A roundup of the most engaging recent pieces on the web read by the Pittsburgh Review of Books this week.
“The Uncanny Catharsis of the AI Emomercial” from The Paris Review
“By 2026, AI has transcended its utilitarian sphere to assume, or at least enact, something like the hedonic viewpoint, its ability to mimic emotional literacy with facility and precision giving the “word-of-machine” different and more disarming valencies. Can a robot sell me a feeling now? Can it do so even while being obviously a robot?”
Chosen by Jamari Bass
“Eric Hobsbawm and the history of the defeated” from Jacobin
“The collapse of the communist project did not vindicate capitalism in his eyes. Rather, it exposed the fragility of a world order deprived of a credible vision of collective emancipation.”
Chosen by Allison Blair
“Seventy Years of Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl'” from The Dispatch
“It’s true that idealists often become oligarchs and ecstatic visionaries often become dull clowns. And it’s true that all movements, if they gain any purchase in the public sphere, are quickly absorbed by mass culture and distorted until they become unrecognizable versions of themselves.”
Chosen by Riona Duncan
“Cruising on the West Side Piers, New York’s wild side” from Huck Magazine
“Here, in his photographs, you feel a sense of escape from it all, with nary a payphone or pager making its presence known.”
Chosen by Alexander Johnson
“The Ghost of Fighting Bob” from Isthmus Magazine
The ghost of Fighting Bob takes many forms: progressive, socialist, New Deal. By strange and powerful magic, the movement joins working people across lines of difference to fight
common supremacist enemies and alleviate harms each group faces. To those enemies, the movement is a terror — an inescapable nightmare that will ultimately remove their
unnatural power.”
Chosen by Elliot Polikowski
“Traveling Route 66 in the Age of Data Centers” from Current Affairs
“In 1985, Route 66 was decertified, a federal highway no more. With that, it became a relic—the road itself just another roadside attraction.”
Chosen by Hailey Price
“Beauty at the Edge” from Commonweal Magazine
“Language is, therefore, deeply knit into the fabric of reality and laden with moral and spiritual significance. This is especially true of poetry, language refined to its most luminous and demanding form.”
Chosen by Isabel Weaver
“Sufjan Stevens Makes First Live Appearance in Over Eight Years” from Pitchfork
“I’m not really in any state of mind or any position to go on tour yet. But I’m starting to see the light. I’m starting to feel a sense of direction toward something meaningful and substantial.”
Chosen by Morgan Tarr
