Passive Voice

The newest installment of Facepalm Pilot, my technology-driven column for McSweeney’s, focuses on grammatical structures and the way they influence our understanding of the world.

As a thought experiment, let’s examine in extremely close detail a set of iterative changes that can be made to a single simple grammatical structure.

Facepalm Pilot

I’ve somehow ended up with a new column for McSweeney’s called Facepalm Pilot, in which I’ll fiddle around with “the intersections of technology and stupidity.” There are many of these! So, data-driven satire, I guess?

First up, an interactive graphic exploring scientific and ethical conclusions based on zombie sociology.

Sniders

It is very hard for me to bring myself to say this very silly phrase, but: I wrote a very short piece of fiction about pretzels for McSweeney’s. It’s part of their snarky reviews of new food series, to which I also contributed a Grape Nuts feature a few years ago.

When I bite into a Snyder’s of Hanover York Peppermint Pretzel Sandwich Dip, I get the sensation that I’m about to die in a ditch and my rotting corpse will be picked apart by raccoons before anybody finds me. more

McSweeney’s!

McSweeney's

I have finally been published by McSweeney’s. Twenty-seven twenty-six more things to do before I die.

(As more are added, you’ll need to scroll farther down to read my submission, or else you can search the page for my name to jump right to it.)