During the pandemic, many homebound shoppers throughout China ordered mánghé (盲盒), or blind boxes, online. Each box costs the same amount, but the contents—usually toys and trinkets—remain a mystery until the box is opened. Some blind boxes, however, contain live animals—many of which, by the time they arrive, are dead ones. State media outlet Xinhua condemned the practice, saying that “Both buyers and sellers must start from the ‘heart’, have more goodwill, and have more respect for life.”
On my way to work I pass a funeral home that keeps a black hearse parked out front and a plastic yellow FUNERAL NO PARKING sign in front of the entrance. On my bike I sometimes have to dodge double-parked mourners and employees popping open their car doors into the street. Walking past it last week, I saw traces of a dead bird stamped into the pavement. A sparrow, maybe, once: black grime whorled with wingbone.
Birds falling from the sky—as thousands did last year in the Southwestern US—would surely be a bad omen in any other place. But dead things tend to collect on New York sidewalks as if they were never alive, as if they’d fallen from the trash.
Biking to the beach last Saturday, my friend Matt and I passed a black and white cat that had been killed by a car. The cat was striking, freshly dead, looking off at the nothing behind us, its insides stretched in a gruesome pink line all the way from where it lay in the middle of the road to the border of the bike lane.
According to NYC’s Department of Sanitation,
You may […] place a dead animal in a heavy-duty black plastic bag or double plastic bag and put it out on the day of garbage collection with a note taped to the bag stating "dead dog" or "dead cat", for example. Animals that may have been rabid should not be put in the garbage. The City cremates dead pets for a fee, though the ashes are not returned to the animal’s owner.
I walked past the funeral home today on my way to lunch. In the rain no birds flew. A gray helicopter slid across a gray sky.
ben tapeworm
on the turntable
from the dystopian future
The New Republic’s Jacob Silverman wrote about the dubious crime-reporting app Citizen:
Using fear as a revenue stream, the company seems less concerned with promoting care for one’s fellow citizens than redefining crime, broadcasting it, and securing its most wealthy users against it. For the rest of us, well, we can try to enjoy the show.
The Peter Thiel-backed company is also experimenting with a feature that would let users call private security through the app.
from my incoming texts
“I know there are no shortage of Kendrick Lamar fan girls out there, but you ever sit down and listen to all of DAMN these days and say damn. This guy is a genius”
“Omg maybe??”
“Lauren Oyler would cut my nuts off for that C plot”
“I have a guitar lesson at 5 and I wanna sleep in majorly”
“This is a good flight for the wedding”
“Make her hesitate while she filets my cargo shorts-clad bod”