Dream journal

It was as if National Review were running Criterion Channel. An art house streaming service with a foundation of conservative values, and somebody thought it would work. Or maybe they knew it wouldn’t, and that was the point. As I butted heads with virtually all of my colleagues, most of whom were also progressive-minded cineastes, I began to suspect the company had hired us just to tie up our expertise in a boondoggle. I wouldn’t… See more →

I was at a party where I was being honored for some kind of achievement that wasn’t all that much of an achievement. JS said a few nice words about me to those gathered, and when I thanked her afterward, JK appeared and showed me an amazing new project: something to do with a structure that lived in his backyard, whose upside-down mirror image was beamed holographically across the city to his office via direct… See more →

Dear Mosquito,

I must commend you on a successful campaign of terror, even if its motivations are unclear. What a feast I would have been! A steak the size of a city, unconscious and completely unaware that its tender extremities were under siege by a tiny, carnivorous dive-bomber. And yet, you sacrificed your own self-interest for the sake of unprovoked spite, and landed right on the paragraph I was reading, just as my eyelids were… See more →

Dear Frances Bean Cobain,

First of all, it was lovely having lunch with you, even if you did get a bit confrontational at the end there. I’m glad I woke up before I could rebut, because a cooler head has shown me that your assessment of my taste in music, if incomplete, was remarkably astute. Dark themes, deceptively simple songwriting, played loosely but with discipline. You kind of nailed it. And even if you didn’t,… See more →

Dear Elderly Woman From My Dream,

I can appreciate your frustration. There you were, undertaking a civic duty that was not even yours, trying in vain to remove a massive tree branch from the road so that people like me could pass through your neighborhood unimpeded. You were not expecting some guy to come shrieking around the corner on a bicycle, much like I was not expecting to have my path suddenly and fully obstructed… See more →