Not Far From The Shallow Now

I want to know who Agnes Callard’s publicist is, because they’re killing it. More than two weeks into the Callard discourse cycle and only perfunctorily hooked to her New Yorker profile, here’s Agnes in The Atlantic allegedly saying something about profundity. “Socrates hates the fact that writing is not conversational, that it tells you the same thing every time,” she says. Agnes I am begging you to read a single poststructuralist. And here she is again in this month’s Harper’s last March1, with yet another windy self-absorbed tale of yet another conventional bad relationship. And here she is again again in next month’s Harper’s with a Q&A about whether authors should speak or only write in which she completely misses the humor of a talk by Kurt Vonnegut, the original inventor of the fuck around / find out graph. At this rate of overexposure, Callard’s all-meat diet, benzo addiction, and Russian induced coma era should be along any minute.

It’s a big week for bullshit in Times Opinion, where yesterday investment banker and private equity lizard Steven Rattner argued that people shouldn’t work from home, because to him the vibes are bad. “Every senior executive of the several dozen with whom I’ve discussed this issue believes that operating from home is simply less productive than being in the office,” he writes, covering the full range of possible views on this issue. And you might think that’s bad, but here’s the drop:

What could have saved SVB? Closer oversight? Better risk management? A diversified client base that wasn‘t susceptible to rumor and panic? No, you fool. Only spontaneous hallway conversations.

Then today, Claremont McKenna College government professor Jon A. Shields made the, let’s call it, eccentric argument that American conservatism is so far off the deep end that liberal college professors should take over teaching conservative ideas.

Well that should be easy, Jon, with all the extra space we have in the library now.

Is anyone over there reading these pieces? Is this a cry for help? Listen Times Opinion, I understand you might not feel safe speaking freely, so if you need to be rescued the signal is: publish Agnes Callard.2

Today in Tech: New Samsung feature: teeth? Safety tip: If an unknown USB device arrives in the mail, don’t plug it in. Here’s a $60 USB device “capable of performing 4 trillion operations (tera-operations) per second” to add cheap machine learning to your lappie. AI image generation has figured out hands and captured Donald Trump, now moving on to the “people eating spaghetti” problem. But WGA East says “plagiarism is a feature of the AI process.” Tax Heaven 3000 pulled from Steam. And TikTok is about to get banned by Joe Biden and Congressional idiots like this guy:

Aujourd'hui Dans Les Crabes: “French protesters throw live CRABS at police during bloody clashes at fishing rally” [capitalization sic] proclaims The Mirror in a story that is sadly devoid of any pictures of CRABS, thrown or otherwise. Apparently les poissons are yet another thing the French are mad at Emmanuel Macron and Teacher about.

Finally: Delia found out how they produce Barbie’s eerily spot-on social media influencer performance.

I keep stumbling across these little reminders that three years ago we all went insane at the same time and never dealt with it. Ok see you Monday!

Today’s Song: The Chemical Brothers, “No Reason”

If you’re a paid subscriber I will actually see you tomorrow, in a little thing I just invented that I’m thinking about calling an “Open Thread.” Don’t worry, it’s very intuitive. If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, one way or another I’m gonna win ya, I'm gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya. It’s just matter of when. Why not now, save us both the trouble? Just a thought.