Terror on the outskirts of Eddington

Ari Aster's near-masterpiece generates all the horrors of 2020, but the big bad is a bloodsucking data center in the desert.

It's everybody's fight

A conversation with Liz Casey of Community Care Tucson on the power of mutual aid, the cruelty of immigration detention, and how city officials are failing us.

Hello crisis my old friend

Another gritty reboot

News from Crisis Palace!

Catching up after a big move—and an exciting announcement. My fam, my goodness it has been so long I have really missed each and every one of you and hope you are all holding on tight and finding your peace and joy wherever you can.

110: It brings forth a world

On the brink of a big change, learning from the mesquite tree This is going to be the last newsletter before a bit of a hiatus, don't worry nothing is wrong but I do have news which is that I am moving to Tucson, Arizona. I know, big

109: Climate change in solid form

Plastic waste is inescapable, driven by industry, and inseparable from the climate crisis Today we are going to talk about something that is very close to my heart, which is plastic, and by that I mean it is literally close to my heart because the sweatshirt I am wearing is

108: If there were no future

Today is an exciting day because we are going to talk about Children of Men, one of my favorite movies of all time.

107: Is there no alternative?

Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism is a grim thesis, but a tough one to argue with right now And we are back. I have missed you all I hope everyone had a decent if not great holiday and got to spend some time with loved ones and look at

106: The world won't end

A bunch of things I loved in 2021 I've been working on some year-end retrospective things for work lately and maybe it's just the contrast to how darkly dramatic 2020 and especially its conclusion were, but I've been having a hard time sort of

105: Reparative justice

The third annual Crisis Palace feel good guide to year end giving One of the things about living during the Biden administration is that the Republican Party's horrors hit differently than they did under Trump, when they were mostly inescapable, because try as you might, you could not

104: All the blood in the world is mine

In Wendy Brown's Undoing the Demos, neoliberalism brings the tyranny of the market and the death of the democratic project -- Oh boy, another issue being written right as our Diarrhea Country kicks into full gear, in this case the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, which we honestly all knew

103: COP BIF BBB WTF

It just keeps going and then after a while we die -- Today we are going to do one of those issues where we get up to speed together on what is happening in big climate news, namely legislation in U.S. Congress and whatever in god's name

102: Above the fray

Philanthropy's refusal to fight the fossil fuel industry and the GOP is holding back progress on climate change -- Hello everyone today we have something special, you might call it a Crisis Palace classic in that it's all about climate change funding. Specifically it is an

101: Haunted Palace 3

I am also a we—social contagion in modern horror -- Fam I have been feeling a little sick the past couple days don't worry it is not COVID I took a test and PASSED. I am soldiering on though as this week's newsletter is an

Crisis Palace 100: The Reader Takeover!

'A world in which there is room for many worlds' -- Well I asked and you delivered. I didn't really know what to expect when I decided to do a reader participation issue. The response could have been complete crickets and I would have 100% understood.

99.5: A gift to you from Crisis Palace

I am passing the microphone to you—and giving some of you a little present -- If there are any real number-heads out there, you may have calculated that the next issue of this newsletter will be the 100th. (This one does not count because I say so.) That is

99: 'Every city is a war'

An interview with Sam J. Miller, author of The Blade Between and Blackfish City, on community organizing, how fiction can change the world, and finding joy during apocalypse. -- Sam J. Miller is a writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, all told with crackling prose, unforgettable characters, and a

98: Rewriting our own story

Ministry for the Future tells the greatest story of our time, brilliantly, and with no resolution -- For years, there was this common refrain in the news media but also regarding books, movies, etc., that climate change is just not a topic conducive to broadly accessible stories. Chris Hayes notoriously

97: It always ends the same way

Humanity as a for-profit business but instead of getting fired for bad performance you just die -- This has been a big week for climate change news, not in the usual smoke blotting out the sun way, although smoke did blot out the sun in some places. But mainly I&

96: What exactly is just transition?

'Transition is inevitable. Justice is not.' -- In the past five years, the term "just transition" has become, maybe not a household term, but certainly pervasive throughout climate discourse. You see it in environmental justice groups' missions, academic papers, government policy, NGO campaigns, philanthropic strategies,

95: Against pragmatism

Pragmatism takes no chances and always protects the status of the pragmatist -- There is this line in the 2017 article in New York Magazine that would become David Wallace-Wells' The Uninhabitable Earth, in which he's listing off the many reasons humanity has been in denial about

94: Downward trajectory

Living with the knowledge that things are going to get much worse in your lifetime This one's a little dark so enjoy this nice picture of a rabbit. To be exact, a Young Hare, by Albrecht Dürer, 1502 -- One of the takeaways from the IPCC's

93: Stay frosty

The air conditioning dilemma hammers home the almost-comical limits of individual action to solve this global problem Oceanic birds of South America. v.1. c1936. -- One thing that is getting difficult that I didn't anticipate but probably should have when writing a newsletter about how people live

92: Sharp teeth

The desert in the summer is above all an environment of extremes Thistle cholla cactus at Saguaro National Park. Photo by me. -- Spending time in Arizona during the summer is a good reminder that weather can kill you. Jamie and I recently returned from a two-week stay in Phoenix