“In order to understand, it is immensely important for the person who understands to be located outside the object of his or her creative understanding — in time, in space, in culture. For one cannot even really see one’s own exterior and comprehend it as a whole, and no mirrors or photographs can help; our real exterior can be seen and understood only by other people, because they are located outside us in space, and because they are others.” — M. BAKHTIN

We slip down the steps of the Parthenon, running across the crisp sunny lawn and into the dark shade of nearby oak trees, back toward the access road leading to the car retrieval. That’s when we hear the music. The unmistakable jingle that announces the arrival of happiness and compels…

Real geese and giant plastic geese with people pedaling away inside them populate the surface of Lake Watauga, an artificial pond created for the 1897 Tennessee state exposition to accompany the replica Parthenon. We stop at a kiosk to purchase bread and grain pellets to throw at the aquatic wildlife. …

At this point, a proper narrator would take the time to describe the general aspect of our city to you: What it is like to live in or visit this Nashville of 2031, how the people here get through their days, what they think and feel. This story has no…

“It was 1977,” continues Monsieur M as we exit the elevator into my unit. “I was the meat in a celebrity love sandwich featuring a buttery-warm Kiki Dee on one side and a crispy-cool Jenny Agutter on the other.” A set of tiny ice-age figurine replicas kept on a tray…

Everything has changed, nothing has changed. Masked, I advance to the reception area for Terminal G at Nashville International Harbor, dressed in a replica of the Bryan Ferry chauffeur costume from the back cover of Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure album. …

The frozen desserts cabinet at the West End Avenue Piggly Wiggly has been nearly emptied of items, probably for some last-minute double-barreled bachelorette or anonymous sex party buffet, but remarkably a large stack of lemon meringue icebox pies remains untouched. Monsieur M sorts through them, selecting certain ones based on…

mister jones is still dead From inside my own mind it seems that other people’s minds are a just a bit like helical, circuit-filled, story-driven libraries, with things more or less in some sort of order, some sort of hierarchy, where they can remember and find and connect pieces of…

“Everything is content.” “Content is anything that can be placed in a container.” No, it isn’t. Here’s my provocation: “Content” is media you would pay money to give your attention to, if you had to pay money for it. And if content is anything that can be placed in a…