Category: The Halcyon Days
-
Why, Complicator? (Okay, Computer.) – On Technology | An Excerpt
I am writing a long essay about technology. Its thesis is fairly simple: We live in an increasingly ugly world. To escape its ugliness, we seek diversion. Whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, Second Life, Farmville, or any number of games we can play on our mobile devices, many are integrating an ethic of escapism into…
-
Autoinvolutionism, n.
Autoinvolutionism noun Of or describing the tendency to become self-involved or have one’s worldview circumscribed by algorithmic processes determining wants, needs, and friends–used especially with respect to that state of being brought about by social-networking and other ostensibly social technologies. : Norbert came upon the idea that users of Facebook turned their desks, laps, tables,…
-
Freefall, or Note From the Police Station
Last night, I was at the police station. Long story. And I saw you, shaky, cracked out. Ringed shiny red brown, waking contusions, bruises of eyes wide opened. You called, the one they give you. And, twenty minutes later, your father came in gruff and angry and telling the officers to get the hell off of her. Get away from her. She’s my daughter. What have…
-
My New Favorite Google Search Query Directing Readers to The Halcyon Days
Second one from the top. Whomever you are, know this: You’d be surprised.
-
On Monsters: Reviewing Coupland’s Player One.
Over the course of yesterday afternoon, I listened to Douglas Coupland’s speech he delivered at the 2010 Massey Lectures. Player One: What is to Become of Us is unlike other Massey Lectures. It is a novel, and was read aloud by its author over the course of five hours. It is available in audiobook and…
-
Poetic Side Effects
Poetic Side Effects: The result of looking at a water molecule and being able to predict rainbows, or inventing the motor vehicle and predict that dogs will cheerfully stick their faces out into the oncoming wind. – Douglas Coupland, Player One: What Is to Become of Us
-
Two Extended Quotes From William Hazlitt’s Essays
William Hazlitt is one of my favorite writers. Writing in the early- and mid-nineteenth century, Hazlitt articulated the voice of the Romantic movement like few others could. An essayist, painter, poet, and, for all intents and purposes, the inventor of sports journalism (which he did with an article about a cricket game), Hazlitt was an…
-
Regarding Environmentalism in an Age of Exponential Change
It’s kind of like getting topical anesthetic when you’re getting your leg amputated. The pain of the whole experience might be lessened marginally, but, still, once you get beyond the first centimeter of cutting it’s enough to obliterate your being. Sustainable growth is a myth; given current rates of consumption, zero growth is unsustainable.