Peter Rubin

“For Cesar and many other delivery workers, the thefts broke something loose. Some started protesting and lobbying, partnering with nonprofits and city officials to propose legislation. Cesar and the Deliveryboys took another tack, forming a civil guard reminiscent of the one that patrolled San Juan Puerto Montaña, the small, mostly Indigenous Me’phaa village where they […]

“The anxieties that Teen Vogue seems to awaken in the general public have proved to be analogous to how America sees teen girls, so frequently flattened into either Greta Thunberg–like saviors or overly woke children who need to be saved.”

“From our first conversation, we connected about what it was like to suddenly no longer be yourself, and the constant self-doubt that came with it. If we can’t do the things we used to do, then who are we?”

“Ocean City has about 7,000 year-rounders but sees some 8 million visitors a year. Of all the Delmarva beach towns, it may be the most spectacular study in contrasts. Families come to play on its gaping-wide beaches while barely legal kids who visit to get hammered are escorted out of beachside bars before 5 o’clock.”

“As a master reactor, Anys knows the rules of manufactured controversies over manufactured selves. She could have engaged the drama YouTubers who went after her in mid-2020, taking ownership of her centrality in that day’s attention economy. She could have immediately made a response video and clocked a couple million YouTube views. She could have […]

“In those days, a day in the life of a vaquero began early and often ended in pain. In this part of South Texas the Spanish once called El Desierto de los Muertos, or The Desert of the Dead, the summer heat is like a blowtorch, and the land, thick with mesquite and cactus, can […]

“What follows is the far more complicated story of how our country’s complex, disturbingly callous, and ever-shifting yet forever intractable immigration policies created years of hell and potentially permanent exile for one of hip-hop’s greatest producers.”

“Today, as AI continues to blow past us in benchmark after benchmark of higher cognition, we quell our anxiety by insisting that what distinguishes true consciousness is emotions, perception, the ability to experience and feel: the qualities, in other words, that we share with animals.”

“Rap wasn’t meant for Texas. But it was only a matter of time before Texans started rapping, made the genre their own, and regifted it to the world.”

“I turned to a man next to me and asked what had brought him to the party. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and shouted, ‘Making money.’”