ISSUE 60 | JAN 2016

SEE AMERICA

Photograph by Tom Dyne

road trips are, at heart, inefficient - those nasty pants in the cab - dark and alcoholic winter - going up to the bartender and just ordering an Olivia Durif - dump out the cheetos and multiply the number by 2 - a service station grocery store called DAD'S - bliss of riding bitch - to make a road trip of a human

Kate Williams

Waffle House: A Strange American Dream

Everyone has their own personal Waffle House - that’s over 25,000 miles of a Bacon Belt!! - crotchety food writers and locavore chefs - both clearly intoxicated, they split a pecan waffle - the Waffle House language, while obscure, is inclusive and transparent - its deliberately hokey concept appeals to a deeply Southern nostalgia

Hannah Coolidge

North American Oilfields and How We Suck Them Dry

carbon-rich organic material—i.e., life - 42 U.S. gallons at 60° F - 5.8 million Btu - the expulsion of hydrocarbons - stratigraphic traps - flow up into the wellbore - of refined petroleum products - a light, sweet crude

Paul Hermanson

Normal Predicaments of Human Divinity: Outside(r)s and Inside(r)s in Moundville and Chicago

the demise of Chicago's most famous housing project - Stanley Tigerman, gadfly of postmodern architecture - the guts of the building - two failed marriages, several aborted careers, and hundreds of bottles of whiskey - Agee and Evans traveled to Moundville, Alabama in the summer of 1936 - a self-congratulatory, patronizing canon

Anna Aizman

How Many Empires Do You See?: Trophy Films in the Soviet Union

the industry that once produced Eisenstein and Vertov - four Tarzan films appeared on Soviet screens - dying of consumption and consumerism - were they emancipated or not? - American films, American jazz, cigarettes, and fashion - they had invented their own United States - the market crashed just months later

Mandy-Suzanne Wong

Calderas

the amphitheater around Old Faithful - the volcano at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas - a futile effort that just might end in madness - managed to survive the chemicals and thermophiles - every vehicle in the vicinity plunged into the ditch - surveillance at last became intolerable - we were motionless for so long that I found myself thinking of Los Angeles

Sam Feldman

Westward

like drunk Cubs fans and Catholics - get to the bottom of it, Scooby-Doo-style - kind of like Teach for America but for sausages - Paul and I couchsurfed with a gluten-free girl in Westport - none of the teens in Taco Shop wanted to run away with us - we pulled off I-80 into Buford, Wyoming, population 1

Corey Heiferman

Justin Bieber, Martyr

Bieber would interest William James almost as much as Henry - Nous sommes tous Justin - Tisch-trained Lady Gaga - it reminded me of Wittgenstein - the video tries to show what lesbians actually do in bed - the biggest gig for Benny Blanco and Matza Ball Productions since Drake’s Bar Mitzvah - kvetching about her root canal and pushing her eponymous red wine