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This can’t be the same thing.

TO EAT, TO SLEEP BY DANIEL J NEWCOMER 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 25

“This can’t be the same thing as two years ago,” a Tunisian journalist told me as we waited for her mother to cook us dinner. This journalist, Nadya, was a beautiful blonde woman who ran a radio program in Hammamet; we met one day as I was taking pictures of a protest and she approached me to tell me that it was dangerous. “I know,” I said fancifully, “I like it that way.”

She found the mannequins in the basement.

REAL ESTATE, RETAIL, & REALITY BY MOURA MCGOVERN 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 25

She was the one per cent. Her mannequins were the 99. Or maybe she was the 99 and her mannequins were the one per cent. “Whatever,” she thought. She was creating “CULTURE”. (With caps and air quotes.)

Do what you want to do, what you think is the right thing to do.

ENLIGHTENMENT CIRCA 1962 BY JOHN HEARN 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 25

Our neighborhood is a box. It limits us in certain ways, closes us off to a bunch of options, imprisons us. A marriage is a box and so is a family. Being a boyfriend is a box and the church is one too, maybe the most oppressive of them all. A factory is a box. The suburbs—maybe you don’t know what a suburb is—but they are boxes too. Hell, all of America is one. Boxes aren’t good things. They keep us from fulfilling our potential, from exploring fully the world and ourselves.