And he proved his contempt by eating crisps and drinking beer all the way through the talk and giving away copies of his book to anyone under twenty five, helping them to understand what he was doing by explaining that books were “lots of words in a row”.

What concerns me is the death of the audience. It doesn’t matter what happens to me. I’m better off than most authors I know, most journalists I know. There was a period of greater prosperity. I wonder why, why do I have a relationship to you. Why do you have a relationship to you?

My twitter group is bigger than you, more widely spread than you. They are probably a better audience than you. They can put up with more than you. They’ll RT me. I know some of you are gathering together in the back conspiring … drifting … you’re the people formerly known as the audience. And you’re forfeiting the benefits of the audience. Paying attention to the point of being able to discuss it.

But the resurgence of spacewear this season is especially forceful, and touching, as designers confront an uncertain future. In their most recent shows, self-styled seers of the catwalks combined robotic engineering with effusive draping and scavenged-looking elements that appeared to be inspired by the fantasy worlds of the “Mad Max” films.

…

Rick Owens, whose fall presentation this month had an otherworldly caste, calls the latest revival “an escape from banality.” Mr. Owens acknowledged that his designs owe a debt to Frank Frazetta’s illustrations for the John Carter book series, whose raven-haired protagonist sported a six-pack and scanty skins, and was “caveman and futuristic at the same time.” His own designs, with their fierce-looking layers, meandering zippers and winged lapels, suggest a similar hybrid, expressing, he said, “a sentimental longing for utopian happiness that is poignantly always out of reach.”

…

“What we need are first responders who don’t share our pain,” said Martin Kaplan, the associate dean. “If there’s one thing Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon never had to think about, it’s a pension.”

Bruce Sterling: The fluidity of the idea of national identity.

The idea of “developing countries” is a bogus anachronism. Places like Mexico City are better thought of as “areas of global urbanization.” Mexico City is much closer to the reality of Shanghai or Lagos than rural Chiapas or Oaxaca. Mexico City as the “global capital of Latino globalization.”

The ascendant role of the *city*, which establish national economic archetypes and don’t care about borders, in a world where the nation state is slipping away, as the national governments lose control of their economies and borders.

“People talk about emerging economies. What about *submerging* economies – places like Detroit…parts of D.C. where the AIDS rates are higher than Uganda.”

“In the future, the poor will not be able to avoid becoming posthuman, because they just can’t afford it.”