pomo update 24.0

poor white men, Doomer Optimism, & talking to old people

announcements

• We still have copies of the zine vol. 4 available for purchase! Order here.

• Order some cool pomo merch like this tote bag in our shop!

latest pod

Jacob Savage joins the pod to discuss why it’s so hard to be a white [passing] cisgender millennial male writer, and why you should feel bad for us. Jk. We discuss everything from DEI in publishing to our favorite dude writers. Listen on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.

pomo people elsewhere

• Kazuo Robinson reviews Maggie O’Farrell’s Land in Harvard Review

Reading this kind of mediocre yearning fiction is like chopping onions: a bit of a chore, and you might be made to cry a little, but the tears are soon dried, and you feel no lasting sadness or dilation of the soul. What was that all about? Anyway, almost time for dinner.

• Nikos Mohammadi wrote about

  • how NYC is not part of the US in The Blaze’s Frontier

In a weird kind of way, it was New York’s links to the rest of the country that were the very worst the city had to offer—the most depressing and soul-crushing, yes, the most American, in the sense that they were reflective of what travel—and human existence more broadly—looks like elsewhere in this country: bad architecture, bad food, bad vibes. But if you stepped outside of these travel hubs and into Manhattan, you’d see a whole different world, a distinctly—and unfortunately for America—un-American one.

• Citizen Vigilante in UnHerd

This obscure film has received attention in large part due to Elon Musk, owner of X, promoting it on his platform. It is artistically lacking — little more than Right-wing slop, akin to a Dinesh D’Souza production. But its celebration of violence and the chaotic society it portrays is useful in thinking about our own mad predicament.

• Stephen wrote about the need for intergenerational dialogue in America Magazine

Surely, caring for the elderly during their last phase of life is no easy task. We would be naïve to romanticize the emotional and financial tolls it takes to stay with someone until their “natural end.” Even the simpler act of engaging in intergenerational dialogue comes with its challenges. Yet my relationship with seniors—and especially my experience of caring for several of them until their death—confirmed my conviction that we not only have a duty to accompany them, but that forging intergenerational dialogue, relationships and spaces are crucial elements of a healthy society.

from the archives

• We had a wonderful time meeting the cool people of Doomer Optimism and Savage Collective last weekend, with whom cracks in pomo hopes to collaborate very soon. Before our panel together, Grant Martsolf and I chatted about Bad Catholics like Andy Warhol, and why Americans can’t seem to comprehend the concept (or Warhol). Check out our archive of Warhol content, and our commentary on why people didn’t understand his [lack of] chastity here:

• Some of you took our argument that only nepobabies and consecrated people should major in theology literally…because apparently you forgot that cracks in pomo is an outlet that’s dedicated to ironic, pretentious commentary that’s meant to provoke you to think more deeply rather than to convincing you that we are right about everything [which obvi, we’re not!].

  That being said, idk how anyone studying any of the humanities [esp. in grad school] is going to survive unless they’re already rich or have a consecrated community keeping them afloat. As we all know, “academia is dead.” For more on this, check out the proceedings from our panel back in 2024 on the topic with K.C. Johnson, Jonah Howell, and Kay Craig: