Monumental Instability, or War of the Memorials

Unmanned Drone (2022) by Kara Walker, a The Brick in East Hollywood, February 2026.

As if to underscore the barbaric, cruel madness of the attack on Iran—the clearest indication yet of the end of Pax Americana, the once painfully slow and now surprisingly rapid decline of US power and supremacy—we have the nation’s […]

Real Crimes and the Coming Violence

An alpine glacier as I flew towards Milan.

I just enjoyed a get-away to Europe for almost two weeks. I spent three days with Mona at her place in southern Switzerland where I hadn’t been for 20 years, and another three days in a small town in the Italian Alps with my old […]

Whither Modern Life?

Recent additions to Democracy Wall on Valencia Street.

I’m immersed in reading all the time, and much of what has attracted my interest in the past year or two are books that try to explain how the structure of capitalism is mutating during this violent, chaotic and barbaric time. No doubt we left […]