Cicadas
Frenzied masses of insects, noisily spawning as they feed, evoke primitive Biblical punishments
In fact, they are altruistic, sacrificing themselves for the collective and for the benefit of predators alike in an explosion of pure eros
Will we be here to greet them next time?
Welcome, bug friends! Welcome back! After lengthy underground gestations of 13 and 17 years, two distinct groups of cicadas numbering in the trillions are emerging in tandem across parts of America this spring, from the balmy peach orchards of Georgia to the breezy corn fields of Illinois. Quickened by the warming of the soil and summoned by an ancient inner call of irresistible, clockwork regularity, the famously loud and prolific flying insects, who live but a single month after they hatch, are filling the air in great dark buzzing clouds and settling in swarms on bushes and in trees. It’s a spectacle for the ages, truly wondrous, and worthy of celebration, we believe, by all who inhabit our precious, fragile planet.
But sadly, not everyone will take this view. Such is the power of superstition, ignorance, and lingering inter-species rivalry, that some will regard the coming of the cicadas as bothersome …
The Art of Darkness
Talking the stupid talk behind the deli counter and listening to ‘Bitches Brew’
My boss talked his way into more women’s pants than anyone I ever met.
I chose beauty over death
A sense of speed and darkness loomed that summer and its wings extended and snapped to full spread and we were all in its shadow careening though we did not know it. That summer I drank more than I ever have and I was doing it with people who were doing the same and whatever it was that was going on with them I was figuring something else out on my own in the only way I have ever been able — by going forward, not knowing where, just going. I was learning how to write not by writing but rather by wandering half-blind down the dark halls of myself, by following some peculiar internal sense of things which in the end is how you should write. I was working with some white kids at the small general store in my small hometown on the reservation where I grew up and we listened to music all day while we worked and when I was alone I was reading or watching films and wondering if I would ever get laid that summer which I …
How Coachella Froze Over
High-level insider spills some Coca tea
How the best live music festival in America became a desert freakshow of cringe content from Elon Musk’s baby mamas
Y’all can blame Frank Ocean
For almost two decades, I have joined the pilgrimage of devoted patrons convening in the heart of the California desert. While the faithful are drawn for a weekend of music, hedonism, and flaunting their indulgences (at least as of late), I make the annual trek for a month of pay and an increased chance of skin cancer. Like a master mason of a Gothic cathedral, I have physically built the worship site per the specs of its corporate master’s divine plan. Officially named the Coachella Music and Arts Festival, colloquially “Coachella,” a Freudian slip of my fingers on the keyboard reveals an apt name for the Faustian bargain of attendance — Coca hell.
The event began as a few days of music for alternatively attuned audiophiles, being far enough away from the City of Angels to be considered an “escape.” Early on, its promoter Goldenvoice didn’t have enough coin in the coffers to compete with its more …
