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Baffler Archives: Salvos

Columns

Sofar, So Bad
November 04, 2019
“Thank you so much for this magical moment,” whispered a French singer with a leather jacket and harmonica. “I never thought in my life I’d be playing on the top of the American Copper,” he told a crowd of about fifty, referring to the name of the Murray Hill luxury ...

Hot and Scared
When Cameron Parks was eighteen years old, he dropped out of college, got in his car, and drove to San Diego; it was only a matter of time before he began performing in gay porn. The kind of outrageously beautiful person who could induce hiccups in an unsuspecting stranger, with ...

Abolishing the Prison of the Dead
November 04, 2019
To get to Hart Island, a hundred-acre sliver of land in the Long Island Sound, you must first make your way to City Island, a slightly larger sliver of land off the coast of the Bronx. City Island is a small community that feels more Long Island than Bronx. Its streets are lined ...

Revolution on the Installment Plan
September 01, 2019
When then twenty-six-year-old Elle Hunt was asked to keep a money diary for the Guardian last year, the purpose was to dispel the common belief that millennials are spendthrifts. They, too, the thinking goes, could enjoy the delights of home ownership and flush 401(k)s, if only ...

Invisible Handcuffs
September 01, 2019
The regulation of technology capitalism is now a mainstream topic of discussion. Privacy scandals such as the misuse of Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica, the rise of right-wing extremism, and the diminishing quality of public spaces in the digital age have generated ...

Strangled by a Safety Net
September 01, 2019
The year 2019 has been an anxious one for the American worker. In March, a report from the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas noted that corporate layoffs had hit their highest level for a first quarter since 2009—a 35.6 percent increase from 2018. As a result, ...

Strike with the Band
September 01, 2019
The union for the musicians of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, late this June, refused to sign a contract that would cut its unionized musicians’ income by some 20 percent. The musicians were, in turn, locked out by management, which meant facing months without pay or health ...

Hollowed Out
September 01, 2019
On a recent balmy morning, I left my house for a walk. I live in a small town in far eastern Kentucky with a walking path running through it that used to be a railroad. The path is now paved, with large wood-and-iron structures alongside it, and next to these structures are ...