Marie suns herself in her space dress.

Vanity in America

I’m starting to wonder if my culture has turned a vice into a virtue. We are inundated constantly by the industries that profit off of vanity. Imaginary new “problems” are invented for perfect people – do you have thigh gap? Are your teeth white enough? Are your eyebrows the right Read more…

girl looks upset and cold, sitting in ice prison

Innocence

We’re re-watching Gargoyles, a favorite cartoon from my childhood. In the most recent episode, Demona, the Bad Girl Gargoyle, is trying to show how humanity is evil, and one things she shows is a purse-snatching, and she stops her friend from going after the purse snatcher, telling him, “With human Read more…

cartoon of woman riding a bike uphill

First Gear

A friend of mine had recently gotten into cycling, and asked me, “I’m confused. Isn’t it that the lower a gear is, the more you have to pedal to move forward?” “Yes,” I said. “And higher gears allow you to go faster because each pedal push will turn the wheels Read more…

Marie throws up teal chalk dust like she's casting magic in an abandoned factory.

Against Magic

We have a salad vending machine at work. It was the cause of some excitement. “It’s like magic!” a co-worker said. “Robots making salad!” Except, every morning, a cafeteria worker was dicing up the ingredients to the machine’s specifications, and another worker came and filled the machine and cleaned it. Read more…