Lucrative placements within coveted search ranks on Amazon’s Marketplace are incentivizing sellers to do whatever it takes to undercut each other — not by competing on price or quality, but by creatively sabotaging the listing above theirs. Bad actors plant obviously fraudulent five-star reviews on popular listings to trigger penalties, or set rivals’ products on fire to frame them […]
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Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Essays & Criticism, Story
Bully for You
Women with power have the capacity to silence women with less — and they wield it. Why can’t they see that?
Posted inHistory, Nonfiction, Quotes
This Essay is the Very Pineapple of Writing
This is the most important pineapple-themed essay you’ll read today.
Posted inReading List
It’s Not You, It’s Me: A Breakup Reading List
A late bloomer as far as relationships go, my first encounter with heartbreak came from the track. It was junior year. The district meet: all big Texas sky and girls next to me adjusting hair ties and heat waves shimmering ahead. At that point in my life, I had devoted myself entirely to running. I […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Story
Masters of Contradiction
Two new books offer fresh perspective on “Otherhood,” that condition in which characters do constant, exhausting battle — for the most part — inside their own heads.
Posted inNonfiction
Nashville contra Jaws, 1975
In their time, “Jaws” and “Nashville” were regarded as Watergate films, and both were in production as the Watergate disaster played its final act.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
Remembering Daniel Johnston
This outsider musician made music sound new again to everyone who listened.
Posted inNonfiction
American Tests
In her quest to become truly American, Jakki Kerubo discovers what it means to belong in a place.
Posted inReading List
Alternative Reality: ‘Inferno in Paradise’
President Donald Trump has obliterated any notion of off-time for round-the-clock journalists, but it was still a relief to see that the alt-weeklies I read for this installment in my regular reading list were starting off the new year strong. The Chico News & Review, whose work I have previously highlighted here, can be forgiven, […]
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes
Rita Dove on Creating a ‘Collage of American Consciousness’ with Poetry
“The sole criterion is, how does it move us? Does it pull us out of our everyday trot?”
