The Baffler

@thebaffler.com

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Political and cultural criticism, satire, and salvos. Since 1988. Online and in print. https://thebaffler.com/

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The preteen girl at the center of “Janet Planet” neither burns with self-awareness nor floats like an otherworldly creature. She’s a keen observer—and it is in the light of her gaze that the adults of her life reveal themselves.

The Eyes of Lacy | Moeko Fujiithebaffler.com Girls on screen, the story goes, are there to be looked at. But what of films where girls are the ones looking?

As the literal and political temperatures of the United States reach a boiling point, here’s a chance to chill out. Get a year of The Baffler—plus a free bucket hat!—for $45. thebaffler.com/subscription...

Enthusiastic media coverage of Pittsburgh’s tech transformation has focused largely on the bourgeois amenities that accompany it—and little else. But as Noelle Mateer writes, many residents are getting left behind.

The Techies Who Lunch | Noelle Mateerthebaffler.com Eager for a narrative outside of Rust Belt decay, Pittsburgh has been quick to co-opt its tech wins for marketing. But is the city really winning?

Join The Baffler at BAM Rose Cinemas on Tuesday, July 30 at 7:00pm for a screening of Masaaki Yuasa’s 2004 animated film “Mind Game,” with an introduction by Baffler contributor Dan Piepenbring. www.bam.org/film/2024/mi...

Groveling to Putin and other Russian leaders used to be totally unacceptable for the mainstream GOP. @hannahgais.bsky.social explains why that’s changed.

To Russia, with Love | Hannah Gaisthebaffler.com An increasingly vocal camp on the right has embraced Russia. They’re driven by fever dreams of unceasing persecution.

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Hey Skeeters, I have a translation of a short piece by Antoine Volodine up @thebaffler.com today! More info and links on the ol' blog: liaswopemitchell.com/2024/07/12/f... Check it out, s'il vous plaît

For your reading bafflement: “Shaggå of the Painfully Infinite Sky” by Antoine Volodine, up at The Bafflerliaswopemitchell.com My translation of Antoine Volodine's Shaggå of the painfully infinite sky is available to read at The Baffler as of today.

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Why is the right, including Trump's new VP pick, obsessed with fanboying over Russia? Well, everyone can't be a spy, so I tried to find out. I'm back @thebaffler.com for the first time in five years (!): thebaffler.com/latest/to-ru...

To Russia, with Love | Hannah Gaisthebaffler.com An increasingly vocal camp on the right has embraced Russia. They’re driven by fever dreams of unceasing persecution.

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, fringe conspiracy theorists foretold a weather-based apocalypse. They were wrong on specifics—but not totally off the mark. Jesse Robertson traces the origins of our troubled climate change discourse.

Jesse Robertson | Give Us This Doomsdaythebaffler.com Doom need not only lead to mystification; conspiracy’s latent critiques suggest a path from apocalypse to revolution.

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This is Philly-coded

Every spring at the U.S. Naval Academy, freshmen scale a granite obelisk coated in Crisco. We sent Chris Maggio to photograph this bizarre, orgiastic ritual.

Tower of Plebes | Jasper Craven & Chris Maggiothebaffler.com At the annual Herndon climb, a spectacle of teamwork, grit, and utter meaninglessness. One couldn’t ask for a better symbol of American conflict.

Jane McAlevey died on Sunday at the age of fifty-nine. Sarah Jaffe writes on the legendary labor organizer and author, who inspired a generation of young people cut off from class politics to think about the still-central role of the workplace.

Raising Hell | Sarah Jaffethebaffler.com Jane McAlevey cared about making workers’ lives better in the here and now—not just in some far-off future.

Every spring at the U.S. Naval Academy, freshmen scale a granite obelisk coated in Crisco. We sent Chris Maggio to photograph this bizarre, orgiastic ritual.

Many Syrian refugees expected their displacement to be temporary. But days became weeks, then months, then years. The result for some has been a life of perpetual movement.

Leaving, Again | Wendy Pearlmanthebaffler.com For the vast majority of people who flee Syria, none of the UN’s durable solutions for refugees are within reach.

When it comes to Latin America, the U.S. government loves a tough-on-crime drug warrior. In Honduras, their guy was Juan Orlando Hernández—who has now been sentenced to 45 years in a U.S. prison. Jared Olson tells the story.

Spectacle of Justice | Jared Olsonthebaffler.com The conviction of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández will do nothing to alter the violent status quo of the war on drugs.

New books by the 49-day Prime Minister Liz Truss and the journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft reveal a Tory party out of ideas—and likely out of chances with British voters.

Blue Ruin | K. Biswasthebaffler.com The most recent unbroken stretch of Tory rule has been marked by austerity and infighting, leaving the country visibly poorer and politically exhausted.

Rachel Cusk’s challenging new novel recovers shards of beauty from a broken world. thebaffler.com/latest/portr...

Portraits of the Artist | Maya Solovejthebaffler.com In “Parade,” Rachel Cusk continues to reject narrative, borrowing liberally from the techniques of visual art instead.

If the original “Cabaret” was a somewhat watered-down interpretation of both Christopher Isherwood’s source material and the Weimar art that inspired it, then the new revival dilutes it further. Plus, who asked for a Jokerfied Eddie Redmayne?

In the Realm of the Senseless | FTthebaffler.com Tomorrow belongs to those who can shell out hundreds of dollars for mediocre theatre.

Every few years, the publishing industry designates a crop of young writers as the internet whisperers du jour, whose work, we are told, will put into relief the alienation and connection of the digital age. Rhian Sasseen reviews a new entry in the genre.

Extremely Online and Incredibly Tedious | Rhian Sasseenthebaffler.com In Gabriel Smith’s debut novel, “Brat,” aesthetic flatness and empty provocation dominate.

The overwhelming majority of Texas children are educated in public schools; even among Republican voters, vouchers aren’t all that popular. But school choice has become a wedge issue that divides GOP candidates.

Texas Lockstep | Michael Kingthebaffler.com The results of “RINO-hunting season” in Texas may push the state even further to the right.

Zionist supremacy depends on the careful maintenance of a delicate narrative. And in the stomach-churning videos that IDF soldiers are posting from Gaza, we see what this looks like in practice.

Running Amok | Mary Turfahthebaffler.com The conduct on display in Gaza is part psychological warfare, part colonial theatre, part occupation soldiers having fun, and none of it is new.

Has queer theory gone off the rails—or are certain gay centrist writers just worried about being left behind? Samuel Huneke investigates.

Theory Damaged | Samuel Hunekethebaffler.com Please do not listen to the centrists. Gay men have not been abandoned or ostracized by queer theory.

China’s unmatched manufacturing prowess has made it central to the production of drugs common and obscure, legal and illicit, and everything in between.

Sinopharmacology | Dylan Levi Kingthebaffler.com The drive to experience euphoria or oblivion, numbness or heightened intensity of feeling is universal—if still worth contemplating.

What was George Santos?

Miss Direction | Dale Peckthebaffler.com The danger of George Santos isn’t merely his lies or crimes but how liberals and conservatives alike capitulate to the performance.

The policies that push trans and intersex athletes out of sports have their roots in the 1930s, particularly the Nazi Berlin Olympics. A new book lays out how century-old fascist bureaucracy informs policy today.

Human Velocity | Frankie de la Cretazthebaffler.com “The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports” upends long-held assumptions about trans people’s participation in sports.

As Oswaldo Zavala argues in our new issue, many U.S. narratives about Mexican cartels are exaggerated. This tactic boosts military budgets on both sides of the border—and justifies abuses against poor and migrant populations.

Tunnel Visions | Oswaldo Zavalathebaffler.com The U.S. national security agenda legitimizes a permanent—and extremely violent—intervention in the border region.

Miranda July’s fiction often has a tendency to drift into sweet irreality, the realm of the twee. But with “All Fours,” she considers what happens when illusions dry up.

Wonder Woman | Madeleine Crumthebaffler.com In her latest novel, “All Fours,” Miranda July moves beyond the tropes of twee literature.

Hell is a continuously updating, increasingly expensive SaaS system. Matthew King writes on the programs that knowledge workers hate, which their bosses can’t stop buying.

Spreadsheet Assassins | Matthew Kingthebaffler.com “Software as a service” is taking over the economy. The bubble can’t pop soon enough.

Two years after Dobbs, a network has emerged to provide abortion pills to women who need them. Sydney Calkin writes about four people who have taken on the cause in our new issue.

What’s in a Pill? | Sydney Calkinthebaffler.com With abortion, there lies an enormous gulf between what is legal and what is accessible.

Drug markets behave like any other consumer market, and the neoliberal turn was very, very good for “free enterprise.” Is it any wonder overdoses have been on the rise since the late seventies?

Permanent Crisis | Zachary Siegelthebaffler.com American drug policy is stuck—mired in disproven and outdated modes of thinking.

Our drugs issue is online. Baffler no. 74, “Altered States,” is a survey of what we take and how we take it—a trip that chases through nightclubs, rehabs, ketamine clinics, and retirement communities. Start reading now.

no. 74—Altered Statesthebaffler.com You can trace the liberalizing contours of the American public’s relationship to drugs by way of the last few presidents’ consumption habits. Clinton famously didn’t inhale, only willing to admit to…

Despite their increasing realism, AI-generated images are not interested in representing the world as it is. They want to crowd it out with a deluge of commercially and politically expedient fantasies.

It’s the Real Thing! | Leo Kimthebaffler.com AI image generators are less interested in representing the real world than crowding it out with a deluge of sleek, easily consumable content.