a guide to situations representative of other situations


  • . . . like when you have to push an unusable stub of graphite out of a mechanical pencil before you can use the piece underneath

(expend to obtain same)


  •  . . . like sticking a Q-tip too far into your ear

(the use of a benign tool in a dangerous activity transfers a dangerous characterization from the activity to the tool) 


  • . . . like double opting-in

(complicity in a means of self-defense that allows itself to be undermined)


  • . . . like a song that's only worth listening to if it's really loud
  • . . . like a beverage that's only worth drinking if it's really cold

(a variable external characteristic determines whether a something is worth consuming)


  • . . . like how your maiden name isn't your maiden name while you're a maiden, it's just your name

        (something that never exists in the present, only in retrospect)


  • . . . like the difference between listening to a playlist in order and listening to it on shuffle

(acknowledging the meaning contributed by interstitial spaces)


  • . . . like how when you buy a concert ticket for a one-hit-wonder you're going to see them, not the song. they could just not do the song. only a social contract stops them. but really it's an economic contract. how can you tell whether your celeb is performing the song you like bc of the social or economic contract and consequences? here's a guide.

  • . . . like how woody allen created a genre of movies that is really just a new type of stand-up comedy and not movies at all, he expanded his art beyond its realm and fit it like a swuare peg into the pre-existing,  round realm of film.

  • . . . like how the word industrial comes from industry, comes to mean heavy, then comes to describe music that has nothing to do with industry.

(a creative descriptor forgets its etymological roots)


  • . . . like how we collectively tacitly decided we're going to put the modifier following the more important object in search terms

(snowball effect of social technology)


  • . . . like how corporations are people
  • . . . like how identities are people

(something is true on the surface but deeply untrue)