Velcro City Tourist Board

Author: PGR

  • the project of human mastery must always remain incomplete

    Procrastinating this morning by catching up on a stack of as-yet-unread newsletter emails from L M Sacasas. This bit in particular, from 11th March, chimed with a lot of my recent early-morning thinkings-through of The Ongoing Situation: … it is curious to note again the recent proliferation of conspiracy theorizing, something I’ve previously attributed to…

  • Monday; morning; Moon

    Because, as some observant wags have already pointed out by email, I can’t see Warren Ellis do a thing without having to copy it. But also because I used to write about music all the time, until I didn’t, because my PhD ate my life and a drive failure ate my all-digital music collection (and…

  • the caricature of a time that is no longer ours

    Oncle Bruno on the radical ecological potential—or perhaps the lack thereof— of the current moment: The originality of the present situation, it seems to me, is that by remaining trapped at home while outside there is only the extension of police powers and the din of ambulances, we are collectively playing a caricatured form of…

  • bring your own metaphor

  • archaeology of prestidigitatory production

    A short Doug Rushkoff riff that chimes with my extended infrastructure-as-stage-magic metaphor: The industrialist’s dream was to replace [workers] entirely — with machines. The consumers of early factory goods loved the idea that no human hands were involved in their creation. They marveled at the seamless machined edges and perfectly spaced stitches of Industrial Age…