Note that the vocab point isn’t mastery — it marks, I think, the beginning of advanced proficiency. I think this makes it a good stopping point, because you are now able to see the shape of the expertise that lies above you; you are better able to evaluate if you want to go further.

Part of our affection for places like this has to do with ‘90s nostalgia — a relatively recent past that feels extraordinarily distant. And it has to do with our interest at BBSP in identifying the moment when aesthetics that were prevalent, only to become passé, round the corner of reappraisal and somehow become more popping than ever.

Digging beneath that, our affection is also about the modest, chill and non-corporate ethos that these places embody: “Come pay a few bucks for a big cookie and a big coffee served in a weird Garfield mug, sit a while with friends or a great book, maybe f**k around and do a puzzle, take a d*mn gander at the bulletin-board fliers and tear off a phone number so you can LINK & BUILD with a local ceramicist!” a> That’s an ethos that sits in striking contrast to the new high-efficiency, low-humanity kind of eatery where you point yr phone at a QR code and do contactless payment before eating a room-temp grain bowl under a pink neon sign that says “Living My Best Life” in cursive… the kind of dystopian place, in other words, that exists substantially as its own watered-down image, which people can enter into — dazed and automaton-like — and maybe take a BLEAK selfie in front of the neon sign.

And the pandemic has only accelerated this dismal impoverishment of gathering spaces!!

Would NATO’s door remain open to a Russian-dominated Ukraine? Probably, but it would be similar to claiming that NATO’s door is open to North Korea or Iran (which it theoretically is). All of the consequences that are likely from this conflict—growing conventional force buildup on the NATO-Russia border, higher levels of defense spending in the United States at the expense of domestic programs, an end to efforts to draw down U.S. military posture in the Middle East, and fewer resources for strategic competition with China—would still be a better outcome than the alternative, in which nuclear weapons have been used.

NFTs have not only opened the door wide open for the crypto bros’s capital to finally have something to buy, speculate, and fight over; they have shown that no matter how “decentralized” or “transparent” the whole blockchain infrastructure (or “protocol”) is, it is still a capitalist jungle, though with the delusion that the jungle is a playground. What happened with Beeple’s record-breaking sale at auction, which was bought by two crypto billionaires to inflate the value of crypto, is no different than what collectors do to inflate the price of their Andy Warhols by up-bidding new lots on the auction floor, which is illegal but nonetheless still happens. But no one in their right mind would ever say Beeble’s works are good Art, while we can argue differently with Warhol, Koons, and Hirst.

NFTs (art, Deviant, memes, and otherwise) will end up in the same place as everything else on the internet, which is the same place as everything else in late capitalism: controlled by a few mega corporations, which the government (the state) will assist in their exploitation, surveillance, and censorship of the small/individual players. Just as the Democrats ruined social media. Signs of clashes already abound from sports stars/channels producing collectible “celebrity NFTs” that feed upon the “little guy” making Deviant/burner art NFTs, while Hermès is suing an artist for its MetaBirkins NFT on grounds of trademark infringement.