Mitt Romney let slip the big debate/campaign secret: you can’t win or lose, much less be right or wrong. It’s nothing but a word game on top of a mess of details that will make all the seemingly impossible big points work out in the end.
About Erik Hinton
I'm a web developer at The New York Times, where I specialize in next-generation skeuomorphs, disruptive cartographic practices, and alchemy. I'm also the one of the founders of the Moustache Club of America and Penny & Farthing, blogzines specializing in flash fiction and creative nonfiction that I co-curate with university professorOliver Bateman , medical consultant Nathan Zimmerman, and freelance writer Christie Chapman. Follow me on Twitter: ErikHinton
Fifty Shades of Being a Mom
August 15, 2012 by 1 Comment
Erik Hinton’s latest story touches on Skyrim, Fifty Shades of Grey, Call of Duty, Nicholson Baker, motherhood, and everything else that’s hot right now.
Letter to My Mother
June 6, 2012 by 1 Comment
In the first of a series of epistolary short fictions, Erik Hinton explores hipster life in the Big Apple.
Lessons from the Diablo Auction House: Mass Media as Folk Media
June 5, 2012 by 6 Comments
Erik Hinton discusses how the critical response to Diablo 3 can help us understand the problems faced by mainstream journalists.
One More Medal for Scout
April 10, 2012 by 1 Comment
Bomb threats had been out of vogue for some time. Only minor thugs with bad imaginations – too many hours of Die Hard reruns and not enough love as a child – would stoop to something as pedestrian as “phoning in a blast.” Such enervated acts of terror were yawns, handled by a single old [...]
March Madness: The Fiction Special
April 1, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Carlton Suede is about to dunk the ball. Without an ounce of grace — his mutt of a mother used to call him “our clubfooted son” — he is rising through the lower ether. Above the marshmallow-thick white soles, higher than the tense, ribbed socks, surpassing even the shiny mesh culottes of his despairing opponents. [...]
The Caramel Macchiato
December 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Excuse me miss. I would like one of those fantastic … one of those … oh you know. There’s the coffee and the milk, sometimes a leaf drawn in the foam? Yes of course, a latte. Latte us pray, ha! Isn’t that a latte to ask for? Ha! No no, strictly an amateur funny man. [...]
Emily: Leading from the heart
November 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment
The problem with sex scandals, at least in Emily’s opinion, was that, no matter how many shoes dropped, there was always a stinking boot still suspended. It was like a goddamn Payless in here, and as much as Emily appreciated Airwalk-brand sneakers at guaranteed low prices, she wanted more from life. So it made perfect [...]
Ludwig III, Part 2: this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks
October 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Professor Edgarstein squealed. A perfect paper. William Gibson meets Mel Gibson. Umberto Eco meets Marc Ecko. It was gritty and mean and dystopian and weirdly urban. A freshman wrote it? Not some rarefied tract in “Fibonacci Journ.”, not an illuminated scrap of analytic hand-wringing gracing the onion-skin pages of the “Denotational Biennial.” Jesus. Co-authored by [...]
I’m in the 100% and you can be too!
October 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Look, My family completely abandoned the US financial system and didn’t let the door hit ‘em where the good Lord split ‘em. We used token currencies growing up. I had my allowance paid in marzipan, which I tried to use to get into a big-time college. I WAS REJECTED. So, I saddled up my brother [...]
I’m the 100% and I’m sticking to it
October 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment
I graduated top of my class from State University of College making a million dollars an hour for a second-tier hedge fund. I had a month’s supply of placenta cream eye-circles-remover. I was loaded. My parents were two rats that jumped on a slave ship and had to steal cheese from cartoon mice just to [...]
Ludwig II
October 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Children deliquescing into toddler soup, violent sexual dismemberment, four-page folio spreads of third-degree burn victims, the Poop Boys Macarena, Ludwig Wittgenstein receiving enough self-abuse to bring him within an inch of his life, Princess Di’s moribund breasts. All topics that the modern man embraces. All topics that the World Acadamie of Lit-rat-ture deemed inappropriate. Inappropriate [...]
Ludwig I
September 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment
“Horseshit,” whined Penny. “Actually, Penny, Jereme Michalek worked primarily with orangutang excrement on account of the anthropomorphic …” Penny’s teacher trailed off. She didn’t have a clue what she meant. She had dreamt of being a ballet dancer, a tailor, a docent at a hot, seafaring museum. And now she was splitting hairs about turds. [...]
The Collected Lecture Notes of David Edgarstein
September 19, 2011 by Leave a Comment
I have been asked to talk to you about endings. But I cannot speak of endings any more than a gravedigger can speak of the afterlife. That is to say, I can speak of endings with a special authority as husband to their symbolic play in the world of the literal. There. You have your [...]
“You have reminded me how much I love men!”
These are comments by bobbt, Patty, and Michael Cusden on the post “What Dads Really Want For Father’s Day”.