Daily Bafflements

• Last night the planets aligned to give us a celestial new Baffler! Issue 32, “Muzak of the Spheres,” is an almanac that just might help decode the cosmologies and religions attendant on America. Buy one if you want to know how the Broadway hit Hamilton excised religion from the story of the Republic’s founding, or to read a seven-thousand-word evisceration of Marie Kondo’s domestic scripture. Or, indeed, read it if you’re jonesing for a witch to rise to high office (it’s about time!), or advocating an end to the dogmas of New Atheism (actually, we have two pieces on that, for good measure). Admirers of Astra Taylor, Rick Perlstein, Barbara Ehrenreich, Lucy Ellmann, and George Scialabba are also encouraged to open a copy. Poetry abounds! Do subscribe!

• Here I Am, by Jonathan Safran Foer, is out today. In our latest issue, Jonathon Sturgeon argues that Foer should be read through the lens of Quentin Anderson’s critique of the “imperial self.” Realist American fiction, Sturgeon writes, is mostly an eating contest, a game in which selves ingest their surroundings for literary profit.

• On September 14, next Wednesday, The Baffler’s hosting a panel on managerial liberalism, with editor-in-chief Chris Lehmann, founder Tom Frank, contributing editor Barbara Ehrenreich, Princeton professor Eddie Glaude, and New Republic editor Win McCormack—RSVP, Brooklynites. It’s free.