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Hocus Pocus

Columns

A Beauty
Peter Fedorovich was gorgeous as a morning star. The moment office ladies glimpsed his shimmering locks at the door they fell on the floor in a deadly swoon. A bookkeeper once had to be hospitalized: she fainted still hugging her enormous electric typewriter, and it crushed two ...

The Baffler’s Week That Was
April 11, 2014
From The Baffler in print and online this week, some thoughts on Kurt Cobain, Simone de Beauvoir, John Boehner, Saskia Sassen, Michael Bloomberg, Betty Draper, Jeb Bush, Elon Musk, and God: • On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death, we published ...

A Pointless Plot to Oust John Boehner
April 11, 2014
House Republicans are always plotting something, have you noticed? Most of their plots fail, though: whether it’s shutting down the government over Obamacare, or arbitrarily destroying the global economy via debt default. And when one of their plots fail, the House Republicans ...

Some Recommended Reading for “Mad Men” Fans
April 11, 2014
This coming Sunday marks the return of AMC’s Mad Men, and advance reviews and think-pieces are billowing across the Internet like so much cigarette smoke through a poorly-ventilated ad agency office. (Here’s our two cents on AMC’s design choice for its season ...

Daily Bafflements
April 11, 2014
Carefree French people, pictured here not checking their work emails. Breathless film still courtesy of Martin Pulaski • Accounting School Guide has made a useful (and telling) interactive graphic to demonstrate the practical breakdown of a “living wage” for each state ...

The Agony of Leaves
April 10, 2014
I do not want to beat about this bush or that bush. I will say it straight: I am not a perverted fellow. It has never been my habit to move with prostitutes or other women of that type. Not even once have I made a lewd remark to a lady or suggested some dubious act to anyone ...

Proof of Wealth’s Power Over Policy
April 10, 2014
Paul Krugman says we’re living in a “New Gilded Age,” an era of government of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich. Last week’s McCutcheon decision from the Supreme Court, which struck down the aggregate limit an individual can contribute in capped political ...

Daily Bafflements
April 10, 2014
Not at all a waste of time and taxpayer money, nope. / Photo by Flying Puffin • In a baffling piece this week, The Economist informed us that gentrification in London is “cool,” and also that it is “real,” because of charts. • The latest advice column by Heather ...

Handwringing and Hypocrisy Over Campaign Cash
April 09, 2014
What a life it must be, to be a modern campaign finance lawyer. Over the past few years, every day must have felt like Christmas, Hanukkah, and Halloween combined. Imagine: just as you’d finished extensively billing the politicos you helped navigate the Citizens United fight ...

Up in Birdland
They could eat and not care about bad cholesterol, heart disease, or cancer. They could forget about those colonoscopies they’d been putting off and those impending cataract surgeries. They could smoke cigarettes and drink the hard stuff again. No more wearing a mouth guard at ...