Television personalities Graham Norton and Hannah Waddingham stand behind a desk on a stage in their glittery outfits. They are listening to the representative from the Lithuanian broadcasting jury who announces via satellite that they are giving twelve points to Sweden. A chant starts up from the crowd, “cha cha cha! cha cha cha! CHA… Continue reading Eurovision Statecraft
Author: gcolemanmn
The Florida Project
Disney’s business isn’t looking very good these days. They’ve laid off 7000 staff; announced the closure of their expensive and ambitious Star Wars LARPing hotel after it being open for only a year; their recently announced projects are all live-action remakes no one asked for; and a planned expansion to their Orlando campus has been… Continue reading The Florida Project
Utopian Scholastic
Aesthetic PlanetOne of the things that I’ve appreciated about living in Ireland for the past 3 years is being able to escape the political bubble of the United States. Not in the sense that Ireland’s government sometimes actually functions like a democracy, though that is refreshing, but that US perspectives on politics and culture are… Continue reading Utopian Scholastic
Island Life
Originally published as part of the Digestable newsletter: “Long time long time,” sings a fish in a striped shirt and tie in the opening of Niki Lindroth Von Bahr’s short film Min Börda (2017), “This is where you come if you want to stay a long time.” The stop-motion film follows four groups of anthropomorphic… Continue reading Island Life
The People Mover
First published as part of the Digestable newsletter Content Warning: This piece focuses exclusively on wealthy eccentric white men. Last week, Elon Musk’s company The Boring Company unveiled their most recent project, the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop. This grandchild of the fantastical hyperloop, the most stripped down and boring version of the concept anyone… Continue reading The People Mover
Disco Is Dead, Long Live Disco
Originally published as part of the Digestable newsletter: 2020 seemed like the crest of a long 70s/80s disco nostalgia wave that’s been hitting music since the middle of last decade. I would mark the start of the nu-disco trend with the iconic, and now final (RIP) Daft Punk album Random Access Memories. The trend was… Continue reading Disco Is Dead, Long Live Disco
Thanos
Originally published as part of the Digestable newsletter: I’ve been diving into the Marvel Cinematic Universe the past couple of weeks, out of lack of stimulation and procrastination. My friend Richard describes the films as a “concentrated sugar high:” attractive people in body-hugging outfits and an emotional whiplash of tragedy and comedy all strung together… Continue reading Thanos
Immaterial Girl
Originally published as part of the Digestable newsletter The world lost a beautiful human and a visionary queer voice this weekend when 34 year old musician and producer Sophie Xeon died in Athens. SOPHIE’s uncanny hyperpop has been associated with the London experimental pop label PC Music, but her notoriety and the depth of her… Continue reading Immaterial Girl
The Nitrogen Cycle
This is a collection of three pieces on nitrogen, legumes, and soy originally written for the Digestable newsletter: Nitrogen Last Tuesday, 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in a waterfront warehouse in Beirut exploded, killing over 160 people, injuring thousands more, and leaving 300,000 people without homes. There’s been some great reporting tying this explosion to previous… Continue reading The Nitrogen Cycle
The Kensington Runestone
Originally published as part of the Digestable newsletter I listened to the radio play Saber, MN, recommended by the lovely Molly Rose, and it got me thinking about one of Minnesota’s foundational myths. The fictional town of Saber, MN was founded because of the discovery of a sabertooth tiger skull fossil by a farmer plowing… Continue reading The Kensington Runestone