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The Arresting Typography of the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
Several years ago, Brandon Silverman become obsessed with the lettering and typography on the fire insurance maps published by the Sanborn Map Company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Sanborn maps were designed to help insurance companies assess the fire risk of individual properties. They were highly detailed, showing the size, shape, and construction of buildings, as well as the materials used in their construction. This information was used by insurance companies to calculate the premium that a property owner would have to pay for fire insurance.
He even used the ornate, intricately designed covers as a model for his wedding invitation. Silverman recently launched a site dedicated to the design of these fire maps, collecting high-res digital scans of the art found on almost every cover and index page, over 3500 images in all. The cover pages are particularly beautiful. Oh, and you can order prints of all the images as well.
Fun fact: Silverman first learned about the fire insurance maps from a 2011 post on kottke.org.
The oldest known wild bird, Wisdom, a 74 year old Laysan albatross, has a new egg. Laysan albatrosses mate for life, but Wisdom’s mate hadn’t been seen in a few years. Last week, she landed in Hawaii and started cavorting with a new male.
No One Has to Settle for Bad Pizza Anymore. “Violinists have the Stradivarius. Sneakerheads have the Air Jordan 1. Pizza degenerates like me have the Ooni.”
Grand Theft Hamlet
Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, actors out of work during the pandemic, were playing Grand Theft Auto when they found the Pinewood Bowl amphitheater and decided to try staging a production of Hamlet within the game with other players voicing all the parts. Grand Theft Hamlet is a documentary about the effort. It’s not streaming anywhere yet, but I hope it will be soon!
They audition all-comers: an uproarious business in which weird randoms show up with a tendency to destroy others by using a flame-thrower or rocket-launcher for no reason at all while the production is being explained to them.
They end up performing the play all over the city, “this is Shakespeare on a billion dollar budget,” not sticking to the amphitheater. The trailer looks great.
Vaccines have saved 150 million children over the last 50 years. “Every ten seconds, one child is saved by a vaccine against a fatal disease.” Almost 94 million from measles alone.
No surprise: conservatives are embracing media villains like Tony Soprano & Judge Dredd. “One’s model for justice should not be a fascist invented in part to illustrate the distinction between elite impunity and the brutality that ordinary people face.”
Your 2024 Therapy Wrapped. “2024 was a BUMPY ride…and your therapist was right there with you for every maternal microaggression and election-induced tummy ache. Let’s see how your neuroses stacked up…”
This Beautiful Day: Daily Wisdom from Mister Rogers
This Beautiful Day: Daily Wisdom from Mister Rogers (Bookshop) is exactly what it says on the tin: a book of daily reflections from the writings, stories, and shows of Fred Rogers. I would be chuffed to find this under the tree on Xmas morning.
“Food deserts are not an inevitable consequence of poverty or low population density, and they didn’t [form] for no reason.” Guess who? Ronald Fucking Reagan! The government stopped enforcing price discrimination laws in the 80s & big chains thrived.
Just updated the 2024 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide with suggestions from Kottke readers, a surprisingly popular Japanese nail clipper, a bonkers Criterion Collection box set, and a very unique timepiece.
It appears that the brutal reign of the Assad regime is over after more than 50 years. “Syrian rebels declared they had ousted President Bashar al-Assad after seizing control of Damascus on Sunday, forcing him to flee…”
Catherine Russell has starred in the same off-Broadway play for 37 years, runs the theater it plays in, teaches six days a week, manages a restaurant, and even works the box office one day a week. I’m tired just writing all that!
Jia Tolentino on the sometimes celebratory reaction to the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and what it says about business & violence in America. “A denied health-insurance claim can instantly bend the trajectory of a life toward bankruptcy and misery and death.”
A fantastic interactive feature about the newly restored Notre-Dame cathedral. “Each day we have 20 difficulties. But it’s different when you work on a building that has a soul. Beauty makes everything easier.”
A Bluesky starter pack of major news outlets that have joined the platform, including CNN, The Guardian, Reuters, NPR, Financial Times, WSJ, Wired, and USA Today.
This Is What The Internet’s For
I wonder if, when Bobby Internet invented the internet, he imagined it would be used for videos like this. There’s something so fun about watching people crack up at work. See also SNL actors breaking. They also have fun accents, which I maybe shouldn’t say because kottke.org is worldwide and if you live in Australia, you probably just think the videos are funny without any special notice of the accent.
Anyway, I was watching this and my eight year old saw it over my shoulder and said excitedly, “I’ve seen that!” I thought he was watching mostly Bluey so I asked him what he searched to find this and he said, “Balloon popping videos,” matter of factly, so I guess we’re kind of the same and that’s a perfectly understandable thing for an 8-year-old to be searching for on YouTube. Then we watched a video of these guys throwing things off a Swiss dam.
404 Media, reporting on 404’d media: big health insurance companies are removing information about their executive leadership teams from their websites.
98-Year-Old Dick Van Dyke Stars in Lovely New Coldplay Video
Coldplay tapped Spike Jonze & Mary Wigmore to direct the music video for a song called All My Love from their latest album and the pair decided to turn it into an early 99th birthday celebration of Dick Van Dyke. Van Dyke danced a bit, sung a bit, was swarmed by his family, and ruminated on nearing the end of his life:
I’m acutely aware that I could go any day now, but I don’t know why it doesn’t concern me. I’m not afraid of it. I have the feeling — totally against anything intellectual I have — that I’m gonna be alright.
The video is really quite moving — what a splendid human. Watch until the end, when Chris Martin composes a song on the spot for an absolutely delighted Van Dyke. (via @danielgray.com)
“The sound of traffic and a uniform sea of barley have been replaced by the most beautiful meadows, full of wildflowers, young saplings and the buzz of bees.” The bees will come back if you give them flowers.
The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age. “We’ve been cored like apples, a dependency created, hooked on the public internet to tell us the worth. Every notification ping holds the possibility we have merit.”
After almost 25 years, Paul Krugman is retiring as a NYT opinion columnist. Krugman: “I decided to leave in search of more freedom in terms of both style and content.”
NASA’s Rocket Engine Fireplace
Oh, this is so good: NASA has an 8-hour cozy fireplace video in 4K that’s actually a rocket engine (in a fireplace).
This glowing mood-setter is brought to you by the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket that launched Artemis I on its mission around the Moon and back on Nov. 16, 2022. 8.8 million pounds of total thrust – and a couple glasses of eggnog – might just be enough to make your holidays merry.
“subtle foreshadowing” — I laughed unbelievably hard at this, just absolutely gasping to breathe. Academy Award winner for best editing right here.
Looney Tunes Backgrounds
This Instagram account posts the backgrounds of Looney Tunes cartoons with the Looney Tunes characters removed. As @presentcorrect.bsky.social remarks, these images are also a great resource for color palettes.
Indivisible: A Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink. “This guide outlines concrete strategies and tactics that collectively will help us limit harm, win in 2026, and throw MAGA out in 2028.”
You don’t actually have to stay on Twitter. “There are many better tools to persuade people with, organize with, frame arguments with, and have fun with.”
An unidentified disease (“Disease X”) in the Democratic Republic of Congo has infected 376 people, killed 79 people (mostly children), and “appears to be airborne”. They hope to have an ID by the weekend. This seems bad?
Vintage Hand-Drawn VHS Labels
This person posted a bunch of images of their dad’s old VHS tapes with lovingly hand-drawn labels indicating their contents. Kids, this is what people did before the internet.
Also, it’s weird/interesting that CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, LaserDisc, cassettes, MiniDisc, and 8-tracks are all played on devices named for the media (e.g. CD player) but VHS tapes are played on VCRs. We could have easily started calling them “VCR tapes” or “VHS players” en masse, but we mostly collectively stuck to the “correct” terminology. (thx, david)
32 Rules for Flying Now. Like: “This should go without saying, but there’s no reason, ever, to take off your socks on a plane.” And: “Triple-check that your cat didn’t get into your carry-on bag.”
Reminder: Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is playing at IMAX screens around the country this weekend.
The average brightness of car headlights on US roads has doubled since 2015. “As headlights get brighter, it’s actually becoming harder to see.” I hate the brighter headlights, both on on-coming traffic and on my car (can’t dim them).
Any Suggestions for the Gift Guide?
I posted the first pass of the 2024 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide yesterday and just added some new items to it this morning (this link will take you right to the new stuff). I’m gonna be updating it every day or two with new gift guides and things I run across, but I wanted to ask you folks if there’s anything you would recommend for the list. Please leave a comment below! And don’t forget to include links — you can just paste a URL into the comment box and it will autolink it for you. (And comments are editable for 10 minutes, so if you screw it up or forget the link, you have time to fix it.)
If you run an online store or sell products that would be appropriate for holiday gifts, feel free to share your own stuff. (But be reasonable and personable — if you paste a press release into my website, I’m gonna yeet that comment right into the Sun.)
Comments are members-only, but I will also be taking suggestions via email — send them along and I will make sure they are included below. Thanks!
You Have Not Died of Dysentery. “It’s a version of Oregon Trail where dysentery doesn’t kill you, it just makes you pull over to poop, constantly.”
A playlist of the 100 most streamed songs on Spotify. The current #1 is The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights (4.59 billion streams) followed by Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You (4.12B) and Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Love (3.7B). Never even heard of Capaldi!
Ken Burns’ Documentary on Leonardo da Vinci
Now airing on PBS and streaming on their website, a new four-hour documentary film about Leonardo da Vinci directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon.
A 15th century polymath of soaring imagination and profound intellect, Leonardo da Vinci created some of the most revered works of art of all time, but his artistic endeavors often seemed peripheral to his pursuits in science and engineering. Through his paintings and thousands of pages of drawings and writings, Leonardo da Vinci explores one of humankind’s most curious and innovative minds.
The trailer for the series is above and there are several extended clips available on the website and on YouTube.
Rob Stephenson is currently visiting and photographing all 350 neighborhoods in NYC. “Some things I’ve learned so far: Nobody can agree on a neighborhood’s name or borders. Every neighborhood has something worth seeing.”
The War on Poverty Is Over. Rich People Won. “Why do so many Americans live in poverty? Because so many rich people benefit from it.”
Jesus, this story about an IVF clinic mix-up… “Two couples in California discovered they were raising each other’s genetic children. Should they switch their girls?”
The 2024 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide
Since 2013, I’ve done a holiday gift guide that’s basically a curated roundup of stuff from the best gift guides I can find. I always do it a little bit differently from year to year, and this year I’m going with a simple list. It’s gonna be dense…let’s go!
1. Charitable giving. If you can, give cash to your local food bank. Volunteer. Start with GiveWell’s list of “high-impact, cost-effective charities”. Here are Vox’s 10 guidelines for giving effectively. I personally give to the National Network of Abortion Funds.
2. The Kid Should See This Gift Guide is the GOAT for kids’ gifts. Every dang year they hit it out of the park. What caught my eye this year: Wyrmspan is a dragon-themed “sequel” to Wingspan by Elizabeth Hargrave; Yoto Player Bluetooth Speaker for Kids (I have friend who swear by these for their kids); Cloudspotting for Beginners (Bookshop); and the Thames & Kosmos Roller Coaster Engineering STEM Kit (omg, I would have loved loved loved this as a kid…and this Nat Geo magnetic marble run). [via The Kid Should See This Gift Guide]
3. You can give the gift of Kottke! *cringe* There’s The Kottke Hypertext Tee and The Process Tee in light & dark colors. There are kottke.org gift memberships as well starting at $30/yr; check the FAQ on the membership page for more options and details.
4. Wahhhhh, I love these spring bowls & sun bowls from Studio Arhoj. Oh and The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Bookshop) and The Complete Far Side (Bookshop). [via The Atlantic’s 2024 Gift Guide]
5. Twelve South AirFly Duo is a Bluetooth transmitter that you can plug into the jack on your seatback TV on the airplane and then use your Bluetooth headphones to listen to your movie. I have one of these; it works great. Apple AirTags are essential travel infrastructure these days. Oooh, there’s a new addition to the Sushi Go! family of games: Spin Some for Dim Sum. I reget to admit I am a tiny bit curious about Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. [via The Verge’s 2024 holiday gift guide]
6. You know her, you love her: Edith Zimmerman. Her Etsy shop is chock full of prints, cards, and even original watercolor paintings. Go get ‘em.
7. Verbatim from last year: You’re probably getting tired of me talking about the 2nd-gen Apple AirPods Pro but I use mine every day and they are great. Almost every book I read, I read on the Kindle Paperwhite — it’s light, waterproof, and very travel-friendly. (Though I am still eyeing the Colorsoft Kindle.)
8. You’ve still got a chance to buy the fine-art edition of Craig Mod’s Things Become Other Things before it sells out forever. I just finished reading it a few days ago and I regret to inform you that it is infuriatingly good, the bastard.
9. Tinned fish! I have my eye on the Fishwife Smoky Trio 3-Pack (Smoked Rainbow Trout, Smoked Salmon, Smoked Mackerel). [via The Amateur Gourmet Gift Guide 2024]
10. Uniqlo’s HEATTECH Ultra Warm T-Shirt is one of the warmest and comfiest shirts I’ve ever owned. I picked one up when I was in NYC a couple of months ago and I loved it so much I just ordered two more the other day. On sale right now for $20! Men’s. Women’s.
11. Dozens of puzzles of New Yorker covers. [via Cup of Jo’s Best Gifts for Dads]
12. A handmade crokinole board from Muzzies. And a budget-friendly option. (If you’re wondering what crokinole is.)
14. {I asked Edith for a gift suggestion and here’s what she sent me. Thanks, Edith! -j} I’d like to recommend these cute, fleece-lined “Antura” baby booties from Reima. I felt a little silly getting them for my first daughter (surely there’s a hand-me-down option?), but they’re still going strong on baby no. 2, they stay put, we get compliments wherever we go, and they work well, warmth-wise. They don’t seem to be available in the “Cinnamon” color I ordered in 2022, but Red Violet and Navy are great, too.
15. My friend Caroline hiked Vermont’s Long Trail this summer and compiled a small list of outdoors supplies for the gift guide: ThermoDrop Zipper-Pull Thermometer, Opinel wood-handled stainless steel folding knives, Kahtoola MICROspikes, and Smartwool’s Thermal Merino Reversible Cuffed Beanie. And the Cotopaxi Bataan fanny pack, about which she said: “The MVP of my hiking trip. No more fiddling around with side pockets or opening your pack any time you need a snack, to find your your phone or to look at the map.”
16. My friends at Colossal recently-ish reopened their shop and I love these Cyanometer Postcards (for measuring the blueness of the sky and the orangeness of the sunset). [via The Colossal Gift Guide]
17. I like getting The Giant Jam Sandwich (Bookshop) as a gift for the little readers in my life. [via The Strategist’s What’s Your Go-to Book to Gift Little Kids?]
18. Come on, someone has to buy this 55-gallon drum of personal lubricant this year. We need this to save 2024.
19. Richard Scarry-themed temporary tattoos from Tattly. Lowly Worm, Huckle Cat, the Apple Car, Goldbug, and many more of your favorites.
20. My daughter got me this jar of truffle butter as a gift last year and it’s so good (and it lasts forever in the fridge). Perfect for putting into white, creamy pasta sauces or as a finishing element for a grilled cheese. (Also I just learned you can buy white truffles on Amazon but I wouldn’t?)
21. kottke.org guest editor Aaron Cohen owns a pair of ice cream shops in the Boston area and they take their merch very seriously. So many t-shirts! Oh and you can find pints of Gracie’s ice cream all over the Boston metro area…as far away as Concord and Beverly.
22. Did you know that you can commission a portrait from one of the artists belonging to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters?
23. Pal Austin Kleon’s book, Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad (Bookshop), seems like a good thing to be reading these days. [via The 2024 Kleon Studios Gift Guide]
24. I love this one: gift audiobooks from Libro.fm. “You choose the credit bundle, your gift recipient picks their own audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase!” Two credits (for two books) for $30, 3 for $45, 6 for $90, etc.
25. A levitating Moon lamp, anyone? Or a Bluetooth cassette player? [via the New Yorker’s Little Treats Galore: A Holiday Gift Guide]
26. Pal Robin Sloan and his partner Kathryn Tomajan run a tiny olive oil producer called Fat Gold. This year they’re offering a Super Fresh Gift Set of olive oil produced just a few months ago. I can also recommend Sloan’s latest novel, Moonbound (Bookshop) — I’m eagerly awaiting the second installment. [via Robin’s 2024 gift guide]
27. Another great gift list for kids’ stuff: Purdue University’s 2024 Engineering Gift Guide. Some of their picks: Mochi Robotics Kit: Screenless Coding for Ages 3-9; Snap Circuits “Arcade” Electronics Exploration Kit; and Smartivity’s Robotic Mechanical Hand. [via Purdue University’s 2024 Engineering Gift Guide]
28. Do you want a tiny little TV with a miniature remote? You can load your own videos on here for some reason… What about Teenage Engineering’s completely unhinged medieval sampler, drum machine and sequencer? [via Gizmodo’s Best Tech Gifts of 2024]
29. Food/kitchen things that I can vouch for: Xi’an Famous Foods meal kits, pastrami from Katz’s Delicatessen, Ernest Wright’s kitchen scissors, the Ooni Volt electric pizza oven, Headley & Bennett’s crossback apron, and this Zojirushi rice cooker (Neuro Fuzzy!).
30. Also Verbatim from last year: Let’s destigmatize the gift card: there is no shame in not knowing what to get someone for a gift, even if you know them really well. This is actually the gift of getting someone exactly what they want. There’s the obvious Amazon gift card but you can also get cards for Apple (use it for Fitness+ or Apple TV+?), Audible, Fortnite, Snapchat, Airbnb, Disney+, Spotify, Netflix, and Roblox.
31. Sometimes people ask me where to buy art online and I always direct them to 20x200. For instance, just take a look at Harold Fisk’s Mississippi River meander maps.
32. Speed round of friends and readers of the site who sell cool shit: Simplebits (shirts, fonts, and more), Wondermade marshmallows, Hella Cocktail Co. (bitters, mixers, canned margs), This is a MomBod, Jodi Ettenberg’s Legal Nomads shop (food art, totes, shirts) and gluten free translation cards and celiac travel guides, Yen Ha (prints), Moss & Fog, Spoon & Tamago, Fitz (custom fitted eyeglasses), and Field Notes. (to be continued…)
33. Stuff from last year’s guide that still slaps: Keap Wood Cabin candle (had this burning today…I love the smell), Crayola Palm-Grip Crayons, this cute whale butter dish, Darn Tough socks, leather floppy disk wallet, and Analogue Pocket (actually in stock).
34. Thing that I want: Insta360 GO 3S. It’s a teeny 4K camera that you can magnet-attach to your shirt and record yourself, say, downhilling on your mountain bike.
35. Teens are impossible to shop for. The Strategist always has good gift guides: The Best Gifts for Teenage Girls, According to Teenage Girls; The Best Gifts for Teenage Boys, According to Teenage Boys. The Spikeball set, disco ball, and this Brooklinen robe look promising. And I can recommend the tortilla blanket for ages 0 to 120…everyone loves this thing.
{Dec 8: Added some new items to the list below…}
36. I asked readers for gift suggestions and IMO the resulting thread is even better than the gift guide I put together. There’s some great stuff here: wooden puzzles; colorful, design-y charging stands for Apple things; leather bound notebooks; box cutters; and this vintage shop on Etsy. Go check out the rest here.
37. More friends and readers of the site who sell cool shit! Pink Tiger Games (“sweet, kind” tabletop games), Storyworth (keepsake books), Christoph Niemann (prints & books), Noah Kalina (photographic prints & books), Jessica Hische (prints, apparel, fonts, etc.), Mike Monteiro (paintings), Cotton Bureau (t-shirts and more),
38. Surprisingly popular item from last year’s gift guide: this Japanese nail clipper. (This tracks because when you finally adult up and buy a quality nail clipper, the shame you feel at wasting so much time on a shitty nail clipper is real.)
39. No surprise that Roxane Gay’s gift guide includes some bangers: CC40 (Criterion Collection 40th anniversary box set that includes 40 films like Tokyo Story, Do the Right Thing, Cléo from 5 to 7), vintage menu art, the Bird Buddy bird feeder, and Haptic Labs’ Constellation Quilt.
40. Gift guide lightning round: Helen Rosner’s food-focused list for the New Yorker, Cup of Jo’s 2024 holiday gift guide, 48 Homemade Food Gifts for the Holidays, The Best Bookish Gifts Under $30, Lenny’s Newsletter holiday gift guide 2024, Every Holiday Gift Guide From the Strategist (So Far), and Noah Kalina’s Is this a gift guide?
41. Time Since Launch is a unique timepiece — you pull the pin to start the timer and it keeps counting…for up to 2,738 years.
This is a living document — I’ll be updating this list with more stuff over the next few days, and I’ll let you know when to check back! To be continued…
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Bloomberg Businessweek’s Jealousy List for 2024, “We’ve asked our editors & contributors to identify that one story in 2024 that filled them with the kind of indescribable resentment that theologians once thought was a dangerous gateway to other sins.”
A universal “Plug and Charge” framework for EV charging is rolling out next year. The goal is this: “You just go anywhere you want, boom, you plug in, it accounts for everything in the cloud, charges your card, and you walk away.”
Trippy Extreme Close-Ups of Everyday Objects
It is difficult to categorize the kinds of videos that Posy makes — they are part science demo and part visual art. His latest video, Household Objects (But Extremely Close), uses a powerful macro lens to look at everyday objects like toothbrushes, sponges, and pencils, turning them into swirling abstract films. His music is lovely too — you can find it on Bandcamp.
See also Motion Extraction.
How to Win Connect 4 Every Time. “Ever thought Connect 4 was a simple game of luck and chance? I will explain why Connect 4 is way harder than you think.”
Werner Herzog’s Nihilist Penguin
In this clip from my favorite Werner Herzog film, Encounters at the End of the World, the director muses about the mental health of penguins and observes a lone penguin heading in the wrong direction. From an appreciation of this penguin scene written by Tim Cooke for Little White Lies:
Herzog proceeds to explain that the penguin will not go to the feeding grounds at the edge of the ice, nor will he return to the colony; instead he heads straight for the mountains, “some 70 kilometres away”. Catching him and bringing him back will make no difference — he’ll simply turn around and head again for the interior. “But why?” Herzog asks. We then see footage of another of these “deranged” penguins, 80 kilometres off course, sliding on its belly towards certain death. These shots of the solitary birds marching to their demise, mere black dots against the white expanse, are perfect in their portrayal of loneliness and desolation.
The scene, then, is a splendid tragicomedy, serving as a sour antidote to the fluffy charm of films like the The March of the Penguins, which arrived two years earlier. It’s a play within a play; masterfully constructed, it delivers a hefty emotional blow. It’s in this construction, and self-reflexive style, that truth and revelation can be found — Herzog’s ecstatic truth, that is. The natural world, as we learnt from the horrors of Grizzly Man, is not easily compared with ours. The structures we adopt for our stories — be they tragic, romantic or comedic — do not fit nature quite so tightly, and Herzog knows this. Any facts about the penguins’ motivations and thought processes remain unobtainable. We view the narrative as the filmmaker builds it: through an exclusively human lens.
Roku offers a PBS Retro channel where you can watch old episodes of shows like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Reading Rainbow, and Thomas & Friends.
Here’s how the Sun will end all life on Earth. “Let me start by reassuring you that the Sun isn’t going to explode.” The Sun, Earth’s ultimate frenemy.
The Best Goals in Football for 2024
I just spent my lunch hour watching the 22 nominated goals for the 2024 Puskas & Marta Awards, given to the most spectacular goals scored by men’s & women’s footballers last season.
The Marta Award is new this year; here’s a playlist of the 11 nominees. Fun fact: one of the nominees is Brazilian legend Marta, after whom the award is named. She was 37 when she fizzed this goal in against Jamaica.
Here’s a playlist of the nominees for the Puskas Award. Generally, I prefer goals with a bit of buildup to bicycle kicks or rockets from outside the 18-yard box, but these were all fun to watch.
On Standby is a piece of sound art “based on data collected by seven different people in Malmö, Sweden. Each of those people used a smart plug to collect data on the energy consumption of a device in their home over the course of a single night”.
Maybe you’d like to read Patricia Lockwood on the X-Files? “So then the show becomes about something else, something deep and dark as water, it is carried rapidly past all other unsolved mysteries to ask: what if a woman were irreplaceable?”
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