paragon: jane mcgonigal’s “reality is broken”

The sheer number of games I invented or modified during my youth is both amazing and typical. Ninja Hide. Best Path. Tennis Baseball. Elder Dragon Wars. Fatal Leap. Cheater. Pothole Racing. I modified… Read More →

yeshe chölwa

At theology camp, it was important to seem busy, so we were — the days were just packed. We would have breakfast at seven, woken up by reggae versions of non-reggae songs. Breakfast… Read More →

Idiot Wind: Julia Glassman’s Other Life Forms

In “The American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said: As no air-pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum, so neither can any artist entirely exclude the conventional, the local, the perishable from… Read More →

as a matter of fact it’s all dark: cyberpunk, language, and the two worlds

Emma Becciu, one of the most gifted interpreters I’ve ever known, has begun a language & translation blog. A lot of it is in Italian; if you can’t read that, turn on Chrome’s… Read More →

in case of emergency

(SCENE. Kugelmass and Nicholas Bourbaki are chatting via Skype. To Kugelmass’s right is a small, unkempt mattress, strewn with gummi bears and Walter Benjamin essay collections. To his left is a painting that… Read More →

My Day (With Apologies to Harper’s Index)

Total time spent on bed-related issues: 2 hours Amount of these two hours that were spent on fitted sheet: 15 minutes Amount of time doing exchange at Bed Bath & Beyond: 30 minutes… Read More →

The Social Netflix

Dear readers, No matter what I’m doing, whether I’m being social, or working, or procrastinating, or flirting, I’m rarely all that far away from a screen. That’s particularly true now that I’ve got… Read More →

A Political World: Malcolm Gladwell Invents Friendship, Disses Internet

For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do… Read More →

On Writer’s Block and Responding to the Joker comments

Dear readers, Happy Indian summer, everybody! Even if you’ve already headed back to school, or are working an eight-to-five, there’s a dreamlike haze to August, a feeling as though there’s still one or… Read More →

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner: Side Jobs and the Internet Economy

Such a muddy line between The things you want And the things you have to do -Sheryl Crow, “Leaving Las Vegas” Over eighty thousand pounds! I knew, didn’t I know I knew? Malabar… Read More →