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thedriftmag.com
The Drift
@thedriftmag.com
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A magazine of culture and politics

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thedriftmag.com
The Drift @thedriftmag.com · Jun 24
Issue Fifteen is here –– five years to the day from our launch in 2020!
thedriftmag.com
“His name is Henry Dale, and I don’t need to tell him that time has ground to a halt,” reads an excerpt from Solvej Balle’s “On the Calculation of Volume Book III,” which is out today. “He already knows.”

www.thedriftmag.com/day1144-1167...
Day #1144, #1167, #1403
Fiction
www.thedriftmag.com
November 18, 2025 at 4:13 PM
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americanstudier.bsky.social
Here it is, a very special--& especially supersized—250th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Please add more below, share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️

blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...
#ScholarSunday Thread 250! (11/16/25) – Black and White and Read All Over
Here it is, a very special--& especially supersized—250th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Please add more ...
blackwhiteandread.com
November 16, 2025 at 12:59 PM
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ceaubin.com
I have read a LOT of romantasy out of an intense and abiding fascination/need to understand What The Hell Is Going On With Women In My Age Group. This essay from @thedriftmag.com really nails it, without the sneering you usually find in litcrit on the genre.

www.thedriftmag.com/escape-artis...
Escape Artists
Romantasy at the End of the World
www.thedriftmag.com
November 15, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Reposted by The Drift
jooordan.bsky.social
Really loved this piece on romantasy, a genre I have enjoyed that also feels like the death knell of a certain level of popular literacy
thedriftmag.com The Drift @thedriftmag.com · 4d
“The heroines of romantasy are flicked, nuzzled, ridden, throttled, bitten, pulled, plowed, hit, filled, soaked, and — here’s a Maas favorite — shattered.” Daniel Yadin examines the genre taking over American publishing in a new piece from Issue Sixteen.

www.thedriftmag.com/escape-artis...
Escape Artists
Romantasy at the End of the World
www.thedriftmag.com
November 15, 2025 at 1:17 PM
thedriftmag.com
“The heroines of romantasy are flicked, nuzzled, ridden, throttled, bitten, pulled, plowed, hit, filled, soaked, and — here’s a Maas favorite — shattered.” Daniel Yadin examines the genre taking over American publishing in a new piece from Issue Sixteen.

www.thedriftmag.com/escape-artis...
Escape Artists
Romantasy at the End of the World
www.thedriftmag.com
November 14, 2025 at 3:35 PM
thedriftmag.com
“The only durable response to Sudan’s famine lies with its own civilians, who must be empowered to resist the militarization of hunger,” Shahad Elfaki argues in a new Dispatch from Issue Sixteen.

www.thedriftmag.com/a-grotesque-...
A Grotesque Deadlock
Since the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023, nearly thirteen million people have been internally displaced and prices in Darfur have soared.
www.thedriftmag.com
November 13, 2025 at 3:46 PM
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beckyhammer.bsky.social
Once again had trouble narrowing down my four favorite mini-reviews in the latest issue of The Drift @thedriftmag.com
Anna Karenina on LibriVox It's never a bad idea to listen to the more-than-35-hour audiobook of Anna Karenina, but the version put out by LibriVox, a platform where volunteer readers narrate works in the public domain, is especially fun. Chapters are read by different people, and the vastly different levels of competence on display lend a touching, amateurish quality to one of the greatest books ever written. Come for the novel's deft psychological portraits, stay for the global accents, the shameless name-dropping of several readers' personal websites, and the staggering variety of ways to pronounce "Karenina." S.C.C. The Gulf of America's Google Profile The 7,066 reviews of this contentious body of muddy water once offered a glimpse into the minds of visitors unconcerned with its name. The *most relevant" posts were filled with child- hood snorkeling memories and vaguely spiritual musings; one satisfied customer wrote, "the Gulf has made us a part of her, and she IS a part of us." By contrast, a single-star review called the Gulf *'a constant disappointment... a thirty-year-old son who won't leave home." Earlier this spring, Google archived all but one of these comments, leaving the note: "Posting is currently turned off for this type of place." GEOGRAPHY P.A. Autos FONT This typeface, which replaced Calibri as the default font for Microsoft 365 in late 2023, is supposed to be friendlier, more trustworthy, and better suited to high-resolution screens. But to my semiprofessional eye, it looks like a squashed version of its predecessor, as if someone dropped an anvil on all those humanist letterforms. (The characters are certainly wider; Aptos fits roughly thirty fewer words on a page.) The font's recent success coincides with a change in its name. Rechristened for a town in Northern California that appar- ently "epitomizes the font's versatility, Aptos follows in the footsteps of fellow name-changers Norma Jeane Mortenson, Ralph Lifshitz, and even the British royal family, who became the Windsors only after ditching "Saxe-Coburg and Gotha for being too German. "Too German" might also have been a problem for this typeface, formerly known as "Bierstadt." Z.G. "Pod Save America" ads PODCASTING Presenter-read advertisements, the last vestige of amateur podcasting, offer a glimpse into a show's imagined audience. What can the selection of products hawked by former Obama aides teach us about the average liberal American male? That he wants to restore his gut lining by swilling cow colostrum in sungold apricot flavor, burn fat while lounging on his direct- to-consumer mattress in bamboo delicates, avoid hangovers that could impede productivity, eat chicory root inulin and tapioca starch cereal for dinner, and consume vegetables in powder form. J.A.
November 13, 2025 at 2:01 AM
thedriftmag.com
“The memory of my own voice would come back to me, the way I’d hurled it around: my father, my father, my father.”

Read Mimi Diamond’s Issue Sixteen story, online today:

www.thedriftmag.com/good-health/
Good Health
Fiction
www.thedriftmag.com
November 7, 2025 at 4:36 PM
thedriftmag.com
Join us, @ndbooks.bsky.social, Krithika Varagur, Zain Khalid, Sloane Crosley, and Rob Franklin, on November 18 to celebrate the publication of the newest installment of Solvej Balle’s series “On the Calculation of Volume.”

www.mcnallyjackson.com/event/calcul...
November 6, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by The Drift
tanista.bsky.social
Any reality made by human beings can be remade by them. (...) The things we can accomplish together are, by definition, within our sphere of control, even if we have to act through structures that are bigger than any of us alone to achieve them.
By @erikmbaker
thedriftmag.com The Drift @thedriftmag.com · 18d
“To imagine yourself as a modern-day Seneca, a sage liberated from the cares afflicting more ordinary souls, is its own form of self-indulgence,” @erikmbaker.bsky.social argues in his Issue Sixteen essay on self-help philosophy.

www.thedriftmag.com/how-i-learne...
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Shitty Life
Self-Help Gets Philosophical
www.thedriftmag.com
November 1, 2025 at 5:17 PM
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erikmbaker.bsky.social
ICYMI, my latest essay in @thedriftmag.com, which also serves as a postscript of sorts to Make Your Own Job www.thedriftmag.com/how-i-learne...
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Shitty Life
Self-Help Gets Philosophical
www.thedriftmag.com
November 1, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by The Drift
erikmbaker.bsky.social
I have an essay on self-help, the "philosophy" industry, and human finitude in our new issue. As Dylan said of "Tangled Up In Blue," it took me ten years to live and two to write. I hope you enjoy. www.thedriftmag.com/how-i-learne...
October 31, 2025 at 2:00 PM
thedriftmag.com
“To imagine yourself as a modern-day Seneca, a sage liberated from the cares afflicting more ordinary souls, is its own form of self-indulgence,” @erikmbaker.bsky.social argues in his Issue Sixteen essay on self-help philosophy.

www.thedriftmag.com/how-i-learne...
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Shitty Life
Self-Help Gets Philosophical
www.thedriftmag.com
October 31, 2025 at 2:02 PM
thedriftmag.com
“The squelch is a metonym for their sexual intercourse.” In Nick Foretek’s Issue Sixteen short story, a trauma surgeon attends a pornographic fiction workshop.

www.thedriftmag.com/porn/
Porn
Fiction
www.thedriftmag.com
October 29, 2025 at 3:09 PM
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psjpbc.bsky.social
PSJP coordinator Alex Vitale was quoted in a recent article about Zohran Mamdani’s potential paths in dealing with the NYPD if elected mayor. Read at the link below.

Article by @k80way.bsky.social

@thedriftmag.com
@alexvitale.bsky.social
Walking the Thin Blue Line
Bill de Blasio, Zohran Mamdani, and the NYPD
www.thedriftmag.com
October 23, 2025 at 11:44 AM
thedriftmag.com
“To be starved in Gaza is to gradually lose both weight and dignity,” Abubaker Abed writes in his Issue Sixteen Dispatch on the experience of famine and why a ceasefire isn’t enough.

www.thedriftmag.com/bleak-and-de...
Bleak and Desolate Shelves
Starvation is not just an abstract idea; it is a kind of hell, and in Gaza it was enacted by design.
www.thedriftmag.com
October 23, 2025 at 2:52 PM
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erikmbaker.bsky.social
Trying to have it both ways with the NYPD doomed de Blasio, and it would doom Zohran too. Read Katie Way's cautionary tale: www.thedriftmag.com/walking-the-...
Walking the Thin Blue Line
Bill de Blasio, Zohran Mamdani, and the NYPD
www.thedriftmag.com
October 21, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Reposted by The Drift
k80way.bsky.social
So much has already been said about how a Mayor Zohran should orient himself towards the NYPD and yet here I am in @thedriftmag.com saying more
Walking the Thin Blue Line
Bill de Blasio, Zohran Mamdani, and the NYPD
www.thedriftmag.com
October 21, 2025 at 2:43 PM
thedriftmag.com
“If Mamdani is elected, the most reactionary voices in the department will have their knives out.” In a new preview from Issue Sixteen, @k80way.bsky.social considers Bill de Blasio’s relationship with the NYPD, and what lies ahead for Zohran Mamdani:

www.thedriftmag.com/walking-the-...
Walking the Thin Blue Line
Bill de Blasio, Zohran Mamdani, and the NYPD
www.thedriftmag.com
October 21, 2025 at 2:50 PM
thedriftmag.com
“Miraculously, we still made decisions.”

Jessica Laser’s Issue Fifteen poem “Hindsight” grapples, fittingly, with seeing and with direction.

www.thedriftmag.com/hindsight/
Hindsight
Poetry
www.thedriftmag.com
October 7, 2025 at 3:38 PM
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clmporg.bsky.social
“Joe Biden and Donald Trump separately visited Texas on the same day to present their respective plans for cracking down on border crossing.”

—Gabriel Antonio Solis’s “Borderlands, Betrayed,” in @thedrift-mag.bsky.social & our #HispanicHeritageMonth reading list: www.thedriftmag.com/borderlands-...
Borderlands, Betrayed
How Hispanic Democrats Abandoned Progressivism in South Texas
www.thedriftmag.com
October 3, 2025 at 5:00 PM
thedriftmag.com
“The hero tries to drown his daughter in the bathtub.
He does it as if he knows

it’s a movie”
— T. J. Cusano

www.thedriftmag.com/streaming/
Streaming
Poetry
www.thedriftmag.com
October 2, 2025 at 8:31 PM
thedriftmag.com
“My kitchen
is my CNN Newsroom, and the potatoes are sprouting.”
— Sasha Debevec-McKenney

www.thedriftmag.com/list-of-prog...
List of Programs Broadcast by CNN, Late Winter 2021
Poetry
www.thedriftmag.com
October 2, 2025 at 8:15 PM
thedriftmag.com
As the second week of the new season of Love Island Games draws to a close, Associate Editor Saliha Bayrak takes stock of the outsized sense of importance fans have begun to ascribe to Love Island contestants’ political views.

newsletter.thedriftmag.com/p/close-read...
Close reading angry political posts about Love Island
Plus two poems about TV
newsletter.thedriftmag.com
October 2, 2025 at 3:08 PM
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susfoodtrust.bsky.social
From today's #DailyNewsDigest📰: "The loss is measured not only in empty stomachs but in empty marketplaces, in recipes we can no longer prepare, in flavors fading from our tongues." – @thedrift-mag.bsky.social
www.thedriftmag.com/the-silence-...
The Silence in My Kitchen
Before the war I was a food blogger, visiting restaurants and writing reviews to showcase Gaza’s food culture.
www.thedriftmag.com
September 29, 2025 at 1:01 PM