Daily Bafflements

• Beta Boston takes stock of Kendall Square’s five-year vibrancy binge—last week Royal Philips moved in to join Amazon, Biogen, Pfizer et al—or, rather, just unquestioningly calls the area’s fast-tracked evolution “amazing.” Speculating as to what the next planner’s “five-year plan” can hope to achieve after such a glorious era of innovation, the writer ventures, dreamily: “The biggest company in the world, Walmart, isn’t yet represented.” The damage to the neighborhood was bemoaned by Baffler editor John Summers in issue 24. 

• In that same issue, Gene Seymour wrote about how sci-fi makes promises of freedom even as it evinces ideological libertarianism. The most sci-fi fait divers today arrived under the headline “Somebody in France accidentally ate a fluorescent lamb with jellyfish DNA,” a literal little electric sheep, if you will, for androids to dream about. Bon appetit.

• Same-sex couples are allowed to divorce in Texas (though still not to marry). 

• Since unveiling the Donald Trump piñata on Friday, one artist is taking orders.