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Magus of the Ariegé
Let’s call him the Magus. He never called himself that but his followers did behind his back, the ones who hung on every word in his Amsterdam glory days. He was, in the years before the last century turned, the toast of the local underground, the man who led hundreds on ...

In This World You Have to Sell Something
March 26, 2021
Sister Helene swings her baseball bat across Richard’s dresser and shards of decorative junk fly everywhere in the vast bedroom. Richard, the homeowner, Sister Helene, Nick the camera guy, and I are all wearing face shields for this very reason. There is violent ecstasy on ...

Town of Stairs
The town of stairs was built around a square at the bottom of a deep canyon. The town of stairs kept people in little pods, which branched off from the square, at the top of the canyon. Everyone lived alone in their little pods, and walking up someone else’s staircase was a ...

The Family Nude
1. April 1988: A Long-Distance Phone Call Capitalist families are all alike; every communist family is communist in its own way. My family’s ways of being American communists responded to the changing fortunes of Marxism in the United States over the decades. (And yes, I was ...

Claustropolis: 1984
November 08, 2020
In Bhopal, I could lie low. In Bhopal, there would be instructions for me. Because I had been told not to take the express, I traveled on a local, in an unreserved bogie. The whiskey was Director’s Special, a parting gift from Gupta’s people. I didn’t even wait till ...