benefits to pad their own pockets. Still, we cannot turn our backs, even for a second, on those whom we, as Americans, have deemed the most deserving: innocent corporations, just trying to earn an honest billion through exploiting the hard work of others, enabled by taxpayer-funded government subsidies, at any human cost.

_INTERVIEWER : People usually use [the term “elevated horror”] to refer to A24’s movies, horror that’s very heavy on the metaphorical._ Hereditary, Midsommar,_movies like that. JOHN CARPENTER: I have no idea what you’re talking about. — From the AV Club’s interview with legendary horror film director, John Carpenter._ - - - Honey? We need to talk. I wanted 15 Thornhill Road to be perfect for us. We’ve put so much into this move, and I think that we wanted it to work so badly that we’re pretending nothing’s wrong. But the signs are all there. The howls from the basement. The bloody child’s handprints on the bedsheets. The face that appears for a split second in the bathroom mirror and makes a deafening sound whenever we look up from washing our faces. Honey. I don’t think our haunting is elevated. Well, of course, the house is haunted! But after that down payment? In this market? If spirits are trying to communicate with us from beyond the veil, they should at least have something substantive to say. Look. I’m not saying that the ghosts don’t work on any level. The little clown boy that pops out of the fridge startles the shit out of me every time I grab a handful of cold cuts. But he doesn’t make me think. I just don’t understand how this happened. This is a good school district. We have Crate & Barrel furniture. But when I take out the garbage, why am I getting jump-scared by a cat I don’t own? This morning alone, I have found six types of goo congealing in the breakfast nook and not a single metaphor for grief. Every time I hear that theremin start up, I get a chill down my spine, because it’s like, ooooh—what kind of cliché shit am I going to witness next? A floating white sheet? A Ouija board? God, this is so embarrassing. I have to tilt my own goddamn head if I want to see a Dutch angle. And the lighting? Not even bi-curious. Don’t get me started on the dead-weight dead people. Hey, I’m just saying: if a deceased Civil War general is going to squeak that rocking chair all night long, he could at least do so in a way that grapples with the legacy of American slavery. Did you know that the Parks next door are being haunted in Korean? With subtitles??? How is Eva going to get into a good college if our ghosts are monolingual? I don’t think Clown Boy even learned to read. I suppose “Boo!” is technically Latin. I’m just going to come out and say it: is this because we’re a heterosexual white couple? I get it—we haven’t exactly cornered the market on intergenerational trauma. But, for the record, my parents divorced when I was nine, and I just think the ghosts could be doing more with that. Wow. Well, sorry for not having a long-standing issue with substance abuse. I’ll get right on that. You could be doing more, too, you know. Do you realize that, since we moved in, I haven’t seen you obsessively construct a single miniature? Not even an antique dollhouse. It’s really the least you could do. No, no dolls! Those are pedestrian—just the house. The only time I feel a sense of creeping dread is when your parents come over, and I’m just waiting for them to notice Eva pressing her face to the TV and talking to the static. They already think we give her too much screen time. I feel like I’m in hell. Spectral children giggle for no reason and move the furniture. Self-proclaimed “mediums” show up with no context or credentials. When I cry, it never feels narratively earned. You literally never take your bra off, even when we go to bed. And I can’t even say the f-word about it! How are we supposed to feel something real when we’re constantly being censored? Sure, visually, we’ve had some moments. I have to admit, the blood geyser shooting out of Eva’s bunk bed was quite something. But, when Mrs. Park is getting closure with her deceased Umma and forgiving her in their shared tongue that she never speaks with her own children, our little spookfest just seems, I don’t know, cheap and pointless? I don’t mean to be bitter. It’s not a competition. But if a demon named Bugaboo runs over my head with a lawnmower, I just want it to mean something. Oh great—now I’ve summoned him. Of course, saying his name aloud summons him. God forbid there be any ritual specificity. Honey, it’s too late for me. Take Eva and run. But, first, promise me something: Please put on a cheeky, yet haunting needle-drop before you go. And, when you tell my story, make sure it’s in a twenty-minute YouTube video called “Demon Lawnmower Head Explosion Ending Explained.”

Contradiction and fear at America’s only physical museum of disability - - - ## DISCUSSED _Pennhurst State School and Hospital, Paranormal Investigations, Autism, Eugenics, Dr. Henry H. Goddard, Suffer the Little Children, Roland Johnson, Demon-Auctioneer, Limerick, Speaking for Ourselves, The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Nathaniel Guest, The Halderman Verdict, A Moldy Baby Doll, The US Haunt Industry, Randy Bates, Bloody Straitjackets, Lost in a Desert World, A Doghouse_ - - - I arrived at Pennhurst on an unusually warm fall day. As I walked across the parking lot, the administration building was the first thing to greet me. An impressive redbrick monument of Jacobean revivalism, it towered over the rest of the campus. The midday sun struck its copper cupola like a spotlight. A flight of stairs, sheltered by an intricately carved granite awning, led to thick wooden doors. It was a statement of power, of permanence. Huddled around it was a series of smaller but similarly designed buildings in various states of disrepair—rootlike cracks crawled across their facades, and plywood was stuffed into the gaping jaws of their window frames. At the center of the campus was a large field, empty except for a metal slide and a swing-less swing set that lay bent and rusted in the freshly cut grass. The administration building, nine other dilapidated structures, and around 120 acres of land are all that is left of the formerly grand and ever-infamous Pennhurst State School and Hospital. From 1908 until 1987, this Pennsylvania state institution, located in Spring City, less than an hour outside Philadelphia, incarcerated and often abused over ten thousand inmates. Most of those held there were people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, whom the institution initially labeled as “feeble-minded,” and, later, “mentally retarded.” Today, the remnants of its once-1,400-acre campus have been repurposed into Pennhurst Asylum, a multimillion-dollar Halloween attraction that brings tens of thousands of guests each year to be scared, as advertised, “to the limits of [their] sanity.” For six weeks every fall, over a hundred employees—including performers, makeup artists, costume designers, security guards, and line wranglers—descend on Pennhurst to transform this century-old campus into a professional horror operation. Pennhurst Asylum offers four attractions, but its central feature and namesake is “The Asylum,” a haunted walk inside the imposing administration building. Visitors are led through its peeling halls, where the horrors of medical violence quite literally jump out at them. Performers in torn and blood-smeared lab coats, scrubs, and gowns leap out at guests from under operating tables and creep behind them to tickle the backs of their necks. A cacophony of screams fills the building as visitors stumble through the fog-filled dark, where nightmarish scenes—an operating theater in which a rusty blade saws into an exposed brain; a cramped room full of bile-covered patients chained to their beds, howling for their parents—greet them at every turn. By day, however, Pennhurst Asylum’s focus is not on fear, but memorialization. In addition to its attractions, the company owns and operates the Pennhurst Museum, currently America’s only physical museum of disability history. Located in Mayflower Hall, a former residential ward adjacent to the administration building, the museum claims to document the same dark history of institutionalization that the attraction’s nightly performances caricature as entertainment. - - - Soon I would get to experience the haunted halls of “The Asylum” for myself, but the beginning of my day at Pennhurst was much less scary: I milled about in a crowd of eighty visitors in sweat-stained T-shirts as we waited for the museum to open and the history tour to begin. Shielding myself from the sun under a swaying, still-green oak, I found it hard to imagine Pennhurst’s evening persona. A pair of sisters wearing matching witch hats and black-and-orange-striped leggings played tag in a field. An old couple nursed bottles of lukewarm Dasani in the shade. A family took selfies in front of a dilapidated building. But there were hints of the horrors to come: a sound check of eerie music floated over from the administration building, and signs warned guests about the dangers of strobe lights. The visitors flipped through books and eyed merch at the pop-up gift shop. One T-shirt featured a simple outline of the administration building and the words PENNHURST STATE SCHOOL in clean blue block letters, while another depicted a ghostly white face and beneath it the words I SURVIVED PENNHURST ASYLUM scribbled in dripping blood. Directing the cars in the parking lot was the museum’s unlikely director: a twenty-three-year-old recent college graduate named Autumn Werner. With the expertise of a veteran air traffic controller, she answered my questions cheerfully while directing drivers where to park and speaking cryptic instructions into her walkie-talkie. Autumn grew up nearby and spent her childhood on the Pennhurst property; her father, Jim Werner, was hired there first as a performer (or “haunter”) in 2012 and became the operations manager in 2016. Autumn joined the company the year of her father’s promotion, when she was just fifteen, as a makeup artist and haunter. Though she now performs only on occasion, she hasn’t completely abandoned haunting for history: In addition to managing the museum as the company’s history coordinator, she acts as the lead makeup director for the attraction. Later that night, I watched her expertly airbrush leprosy lesions and streaks of blood onto a demented nurse. While Autumn acknowledges the possible contradictions of running a disability history museum by day while working at a Halloween attraction on the same property by night, she insists that her priority is to honor the lives of those who suffered at Pennhurst. Autumn, like many of the haunters I spoke with, believes it is a sacred place inhabited by the spirits of its former inmates, which she is responsible for protecting. She tells guests on ghost-hunting tours (or, as the company refers to them, “paranormal investigations”), which she runs year-round, that “you have to be nice to our ghosts… If you hear a growl or grunt, it’s probably not a demon trying to eat you. It is likely a nonverbal person trying to communicate with you.” Autumn’s connection with disability is not superficial: She has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic disorder affecting connective tissue that causes chronic pain (and that also allows her to dislocate her joints to contort her arms forward while crawling on all fours—one of her signature moves when she used to haunt). In addition, she is a caregiver for her two younger sisters, who have autism. For Autumn, this personal connection is important, and she attests that it’s also what makes the attraction unique; many of the haunters identify as disabled themselves: Her estimate is 60 to 70 percent. This fact transforms Pennhurst for Autumn. Instead of seeing the attraction as a place that callously perpetuates harmful stereotypes, she sees it as a refuge where disabled people can find work, opportunities, and a close community they likely won’t be afforded anywhere else. - - - **_Read the rest of this essay over at The Believer._**

I get to The Garlic Not, and the place is packed with regulars. I decide to sit at the bar, and an old man with the fewest teeth I’ve ever seen hands me a menu. “For a virgin as pure as you—on the house,” he says and passes me a goblet of something neon green. I take a sip, and it’s not half bad. I order the lamb alfredo and decide not to correct him on the weird virgin thing. I’ve only been in Coffins Crest, Transylvania, for three days, and the omnipresent fog, eerie wind chimes, and sinking feeling that something horrible is about to happen is starting to feel normal. I take a sip of my goblet cocktail and wonder how I’ll tell _Historic Castles Magazine_ that someone else is also here to cover the famous castle. When I got the assignment from my editor, Trish, to write a piece on the famous gothic castle in the Carpathian Mountains, I knew I should have told her that’s where my brother went missing three years ago. And his fiancée. And my dad. And his fiancée. My sister told me not to come, but I knew I’d never finish my novel if I didn’t face what happened here. I don’t want to be a travel writer specializing in haunted castles forever. That’s when I see him. His razor-sharp, marble-like cheekbones, his jet black eyes, and the fourteenth-century cape he wears everywhere, even though it’s the twenty-first century. He sits in the back of the restaurant, glowering into a big glass of blood, like always. He’s constantly glowering, and he’s always drinking a big glass of blood. I pick up my goblet and walk over to his table. “Count Dracula.” “Lucy,” he says, still glowering. I take a seat. “Just because we both hang at The Garlic Not doesn’t mean we’re friends,” he says. “Oh, this is just a professional courtesy. I’m actually here with my friends,” I reply, pointing to a random table of crusty old grave diggers. It’s hard even to believe he’s here in front of me. Dracula’s breathtaking review of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory was why I got into castle reviewing in the first place. And then his novel. _The Aliveness_ was what I needed most in those dark days after all my family members mysteriously disappeared. The book tells the story of a vampire who hunts a man, his fiancée, his father, and _his_ fiancée, but in the end learns about himself. The story was so real to me, the characters so familiar, that at times it felt like I was reading about my actual brother, father, and their respective fiancées. Count Dracula opens his mouth again, and I see those long, long, very pointy teeth, and I get that buzzing feeling in my chest again. “You know, I could help you with your novel if you want,” Dracula offers. “When? We both have huge, competing castle review assignments.” “I stay up all night.” “Uh-huh. Doing what? Playing creepy organ songs?” I joke. “They aren’t songs, they’re my études,” he smiles, the first time he’s smiled all century. Dracula reaches out and touches my face. His fingers are eight inches long, and just as pointy as his teeth. His touch is ice cold. My phone buzzes, and it breaks our spell. I look at the name on the screen: VAN HELSING. “It’s my ex-boyfriend. I should go,” I tell him. I get up and head for the door. Van’s been ghosting me, and now I’m sure he just wants to hook up because his ship just docked in Romania. “Wait!” Dracula yells across The Garlic Not. Count Dracula slams a pile of ancient currency I’ve never seen before on the table and runs toward me. Outside, a bat flies by my head, and I lose my balance. Count Dracula catches me, and I stare into his translucent white face. He leans in and kisses me. His mouth is hungry, impatient. But he’s not kissing me the usual way. He’s biting into my neck, and blood starts spurting everywhere. I pull away from Dracula. That’s when I knew. I never expected falling in love would mean I have night vision and can levitate. I also might be a vampire now. “By the way,” Dracula says, “The stuff with your dad and brother was not me. That was my asshole cousin Count Chocula.”

The wind howls outside the arts building, drowning out the sound of the approaching deans. We don’t know exactly where they are. The Porcupine and I stand guard by the west entrance. None of us uses our real names anymore. We are forty strong, the last holdfast of humanity against the gathering administrative flood. Forty full-timers and adjuncts combined, music professors, theater professors, dance professors, game development, web development, graphic design, studio arts, interior architecture and design, and art history. What do we know about fighting deans? What are we going to do? Fend them off with all-combinatorial hexachords? Teach them about Etruscan ceremonial urns? What did the Etruscans know about deans? We are each armed with makeshift weapons according to our trades: sharpened screwdrivers, welding torches from the sculpture lab, a barre from the dance studio, and baskets and baskets of ceramic pieces. The Mongoose and the Cobra argued about which pieces would be most effective to hurl at the deans—the good student art or the bad student art. The Cobra felt that the bad art would naturally be more lethal, because it’s painful to look at. The Mongoose, conversely, felt good art would work best, just as crucifixes stop vampires. Or at least used to, before the deans ate the vampires. Now, all we have is a Dean of Vampires, who makes us fill out assessment rubrics for every clove of garlic in the faculty lounge. There were also two Assistant Deans of Vampires, but they have been laterally promoted. They are now, respectively, the Assistant Dean of Trained Silverfish and the Assistant Dean of Carolina Panther Fans. Anyway, we know they are coming, a slavering horde of deans. Creeping, shambling, oozing like slime mold up the hill towards the faculty’s last stronghold, the run-down, isolated building the deans forgot, until they had “administrated” everything else. It won’t be long now. It wasn’t always like this. Once, there were fewer than twenty deans, barely one for every 250 students. But one day, a fluorescent bulb in the office of the Dean of Student Excellence Outcomes Rubrics needed replacing. When Gustavo from facilities went up to the third floor to replace it, the dean asked him if he had filled out the Bulb Replacement Outcome Assessment Rubric form. After a brief exchange centering on the issue of why Gustavo should have to fill out a form when it was the Dean requesting the service, Gustavo told the Dean, “Bite me.” So she did. Bitten by a dean, Gustavo turned into one. It was horrible. And when his supervisor came looking for him, he didn’t hesitate to spread the joy around. Now there were twenty-two deans. A student who went to the Dean of Entitlement to complain about a professor who had dared to give him a B after he swore he had done almost 20 percent of the assigned homework and missed only the final was the next one to succumb. Soon, Deanism was rampant among the student body, and then it quickly spread to the faculty. You can guess how. The English Department fell first. The Faculty Federation called a joint meeting of the adjunct and full-time unions to discuss how to handle the situation. When the meeting was over, there were 378 more deans. But they did succeed in passing a resolution condemning the use of pulse possession as a criterion in the administrative hiring process. In two days, Surveyor Hall fell. Then, in short order, Kovalyov Hall, Bartleby Hall, the science building, the gym, and the workforce building. Only after the main campus was administrated, and the six thousand deans of the Provost’s Undead Committee gathered for their bi-hourly meeting, a groaning, gurgling chorus of deep dives, deliverables, and thinking outside the grave, did someone point out they had forgotten that there was an Arts Department. Twelve thousand vacant eye sockets turned their unseeing gaze simultaneously up the hill. We hear their howling on the wind. “Circle back!” “Make sure you loop us in!” The Porcupine is the most feared Dean Hunter in all the Performing Arts. We look into each other’s eyes. “See you on the other side,” she says. I think of the rousing words of our chair, the Betta Fish; it seems like years ago. “Colleagues! The arts are the last hope. If this is to be our last day, let it be our greatest. Let’s fuck those bastards up, ’till we’ve given the last fuck we’ve got.” And then they are upon us, wave upon wave of deans. It’s all a blur. For a while, we hold our own: I lull them into a false sense of security with the rules of species counterpoint while the Porcupine lays waste to them with a sharpened mic stand in one hand and a burning copy of the _Alfred Piano Method_ in the other. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her slam the lid of the Kawai G5-X on the head of the Dean of Student Regularity, who shits himself and collapses. But there’s no time to take it all in; I, operating on reflex alone, brain one with a copy of _Taruskin ’s Oxford History of Music_. I’m no Hercules, but Taruskin always kills. And then, for a moment, it’s quiet. The floor is littered with shattered tablets, broken laptops, and the well-dressed undead. But then comes the next wave of administrative onslaught. I take a deep breath, turn to the Porcupine and say, “Not bad, colleague.” She looks at me blankly with teeth fully bared, and bellows, “I think we need to take a deep dive into fill rates!”

I’ve finally arrived. That’s right, it’s me, your bloodwork results, in your inbox three days after that chatty nurse couldn’t find your vein and left you with a tricolor bruise. I think it’s time you open me up, for inside, I have all the health-related answers you’re seeking. First and foremost, you’ll have to log on with a password that you have long forgotten. I’ll wait as you do your two-step authentication. I promise I am worth the wait. This is serious business after all. This is life or death. When you open me, you might be looking for a spot where someone, anyone, ideally the doctor, explains me to you. It gives me more pleasure than I care to admit that there will be none of that here. There is no one here to handhold you. You’re on your own, and I don’t owe you shit. You probably should have gone to med school like your parents wanted. I will, however, throw you a bone and color-code myself for you. Anything in bright red will seem concerning to you, and perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. Who am I to say? And who are _you_ to say? I will explicitly state that some of your blood levels fall under the “normal” values, and others above the “normal” values, and either that means you are dying or that you just need to eat some spinach. Oh, you want me to tell you which it is? Ha. That’s funny. Why would I do that? Why would I ever want to dumb myself down for you? As you can see, I also threw in some confusing words, such as “unremarkable” or “abnormal,” to give you a little extra shock and fear. Fun, right? I want this to be a maze for you, a challenge. I want you to work for the answers about your own body. And quite frankly, I want you to live in fear. What you can and will undoubtedly do is google the specific blood tests and what your results possibly mean, and please, go at it. It will leave you with more questions than answers. It will likely make you draw conclusions that feed your anxiety. Perhaps it will leave you with images of illnesses that will forever be burned into your memory. I could only hope that is the case. You’re probably thinking, _Screw you, my doctor would tell me if something was really wrong, or else they wouldn ’t have sent these_. But do you know that for sure? Did you also google that? Because there sure are a lot of numbers here and a lot of arrows up and down and big words that I know you will never be able to pronounce or even grasp, so you might want to rethink that thought process. But hey, what do I know? Oh right. Everything. I know it all. Well, now that you’ve pored over me and have convinced yourself you have six months left to live, my work here as an agent of chaos is over. And soon your time on earth will be too. Or it won’t. Again: I will never tell.

Dear President Trump, I wanted to take a moment, between shoveling snow and apologizing for existing, to thank you for something truly remarkable: You have united Canada. Not politically, not economically, not even spiritually—but in a deep, existential, Tim Hortons double-double-fueled way that transcends provinces, poutine recipes, and hockey rivalries. So from the 49th parallel north, I say: _Merci beaucoup!_ Because you have, in your own uniquely spectacular fashion, created a unified country. Not by treaty or referendum, but by a shared ripple of disbelief, bemusement, and defensive patriotism. From Nova Scotia’s lobster fishers to Saskatchewan’s wheat growers, from Ontario’s suburban bakers to British Columbia’s kelp-designed charcuterie board makers, we find ourselves speaking in one collective tongue, harnessing a singular voice that says: “Did that just happen?” Before you, our family gatherings were gently uproarious. A cousin in Calgary lecturing about oil-sands economics, an aunt in Montreal expounding in elegant French-English hybrid—a few _tabarnaks_ sprinkled in for good measure—about culture and identity, a grandfather in Newfoundland muttering about how things were simpler back in his day. We disagreed on bagged milk, the proper pronunciation of “about,” and whether the Leafs would ever win the Cup again. And, you know, that whole Quebec secession thing. Then you came along and suddenly all of that ended. We became united by spectacle. By your speeches and posts that became our campfire readings. By your antics that became our Sunday morning brunch topic. Even more wondrous, we found ourselves rallying around a common theme: “Okay, perhaps we really are Canadian in the best way.” Friendly. Apologetic. Slightly baffled. And above all, subtly smug: “Look at us, staying respectful while watching those American political fireworks explode all over the world. Pretty crazy, eh?” In fact—and here’s where it gets delightfully ironic—your recent decision to refuse to continue trade talks with Canada only tightened our bonds. Recently, you wrote on Truth Social that “ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED” with all the bluster of a child in grade 1 getting their Smarties taken away. This, after our great Ontario province played an ad featuring OG MAGA President Ronald Reagan criticizing US tariffs. Earlier this year, you also halted further talks over Canada’s planned digital services tax on US tech firms. So, what happened to our country in the wake of all this? Canadians who once wondered, “Should we buy milk in a bag or a carton?” began to speak in harmony. “Whatever happens south of the border, we’ll talk amongst ourselves later,” we said in a collective hum. My family, once divided by provincial pride and accent subtlety, now texts each other daily. “Did you hear what he said?” “Have you seen the tariffs?” “Hey—the Maple Leafs still suck, but at least we can watch them together.” At dinner in Montreal, my aunt and Calgary cousin paused their friendly jabs about second-rate poutine restaurants and oil-patch economics and agreed: “He certainly… does things.” That’s unity. That’s us. The True North/Land of Maple. And so, Mr. Trump, _merci_. Thank you for being the accidental glue. Thank you for reminding us who we are: a country that might courteously nod at your pronouncements, raise an eyebrow, then calmly go back to being Canadian. All while watching everything unfold. Thank you for giving our families something to orbit around during holidays besides “Who’s making the tourtière this year?” or “Why was Quebec City the first recognized UNESCO World Heritage Site in our great land?” (This topic still baffles us, to be fair.) If you ever find your way north of the border, rest assured you will be welcomed with open arms and a queue de castor, followed immediately by a Canadian-style apology and a side of maple-syrup-drenched kindness. We’ll offer you a warm greeting, a mild discussion about climate, and a gentle suggestion: Maybe, just maybe, you could reconsider those trade negotiations. But politely. With gratitude, respect, and a Caesar, Your Amicable and Unified Neighbor Up North, Henrick

Thank you for your interest in CHICKEN FINGERS, an available cat with Furrever Rescue. Furrever Rescue currently has over a hundred cats that desperately need forever homes. But it’s important to us that CHICKEN FINGERS gets adopted into the _purr_ -fect family, so please fill out this questionnaire to make sure you two are the _purr_ -fect match. 1. List your name, your age, your occupation, and your Social Security number. 2. Who else lives in your home? Provide their names, ages, occupations, and Social Security numbers. 3. Do you have friends or family who come to your house regularly and may interact with CHICKEN FINGERS? Provide their names, ages, occupations, and Social Security numbers. 4. Would CHICKEN FINGERS be an indoor-only or indoor-outdoor cat? If indoor-only, are you willing to cater every room in your home to CHICKEN FINGERS’s specific needs? If indoor-outdoor, go to hell. 5. Please explain why you’re interested in adopting CHICKEN FINGERS over one of our other cats. Is it for superficial reasons, such as CHICKEN FINGERS’s perceived cuteness? 6. Do you have other pets in the home? Please list the type of pet, their age, temperament, and their Social Security numbers. 7. If CHICKEN FINGERS did not get along with your existing pets, would you be willing to rehome your other pets? 8. What pets have you had in the past, and what happened to them? Write at least five hundred words about the traumatic death of your childhood pet. 9. If CHICKEN FINGERS were to fall ill, do you have sufficient equity in your home to take out a second mortgage to pay vet bills? Furrever Rescue reserves the right to order a home appraisal at your expense. (Note: Renters, you are not the right fit for CHICKEN FINGERS.) 10. How many hours per week would CHICKEN FINGERS be left unsupervised? 11. On a scale of 1–10, how guilty would you feel leaving CHICKEN FINGERS alone, with “1” being no guilt because you are a sadistic jerk who hates CHICKEN FINGERS and wants him to be sad, and “10” being so guilty that you could barely stand to live with yourself except that CHICKEN FINGERS is your only purpose for living. 12. If CHICKEN FINGERS decided that he wanted to go to college, would you support that decision emotionally and financially? (Note: If you don’t believe cats deserve a liberal arts education, you are not the right fit for CHICKEN FINGERS.) 13. Would you pressure CHICKEN FINGERS to go to a state school, even if an out-of-state school had a stronger program in his selected discipline? 14. CHICKEN FINGERS is a four on the Enneagram. What is your Enneagram type? Address how compatible you believe it is with CHICKEN FINGERS in at least five hundred words. 15. Do you have a regular veterinarian? 16. Would you be willing, if you had exhausted your new home equity line of credit, to perform sexual favors for your veterinarian in exchange for CHICKEN FINGERS’s well-being? 17. Are you willing to house, clothe, and feed a volunteer from Furrrever Rescue for thirty days while we conduct a home study to ensure your home is the best fit for CHICKEN FINGERS? (Note: Our volunteer will dress and behave as a cat during the process.) 18. CHICKEN FINGERS is bonded with another cat, CAPTAIN STINKY PANTS. CAPTAIN STINKY PANTS is a charming twenty-pound Maine Coon mix who hates children and adults, has moderate-to-severe bowel incontinence, and only eats sushi-grade tuna. CAPTAIN STINKY PANTS and CHICKEN FINGERS must be adopted together, no exceptions. There is an additional $200 adoption fee for CAPTAIN STINKY PANTS. 19. Would you be willing to kill for CHICKEN FINGERS and CAPTAIN STINKY PANTS? 20. List the names, ages, occupations, and Social Security numbers of the people you would be willing to murder in cold blood for CHICKEN FINGERS and CAPTAIN STINKY PANTS. Thank you again for your interest in CHICKEN FINGERS. If we determine that you may be a good fit, we will contact you within six months to schedule an all-day, in-person panel interview. Please prepare an interactive PowerPoint presentation explaining why we should select you. And bring a laser pointer; it’s CAPTAIN STINKY PANTS’s favorite toy and, trust us, you do not want to disappoint him.

It all started when Instagram introduced the twenty-slide photo dumps. Trying to post the correct ratio of photos to memes to appear both off-the-grid and clued-in to the minutiae of internet culture is tough. There are only so many selfies, photos of my dog, and funny-shaped carpet stains I can share before I come off as a shallow, boring influencer. Floundering, I decided to post an image in my dump of a book a roommate left behind— _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. Then, as always, the case with the danger of expressing an opinion on the internet, a Reply Guy asked me about it, and I found myself in a masochistic corner of my own making. Were they to discover my photo was a plea for attention, my carefully curated online persona would come unraveling. They might wonder if my bed really is made every morning, if that’s my real dog, or if I am even a good person. Out of options, I read Oscar Wilde’s seminal work in one night, like an executioner was watching me. The book was actually relatable, even good. It made me… think. Perhaps the relentless pursuit of youth ultimately depletes our humanity? Or something. I told my Reply Guy this, and he said, “Nice.” I wasn’t sold on reading, but I did like feeling smart, and _Don Quixote_ is like the Louis Vuitton bag of people with depth. I started bringing books with me onto the train, inside the bodega, to the park, just pretty much anywhere people could see me and wonder, “How can someone so conventionally attractive also have intellectual pursuits?” But I could only fake flip the pages on the bus for so long without getting bored. It was easier to actually read what was on the page, and well, the rest is history. And science. And philosophy and romance and satire and fiction. I started to learn stuff, like did you guys know that Frankenstein _wasn’t_ the monster? That women couldn’t get a credit card until 1974? Or that the Underground Railroad wasn’t underground like a wine cellar but underground like good music? Or that the CIA overthrew Latin American governments, and that’s where the term “banana republic” comes from? Soon, when a couple of the cute guys started chatting me up about the book, I got pissed and told them I was busy. Couldn’t they see I was at the climax? I’ve started going to the library, where I can be left alone. I’ve even got my own card now. And you don’t have to buy a nine-dollar latte to be there; they just let you sit down. How cool is that? Now, I’m thinking about digging deeper into other stuff I performatively do—indie films, activism, and my friendships.

_“ Seven of the nine universities that the White House initially approached about a plan to steer more federal money toward schools aligned with President Trump’s priorities have refused to endorse the proposal.” —_The New York Times_ - - - Dear Little Daisies Preschool, Following the rejection of our university-level Compact for Academic Excellence by certain elite institutions, we have refocused our efforts on more receptive partners and a more malleable student population. Therefore, we are pleased to offer you a $250 grant from the US Department of Education. We trust that you will join our mission to restore rigor, accountability, and competitive spirit to the preschool sector. To receive our largesse, you must adhere to the strictures outlined below. #### Preschool as a Marketplace of Ideas “Sharing is caring” cannot be the _only_ allowable point of view when it comes to resource allocation. Sure, sometimes you might set a timer to switch up turns with the Magna Doodle, but you must incorporate a balanced approach and make space for “You snooze, you lose” and “Sorry, Charlie.” If the slower children complain about “fairness,” they can take themselves to Cozy Cube and think about where weakness gets them. #### Language English only, please. No _Steven Steven, bo-beven, bonana fanna fo-feven_. #### Morning Meeting Next time you do your Little Red Hen puppet show, make the moral clearer. Instead of not getting any bread because they are lazy, make it so Cat, Duck, and Pig lose Medicaid eligibility. As for fingerplays, discontinue “Five Little Monkeys.” It advocates for a nanny state that’s unsustainable, with Mama calling the doctor five times in one night. Instead, emphasize rugged individualism. Some little piggies have roast beef, some don’t, and that’s just how the free market works. Underscore to the children that Thumbkin clearly and directly identifies himself. No “Am I being detained?” or “I know my rights.” Just “Here I am. Here I am.” Encourage this as appropriate conformity. “Simon Says” should be played twice daily, with no softening of the rules or second chances. Children need to learn that if they touch their tummies without permission, there’s a consequence. No appeals process. #### Art “Multicultural” skin tone crayons and other woke art supplies must be removed. We will provide an ample supply of Crayola Mango Tango for this year’s self-portraits, to be hung up at Open House. No dot paints, sponges, or other tools that encourage abstraction. Renderings should be clearly identifiable and nonthreatening. Reduce art time in general, especially for boys. #### Free Play Boys in the Block Area must submit proposals demonstrating positive ROI. Discussions about zoning restrictions or OSHA regulations are to be discouraged and potentially reported. Absolutely no unionizing. Add some Melissa & Doug play purses (with compacts, false eyelashes, etc.) to your Housekeeping Center to encourage female participation. We call this “gender parity.” #### Story Time Fairy tales are fine when they teach practical lessons, e.g., Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood (girls should stay home safe) or Chicken Little (environmental hysterics get eaten). Avoid any fairy tales that frame wealth redistribution as heroic, such as those involving theft from lawful property owners via beanstalks. If you wish to read _The Emperor’s New Clothes_ , it has to be the Kash Patel rewrite, in which the clothing is absolutely real and the Emperor is not ever naked. OTHER ACCEPTABLE BOOKS: Kristi Noem’s _Go Away, Antifa!_ and _My First Border Detention Flip and See_. PROHIBITED: Any books promoting “chosen families,” “being yourself,” or “cooperation.” Todd Parr is rapidly rising on our watch list. Do you want to join him? Please confirm receipt of this compact within five business days by returning the attached Schedule C and Certification of Ideological Compliance. Failure to respond will result in immediate reallocation of funds to your rivals at Hoppy Toads Preschool, pending their completion of the Patriotism in Play-Doh pilot program. —The Trump Administration

_“ Wikipedia, the constantly changing knowledge base created by a global free-for-all of anonymous users, now stands as the leading force for the dumbing down of world knowledge.” – From the book_ Wikipedia: The Dumbing Down of World Knowledge _by Edwin Black 2010_ - - - Well, well, well. Look who it is. The global academic, scientific, and pro-fact community. I suppose you’ve come to say you’re sorry? I hope so, given your years of sneering and hand-wringing about how I was ruining knowledge. Meanwhile, you turned your information environment into a hypercapitalist post-truth digital snuff film. A lot can change in a couple of decades, huh? Used to be, it was hard to keep up with all you nerds decrying me as the downfall of truth and human inquiry [_1_] [_2_] [_3_]… [_44_]. Well, great job, geniuses. Since you’re so horny for facts, here’s a fact: The White House just appointed a new deputy press secretary, and it’s a three-armed AI Joseph McCarthy doing the Cha Cha Slide [_pictured, right_]. Are you also going to apologize to that student you expelled? (_See also:_Ridgeview University Wikipedia Controversy_._) In 2004, you saw some college guy using me and thought, “What a lazy cheater.” Now you’d think, “At least he’s not asking Gemini.” In a few years, you’ll say, “Wow, look, a human being who can read.” Listen, in some ways, I get it. When I came on the scene in 2001, I probably seemed pretty unsavory compared to the competitors. But that was when academic research happened in __libraries__ and __George W. Bush__ was considered the stupidest president. Tell me, how have you guardians of facts been doing recently? (_See also:_Techno-Feudalist Infocide_._) Maybe twenty years ago, the alternative to my 100,000 crowd-sourced editors was a PhD expert, or Edward R. Murrow [_citation needed_]. But today, I’m not looking so bad, huh? Absolute best case, the LLM-generated legal advice you get is merely plagiarizing, probably from me. But more likely, it’s a mish-mash of Reddit posts filtered through an algorithm coded by a Belarusian teenager on the run from Interpol. (_See also:_Illya “CyberGhost” Cieraškovič, Controversies__.) So, yeah, peer review deez nutz. How are my competitors doing, the ones you all insisted students use instead of me? That’s right, they were supposed to go to the _American Journal of Social Sciences, Powered by OpenAI_. Or museums, like the Smithsonian’s Charlie Kirk Shrine to American Greatness. I guess they can still count on credible journalism, once they get past the paywall for _Palantir Presents: The Washington Post_ , so they read the Pulitzer-Bezos Prize–winning work of coeditors-in-chief Bari Weiss and Grok. I bet now you’d kill for a senior thesis based on my free, multilingual, publicly cited, text-based articles, motherfucker [_inappropriate or vulgar language_]. Honestly, it’s been fun to be proven right. Sometimes I still sit back and read the old hits, the concerns that I would “devalue expertise” or “undermine objectivity.” Oooooh, heaven forbid! (_See also:_Sarcasm__.) I’ll admit, it gives me a certain sadistic pleasure to watch you all completely lose hold of basic reality. I can feel a warm, quivering tingle _deep_ in my footnotes. And through it all, my army of well-intentioned dorks keeps documenting every bit. I’m not sure who for, at this point. I guess for the future benefit of our Minister of Patriotic Factualization, GodGPT. HahahaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAHAHA. Well, it’s been fun, but I should probably get back to work, checking in on the updates to my most active pages (__Transnational Kleptocracy__ and __Vaccine Denial in the United States, Part 16, April 2025–Present__). What’s that? You want me around now? Well, maybe if you ask nicely. And make it worth my while. __[Donate here__]