The Baffler No. 25

Hello, friends. “The None and the Many,” our silver jubilee issue, starts off with a proverbial bang with “Pistols for Two,” an exchange between David Graeber and Thomas Piketty on capital, debt, and the future. Thomas Frank looks the Masons and Rotarians in the eye, and Natasha Vargas-Cooper considers the meaning of a president’s posterior. Nicholson Baker provides us with a meta-review of more than a dozen JFK-assassination books, and emerges from all his reading with his own arresting theory intact. Jacob Silverman travels back in time to visit some like-minded subversives from the cusp of the Information Revolution, and Jason Linkins does us the favor of immersing himself in countless hours of cable TV news, so we don’t have to, thank heavens. Tom Gogola reports from Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s segregation movement, and Astra Taylor from a worker-owned manufacturing plant in Chicago, while Helaine Olen sends updates from Venice, California’s “coolest block in America,” and Daniel Brook experiences the gospel of wealth from the perspective of the direst slums of India.

There are also salvos on politics, economics, and education policy from the formidable brains of Todd VanDerWerff, Chris Bray, Chris Lehmann, Lee Fang, and Jennifer C. Berkshire. Plus excerpts, interviews, and archival treats from Barbara Ehrenreich, Matt Roth, and Hugh McGraw; fiction by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya and Melina Kamerić; and poetry by Peter Payack, Edwin Frank, Joshua Moses, Melissa Monroe, and Elise Partridge. Wait, that’s not all: there are full-color photographs and original illustrations by Michael Northrup, Lewis Koch, Henrik Drescher, Katherine Streeter, and more. Finally, we pay tribute to the dear, departed, and prolific genius that was Baffler artist David McLimans. It’s our friendship issue, believe it or not, and we invite you to join us.

Contents:

Isolatoes

Friends in Low Places
John Summers

Veiled Pensioners of the Mystic Sofa
Thomas Frank

Brown Noser
Natasha Vargas-Cooper

Zapped by the Invisible World
Barbara Ehrenreich

Dreams Incorporated: Living the delayed life with Amway
Matt Roth

Earth Liberation Stunt
Hugh McGraw

Photo Graphic

Sizing Up
Michael Northrup

Politics by Other Memes

World Processor
Jacob Silverman

Noise from Nowhere: The cable news jihad against human intelligence
Jason Linkins

Tip and Gip Sip and Quip: The politics of never
Chris Bray

The None and the Many

Dallas Killers Club: How JFK got shot
Nicholson Baker

Looks Like a Duck, Quacks Like Reality TV
Todd VanDerWerff

The Jim Crow Soft-Shoe Segregationists of St. George
Tom Gogola

The Dollar Debauch

Brothers from Another Planet
Chris Lehmann

Reformers

JebFest: The Education Miracle That Isn’t
Jennifer C. Berkshire

The Business of America Is Dirty Tricks: Meet the United States Chamber of Commerce
Lee Fang

Hope and Ka-ching: Workers of the world, apply here
Astra Taylor

Slumming It: The gospel of wealth comes for Dharavi
Daniel Brook

Story

Among Friends
Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Solitude
Melina Kamerić

Poems
from Book of Conceptual Anarchy
Peter Payack

Route 202
Edwin Frank

Maybe Next Time Around
Joshua Moses

To Be Rid of a Rival
Melissa Monroe

Placard at the Los Angeles Excavation Site, 5002 A.D.
Elise Partridge

Pistols for Two

Soak the Rich: An exchange on capital, debt, and the future
David Graeber and Thomas Piketty

City of Blight

Break on Through, Abbot Kinney: Venice, California
Helaine Olen

Memorial

Seen Dave?
Patrick JB Flynn

Exhibitions

Brad Holland
Chris Labrooy
Henrik Drescher
Briony Morrow-Cribbs
Lewis Koch
Walter S. H. Hamady