hate the future

It’s over, I’m afraid. I’ll be here if you...

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 13:07:36 -0400

It’s over, I’m afraid. I’ll be here if you need me.

Not that it matters, but Hate The Future began about four years ago, when I was fresh out of college, in a boring job, and having the generic existential crisis. Since then, I’ve gotten married, written for some magazines, made a few friends, survived a car accident, taken vacations, gone to concerts, seen doctors, voted, published a novel, sat through sibling graduations, thrown up, acquired a second dog, moved twice, fucked in the afternoon, watched movies, slept through alarms, kept secrets, celebrated birthdays, revised, regretted, relived, repeated myself.

I still have the boring job and existential crisis, but they seem no longer to call for work like this, if indeed it was work. It may simply have been the kind of procrastination that has the flavor of work. A stretching of neurons, that they might not atrophy under the feeble fluorescence of a boring job. I set limits just to disobey them. I told myself a thousand posts would be the endpoint and cruised right past that goalpost, too. Even now I can’t wrap things up. There should be no idiotic farewell, I’m sure of that, and here I’ll finish tapping it out.

Inspiration, as we know, doesn’t last. I might have quit two years ago if not for laziness, inertia, the comforts of routine and the very warm following that unexpectedly cropped up. You’ve been very kind, all of you, especially on the frequent occasions when I wasn’t funny at all. To the countless photographers and artists whose work I unapologetically stole, my thanks. I believe I’ve confused, misinformed and offended as many people as I’ve made laugh, and it’s on that balance alone I am willing to claim success. Not that provocation was the objective. But I’m no comedian, either. I don’t know, maybe you can tell me—why the hell were you reading this?

The illustration above comes from Bruce McCall’s Zany Afternoons, my favorite book as a kid. I grew to adore all the usual science fiction, but McCall has a singular vision that will always stick with me—a blending of the now and the soon and the recent past—a dreamy nostalgia for disasters that hadn’t happened yet, like time was a pure contradiction, expanding in every direction. Our moment is one human’s fantasy, another’s history. The present, they say, lasts about three seconds.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stand it.

We asked our readers what they plan to die of: 92% said...

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:10:00 -0400

We asked our readers what they plan to die of:

92% said “being infinitely pleasured”

8% said they’d “wing it”

are electronic cigarettes dangerous?

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:39:00 -0400

Dangerously cool.

Photo

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 13:29:33 -0400

Poll: Would You Swat A Surveillance Insect That Landed On...

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 14:13:00 -0400

Poll: Would You Swat A Surveillance Insect That Landed On You?

___ Never, that is expensive and important U.S. government property

___ I have nothing to hide, especially not in my shed out back

If suffering, a philosopher thought, is predicated upon...

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 13:34:02 -0400

If suffering, a philosopher thought, is predicated upon existence—and indeed he remembered unlife as categorically painless—then its continuation relies exclusively upon survival. Homo sapiens has a choice in its survival, and the morally correct option, when it came to the reduction of suffering, was for the human race to quit. Childbirth, the philosopher concluded, was the arrival of one more receiver and source of pain to share in the increasing woe, spiteful answer to a cascade of everlasting genesis.

“Limits,” The Alarmist #1

In Bold PR Move, ‘Climate Change’ Becomes...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:29:55 -0400

In Bold PR Move, ‘Climate Change’ Becomes ‘Climate Change Classic’

Bifurcated People Consider “halfsies” an offensive...

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 13:18:00 -0400

Bifurcated People

Consider “halfsies” an offensive term
Not that you should care what a fucking halfsie thinks
What are you, some kind of halfsie-lover

—Hey, there’s Billy and Dad. —Mhmm. —Mom, you missed our...

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 11:39:00 -0400

—Hey, there’s Billy and Dad.

—Mhmm.

—Mom, you missed our landing pad.

—Did I? Oh dear.

—You’re not turning around!

—No, I suppose I’m not.

— …

—Can we ever go back?

—Sit down, dear, you’re making the car wobble.

A bioengineer, shortly after a stunning breakthrough,...

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:11:00 -0400

A bioengineer, shortly after a stunning breakthrough, despaired. A dozen test subjects, following several rounds of unprecedented gene therapy, no longer needed to urinate or defecate, having digestive tracts that now operated at 100% efficiency …

“Oasis,” Untoward Magazine

REPORT: People who “couldn’t care less” would...

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:12:39 -0400

REPORT:

People who “couldn’t care less” would not actually say, type or think that.

Mouth-Operated Drill To Make Dentistry 40% More Intimate

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 12:48:00 -0400

Mouth-Operated Drill To Make Dentistry 40% More Intimate

I love the decision to call these pieces “miniatures”—for me,...

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 11:47:41 -0400

I love the decision to call these pieces “miniatures”—for me, strangely enough, this designation makes them larger; they stand independently, as scale models of universes. Can you talk a little about your decision to call these pieces “miniatures”?

Two wonderful Steven Millhauser stories come to mind: one, “In the Reign of Harad IV,” is about a diabolically talented miniaturist, who manufactures worlds too small to be sensed; the other, “The New Automaton Theatre” is about a visionary who elevates wind-up toys into the realm of subversive, god-like art. I wanted that degree of precision combined with that mechanical elegance: paragraphs that did only one thing, had only one turn, but executed it perfectly, with no room for error … and yet somehow, as you said, contained infinitudes.

“All Manner of Interstylistic Mayhem”: An Interview with Miles Klee | The Collagist

[Power] Insert CD [Insert] Eject CD [Eject] Loading CD …...

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 13:18:00 -0400

[Power]

Insert CD

[Insert]

Eject CD

[Eject]

Loading CD … Please be patient

[Insert]

Error: CD detected

[Play]

Error: CD detected

[Stop]

Error: CD is not mp3

Were You Aware? American plutocrats avoid taxes by sheltering...

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 13:40:54 -0400

Were You Aware?

American plutocrats avoid taxes by sheltering assets in off-planet accounts.

DEVELOPING STORY: LOTS OF PICTURES OF SOME FANCY BUILDING...

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 10:55:00 -0400

DEVELOPING STORY:

LOTS OF PICTURES OF SOME FANCY BUILDING CIRCULATE
COLUMNS REPORTED TO BE CORINTHIAN

I have asked for Ivyland for my 20th birthday and I have already made a space for it on my bookshelf. Here's hoping! PS- I printed out 24 Varieties of Silence and stuck it on my wall at university last year. People would glance at it but never said anything. Fitting

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:00:54 -0400

As a cynical man of letters whose meager ambition is to become an ambient feature of college life, I offer sincerest thanks from the pit of my shriveled, icy heart.

Hate The Future: The Book is available now. If at least half of this blog’s followers buy it, I won’t have to keep explaining these career choices to my parents.

SportsWatch: In London, a massive, two-story, 32,000-square-foot...

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:15:52 -0400

SportsWatch:

In London, a massive, two-story, 32,000-square-foot McDonald’s built for the 2012 Summer Olympics hopes to seat up to 15,000 athletes, or about three of its actual customers.

The Search for Atlantis It’s not in this one...

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 13:57:00 -0400

The Search for Atlantis

It’s not in this one spot
What?
No, that’s coral

A change had come over him. He could feel it. But to give it a...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:42:58 -0400

A change had come over him. He could feel it. But to give it a name was another matter entirely. He attempted his regular morning stroll; this only made the change feel stronger, more total. At last he worked up the nerve to investigate this strange turn of events. “Excuse me,” he said to the first stranger he encountered, “am I … made of mirrors?” The woman fixed him with a vacant stare, reapplied her lipstick and walked on.