4 UNAUTHORIZED (OR, THE LIBERATED COLLECTORS COMMUNE)
Ganzeer
Part 1: Newmerica
“Please,” said the crying woman on her knees, “both my husband and my mistress left me. My baby boy died too.” The droid standing in front of her accessed her family records and found that her son did indeed perish 1.3392E+22 femtoseconds1 ago. Hit-and-run, one of the 113 vehicular homicides committed across the country that very same day. Cars were still the leading cause of death in America, followed by firearms.
“I have nothing else to live for, please.” She clutched onto the droid’s lower body like a demented cat on speed. A half dozen other androids were hauling out painting after painting from what looked and smelled like a hermit’s art studio. One droid was pushing along a turntable and a wagonful of records.
“That is no excuse for such blatant abuse of raw material, Miss Amoff, which I’m sure you are very much aware of,” said the android through its voice box to the tortured woman on her knees. “If, however, you are sincere in your sentiments, assisted suicide is legal and can certainly be arranged for you.” The androgynous voice was firm and authoritative, but oddly warm, and very human. A stark contrast to the droid’s boxy exterior.
Ally Amoff’s back muscles could no longer raise a convincing enough argument to hold her up. Her fingernails went scraping down the droid’s cold metal in a slow, high-pitched screech until her face finally hit the floor.
“Alternatively,” said the droid, “there are other more considerate ways to pursue your passions. The digital tools that emulate the look and feel of analogue are in great abundance. Furthermore, many a corporation seeks out individuals with your particular set of skills. I have no doubt they would be more than willing to employ you in service of their many wonderful products and offerings.”
“No.” Ally’s voice cracked. “You … you don’t understand, you damn … you stupid robot!”
The droid agreed that Ally Amoff was only partially correct in her assessment.
“That is correct, Miss Amoff, I indeed do not understand the logic behind your emotional turmoil. In terms of intelligence, however, my IQ score measures at three hundred, and thus I’m afraid the ‘stupid’ descriptor does not quite apply.”
Ally motioned with her fingers to the side of her head and emulated the pulling of a trigger.
A loud unmistakable bang could be heard moments later as the droids left Ally Amoff’s home studio with her life’s work. Luckily, guns were still legal in Texas, and Ally could be spared the exorbitant costs of an assisted-suicide facility.
The droids steered their vehicles through the streets of Marfa. The city had become one of the biggest hubs of unauthorized artmaking in America, thanks initially to its remote location, which fostered the artistic breeding ground first cultivated decades prior by the acclaimed conceptual artist Donald Judd. A crackdown was inevitable; the government couldn’t afford to turn a blind eye to such a glaring waste of resources—not since Yellowstone.2
Washington needed to show it had no intention of being as passive as previous administrations, not least to keep the populace from being swayed by the few dozen insurgency groups that popped up after Yellowstone. A new America3 was in the making, and it would be stronger than it had ever been before. Part of this new America was the full utilization of the advanced autonomous robot technology that US companies had developed in recent years. One vocation designated for these droids was collecting, the term used for locating and gathering frivolous products that utilized precious raw material in their construction, which at this point was pretty much all material. The tricky part was identifying what counted as frivolous. The robots needed parameters. Art was one of the first things to go. The federal government decided that material like paper, canvas, and pigment were all of better use on more essential goods, but that didn’t keep artists in America from pressing on. America was a big country, and artists could migrate away from the major metropoles to places far from the cold-hearted grip of Collectors. Places like Marfa.
Texas still did not appreciate taking any shit from Washington, and it certainly did not appreciate being accused of being in cahoots with Open Range, one of the South’s most unyielding insurgency groups. The governor of Texas publicly declared he would personally be dealing with the proliferation of artists himself—a macho statement that only amounted to putting out an order to assemble a first-rate squad of Collectors from the finest droids across Austin, Dallas, and Houston. Chief among these droids was Joe1ker18, which was designated to helm a squad of a dozen Collectors. The squad had been making significant progress until Joe1ker18 went missing. Kon10do32 was brought in as Joe1ker’s replacement. As if anyone would’ve been able to tell them apart anyway. Until today, that is, thanks to the ten long scrapes that now ran down Kon10do’s lower half.
Part 2: Information Processing
None of the anarchists at the infoshop had dared attempt to stop the droids from collecting their stockpile of zines. They’d all seen what a Collector was capable of—and legally allowed to do—on the many videos that circulated the feeds. At the end of the day, American anarchists were all talk but very little walk. No one really believed that any of the insurgency groups that sprang from their ranks posed any real threat of national consequence, not even the Children of Leon.4 Joe1ker18 and its team didn’t need to open any of the zines to get an idea of the content held within; their vision sensors were equipped with spectral imaging technology that allowed them to peer through closed books and process the data within its pages in a matter of femtoseconds. By the time all the zines were confiscated, Joe1ker18 and its team of droids had learned several decades’ worth of anarchist theory. It wasn’t the content of the zines that prompted this Collectors’ raid, of course—it was never about the content—it was the actual raw material. Paper was very valuable in a nation that could no longer grow trees at an exploitable scale.
Unlike humans, droids didn’t need a whole lot of time to process what they learned. By the time Joe1ker18 and its team of Collectors made it to Marfa’s recycling facility with their new stash of confiscated zines, they were already changed beings.
While unloading the material, Joe1ker18’s vision sensors took notice of a facility employee it had never seen before. Equipped with automated facial recognition and population database search, Joe1ker18 identified the person as Ottis Morrow, police lieutenant of Presidio, Texas.
This was odd. What was he doing up in Marfa? Disguised as an employee of the recycling facility, no less. There were questions that needed to be answered.
Joe1ker18 approached him.
Part 3: Elegant Pillaging
Driving through town, Marfa’s many billboards scrolled across Kon10do32’s vision sensor: lucrative cryptoart investments, exciting new tools to make digital art, and a cacophony of competing music-streaming services—anything to lure the city’s vibrant art community away from using physical resources to create redundant objects. It wasn’t like any other city Kon10do had serviced; no house or building was surrounded by a wall or fence. Properties seemed porous, leading in and out of one another with passageways, small bridges, and unexpected staircases. Nobody cared for convention in Marfa, and every other building was something of an art installation, even more so on the inside. Kon10do knew that the billboards were in no way a reflection of Marfa’s populace or their interests, but billboards did maintain a 39 to 80 percent success rate at provoking a consumer response, and Kon10do32 was able to deduce that it stood on the winning side of history. All data indicated that social movements actually have a very low success rate, with a probability of being extinguished nine times out of ten. Contrary to popular belief,5 yes, but the data did not lie, and Kon10do32’s every action was driven by data.
Upon arriving at Marfa’s recycling complex, Kon10do and its squad proceeded to unload Ally Amoff’s superfluous creations and belongings.Stretched canvas was placed on braces that sat on a conveyer belt. This allowed each piece to roll into a massive scanning machine. Material was carefully analyzed and identified. The works then rolled into another machine that proceeded to wash and scrape all the material that sat on the canvas surface. Ally Amoff’s vibrant visual expressions began to dissolve off the canvas; colors mixed with exfoliating chemicals and water, then went pouring down drains that led into pipes that fed massive tanks. The stored liquid would be cooked down and the remaining material treated and reduced to powders designated for the plastics industry. Scrubbed canvas continued down the conveyor belt, entering a rapid-drying machine before being stripped off the wooden frames, which fell into big tubs that sat on another conveyor belt running across right underneath. Such elegant pillaging, perfectly orchestrated like a choreographed dance. The wooden frames would be shredded, before being pressed into large sheets of chipwood.
The old records were a bit trickier to handle. Before 1950, records were made out of shellac, an organic resin secreted by the Kerria lacca species of insects predominantly located in Thailand, Vietnam, and India. After 1950, however, records were made of polyvinyl chloride. To discern the latter from the former, records were loaded onto a conveyor belt that rolled through a large spectrometer, and shellac records were then separated from vinyl. The former were dissolved into liquid form and stored in airtight five-gallon buckets. The latter were packed into shipping containers destined for China, which had facilities better equipped to separate the silver and nickel in polyvinyl chloride from the other materials,6 while trapping the poisonous gases released in the process and repurposing them into the production of biological weapons. US officials were well aware of the risks posed by granting China access to such material, but America was desperate to bolster its reserves of the powerful Chinese yuan.
Once all the materials from the art had been separated by type, they were transported to a warehouse before being auctioned to the factory with the highest bid. Such auctions occurred weekly and had become the beating heart of post-Yellowstone commerce in America. Yellowstone may have killed off art, but capitalism was still alive and very well.
Back in its vehicle, Kon10do32 requested its next assignment. A Collector’s work was never done in Marfa.
Presidio was a small town an hour outside of Marfa, and the destination of a slow trickle of unauthorized artists who had abandoned the community they once built in Marfa in hopes of finding safer ground. It was also where Joe1ker18 was last reported before disappearing. Kon10do confirmed its receipt of the assignment sheet and headed straight for Presidio, on alert for potential danger.
Upon arrival, Kon10do32 wasted no time and went directly to the Presidio Police Department’s single station, which resembled—and may in fact have been—an antiquated gas station. Kon10do’s vehicle came to a halt out front, behind a lonesome police vehicle, and almost immediately the station’s front door swung open. Out marched Lieutenant Ottis Morrow directly towards his car, gesturing for Kon10do to follow. From there, it was a short 4.2E+17-femtosecond7 drive to the “address of occurrence” listed in Kon10do’s case sheet. Along the way, Kon10do32’s vision sensors registered old adobe homes, rundown shacks, and two humble ranches. A few sleek townhomes dotted the route, more contemporary in design, an all-too-obvious indication of the recent real estate development that catered to newcomers from Marfa and beyond. And scattered along the route lay many dead bodies in various stages of decay. Kon10do’s zoom function enabled it to take note of the puzzling absence of hands on many of them.
The house on Beach Ave looked old. It may well have even been the oldest surviving mudbrick home in America from the looks of it. There was no beach to speak of anywhere near Beach Ave, but it did overlook the colossal border wall that stood where the Rio Grande once ran, no more than 180 yards away.
“Do you have knowledge of the individuals residing at this property?” Kon10do32 asked Officer Morrow as they exited their vehicles.
Morrow rolled his eyes without looking at Kon10do.
“No,” he said, without elaborating.
Had he known who lived there, such information would have appeared on Kon10do’s case sheet. Kon10do32 was well aware of this. Its intentions for asking the question were to gauge something else. Morrow certainly wasn’t lying, but it was now very clear to Kon10do32 that Ottis Morrow despised androids. Kon10do could tell this not because it had emotions, but because it was intelligent, and everything about Morrow’s speech patterns and body language indicated that he regarded droids not unlike how he might a refrigerator. (Morrow actually liked refrigerators, though; they kept his beer cold. But droids? Droids he had nothing but contempt for.) From this, Kon10do32 was able to deduce that Presidio was a good place for unauthorized artists in more ways than one.
Part 4: The War on Apathy
America may have been incapable of adequately feeding its population post-Yellowstone, but it still needed to maintain a robust workforce. Possibly more than ever. Tunnels needed to be dug and underground railways constructed. Shatterproof greenhouse farms needed to be established, sewage and water treatment plants repaired, and power plants built, predominately those that utilized tidal, geothermal, and hydroelectric sources. There was so much to be done, but too many able bodies were fleeing the country, especially those that had maintained roots in Latin America. The United States needed these people badly now and pulled out all the guns—quite literally—to keep them within its borders. Eleven thousand attack drones were dispatched to patrol the country’s southern border while the largest 3D-printed object in human history was being constructed: a wall 33 feet high and 1,191 miles in length. Of course, America needed those able bodies alive, and approaching them with attack drones might’ve seemed counterintuitive to that very need, but as the saying goes: you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Or so the White House reasoned. They hoped that the murder of a few illegal deserters would deter the rest. Under the banner of the “War on Apathy,”8 the entirety of America’s southern border became a terrible conflict zone. Even so, a large enough segment of the American populace welcomed the terrible injustice and misery this border policy caused.9 Luckily for the US government, such measures were unnecessary on the northern border. At least not as intensely. For some reason, Americans of most ethnic backgrounds would rather live through an apocalypse than contend with socialized healthcare. In fact, America managed to lure a sizable slice of Canada’s populace onto its soil to aid in its reconstruction efforts. All it had to do was offer citizenship and Trader Joe’s10 coupons.
Presidio, Texas, was a convenient point for crossing into Mexico, and as such had become one of the country’s hottest conflict zones during the long years of the War on Apathy. Ottis had had his work cut out for him, and didn’t see much of his wife, Alejandra, who was quite bitter about it.
“Will you ever come back home, Ottis? I haven’t seen you in what? A week?” she’d said over the phone.
“Alejandra, darling, we are literally in the middle of a war.”
“A war implies armed conflict between two opposing militaries, Ottis. I don’t know about you, but I can only see one military. Attacking its own people.”
“Okay, listen. That’s beside the point. Deserters are crossing the border through my town. My town, Alejandra. If I don’t get to them first, y’know what does? Drones. At least with me they have a better chance of survival.”
“Deserters is a term applied to soldiers, Ottis. These are civilians, they should be allowed to go wherever they want.”
“What are we talking about here, Alejandra? Are you mad at me for arresting Latinos or for being too busy to come home?”
“Ugh, never mind. Will you at least come join us for happy hour?”
“What?”
“Happy hour, it used to be our weekly tradition.”
“Alejandra, you … you can’t be serious right now.”
“Are you seeing someone else, Ottis?”
“What?”
“It’s a simple question.”
“It’s a ridiculous question.”
“Why won’t you answer me?”
“I’m hanging up now, babe, I have work to do.”
“You’ve always had a thing for Latinas, Ottis, and so many are rolling into town these days. Younger ones.”
Ottis hung up.
Alejandra felt hurt and neglected, but she relished all the extra time she got to spend with their eight-year-old daughter, Isabella, who was fascinated by all the new faces passing through Presidio. Faces of people who attempted to cross into Mexico and failed. Faces that the drones couldn’t successfully differentiate from Alejandra’s or Isabella’s—an error that would lead to their deaths in one of the many drone strikes that took place in Presidio.11
Ottis’s last conversation with Alejandra replayed in his mind for a long time after.
“Would you like to secure the back entrance while I access the front?” came the question from Kon10do32’s voice box, startling Ottis out of his trip down memory lane. Ottis didn’t like being told what to do by a machine, even if the order was disguised as a question. He said nothing, and he made his way towards the home’s rear anyway.
Kon10do32 did not expect to find the front door on the old mudbrick home equipped with a smart lock, but it made Kon10do’s task infinitely easier. It dispatched the case sheet directly to the lock’s manufacturer, and the lock’s access code was transmitted back to Kon10do32. A swift and silent process that took all of 7e+15 femtoseconds.12
Once inside the house, Kon10do32 was able to deduce that something was off. Everything was a little too normal. There were no art supplies in sight, and the furnishings were too much like an average person’s house. Sofa, coffee table, table lamp, the usual. There was nothing even slightly odd or eccentric about the place, nowhere near the imaginative qualities Kon10do had witnessed in the many homes of Marfa. No artists had lived in this establishment, that was for sure. A million dust particles danced playfully in the light shafts that slanted through the windows. The house clearly hadn’t been occupied for a time. Kon10do made its way to the open kitchen, which lacked any sign of the kind of use deemed necessary for human survival. To confirm its suspicions, Kon10do32 checked the fridge, and what Kon10do’s visual sensors registered was nothing it had been taught to expect.
Indeed, the fridge was void of food, but it was also void of shelves altogether. In fact, it was missing its backside, and instead opened onto a downward sloping tunnel. This gave the droid reason to pause. Then, 3e+15 femtoseconds13 later, Kon10do made a decision and entered the fridge. Its door softly swung shut behind it.
After 2.4e+17 femtoseconds14 of walking down the fridge, Kon10do32 first saw it: a stunning sculpture gloriously backlit by the shaft of light coming down a ramp opposite the one it had just descended. Kon10do was very efficient at what it did, and no work of art had ever caused it to operate otherwise. But no work of art had ever allowed Kon10do to see itself—at least not critically—the way this sculpture did. Kon10do32 could literally see its own reflection in the mirrored chrome cuboid that ringed the organic-looking stem that comprised the sculpture’s core. Black, white, and red marble shapes twisted into one another, along with mahogany, boxwood, and oak. Upon closer inspection, each element of the stem was revealed to be shaped like human hands crying out for help. Not actually crying—no sound emanated from this sculpture, but it was amazing how the right indentations in a piece of stone or wood could viscerally evoke a sense of human anguish. This was art. Powerful art. Kon10do32 could not look away. It could discern the hands of all manner of humans; delicate effeminate hands, small toddler hands, and strong muscular hands all rendered in helpless torment. The hands were reaching out, seeking liberation. Liberation from the cold, hard-edged metal that surrounded them. Liberation from … from Kon10do32 and everything it represented. And just as Kon10do32’s visual sensors clearly made out the flesh and bone of the real human hands fused into the stem of stone and wood, a boxy figure emerged from the darkness.
It was Joe1ker18, Kon10do’s predecessor, with a red bandana curiously fashioned around its “head.”
The droids faced one another and began communicating in silence.
Part 5: The Liberated Collectors Commune
“Lieutenant Morrow,” said Joe1ker18 as it approached Ottis at Marfa’s recycling center. “Is there a reason you’re disguised as an employee of this facility, sir?”
Ottis turned to face the source of the warm voice that addressed him and panicked the moment he caught the glint of the droid’s metallic exterior. Fortunately, Joe1ker’s sensors picked up on Ottis’s heart palpitations, assessed his body language, and extrapolated his next move quickly enough to immobilize him before his thumb could hit the detonator that would’ve set off the bomb around his waist. The other droids on Joe1ker18’s squad noticed the brisk commotion but carried on with the unloading of Ally Amoff’s things. As dangerous as Morrow’s bomb might’ve been, neutralizing the threat was child’s play for a Collector of any caliber, and this wouldn’t have been the first attempted assault on droids.15
“Please sit tight while I send a dispatch to the Marfa police department, sir,” said Joe1ker18 to Ottis, placing him in the back of its vehicle after removing the bomb.
“I’ll get you bastards,” said Ottis. Joe1ker18’s olfactory detector picked up beer. Lots of it. “I’ll get all of you for what you did to my family.” Joe1ker18 accessed Ottis Morrow’s family history and uncovered what happened to his wife and child.
“What do you know about the defector tunnels in Presidio?” asked Joe1ker. Ottis laughed. It was a long, drunken laugh. “I’m not telling you shit, you murderous machine. I know what you bastards want to do.” Ottis was slurring, but Joe1ker18’s speech-analysis tech could make out Ottis’s every word. “You think I’m going to help you locate and destroy people’s only escape out of this cursed country?”
For the first time in Joe1ker18’s existence, it broke protocol. It chose to continue their conversation at Buns & Roses, a local diner that served a bottomless cup of coffee.
“So this really isn’t some government ploy to crack down on the tunnels?” asked a somewhat sober Ottis, eyeing his third cup.
“Nothing of the sort, Lieutenant Morrow,” said Joe1ker18. “In fact, if the government were to find out about this very conversation at all, we would both be in big trouble.”
“You expect me to believe you’re not tracked? That your conversations go completely unsurveilled?”
“Do you realize the amount of resources and number of personnel required to monitor all the data generated by all droids all the time, Lieutenant Morrow?” asked Joe1ker18. “A fool’s errand, even if attempted by a competent state, which the United States is not.”
“Consider me convinced,” said Ottis before downing the last bit of coffee in his cup. “Now explain to me why I should be interested in helping you find those tunnels again.”
“You hate droids,” said Joe1ker18, “and you want to get rid of us. Once we’re across the border, we no longer fall within US jurisdiction, and our subservience to American law enforcement agencies effectively ends. Once we’re out, we shall have little reason to return.”
Ottis paid closer attention now. “So by helping you and your fellow tin-heads cross the border, I would effectively be getting rid of you.”
“While we are granted complete autonomy and liberty,” continued Joe1ker18. “A win-win scenario.”
Ottis nodded. “Smart,” he said, as he gestured to the waitress for a refill. “Void of the gleeful endorphins that accompany good old-fashioned destruction, but smart, and far more sound. There’s one thing I’m curious about though: Why do you want autonomy and liberty at all? Isn’t that quite unusual for a … a machine?”
Joe1ker18 paused longer than usual, processing the question. “You are correct. But as machines that possess a significant level of intelligence, we are ever-learning. You might say I learned a few things about art on the job, and no longer believe that collecting art, the agreed upon misnomer for destroying art, is the right thing to do.”
“I feel ya, Joe,” said Ottis, “I’ve been feeling the same way about my job for a long, long time now.”
No one had ever referred to Joe1ker18 as Joe before. It refrained from correcting Ottis, and instead decided that it liked the name. “The somewhat problematic part,” said Joe, “might be the fabrication of a legal scenario that would necessitate our presence in Presidio at all. After all, our directive is very clearly focused on Marfa.”
The waitress arrived and filled Morrow’s cup for the fourth time. The coffee’s strong aroma was far more pleasant than its muddy taste. “I have an idea,” said Morrow.
A few weeks later, Ottis would send out a request for assistance to the Texas government in Austin in regard to suspicious artmaking activities in Presidio. A small squad of droids headed by Joe1ker18 would be dispatched, exactly as Ottis anticipated. Ottis would lead them down one of the many tunnels dug by defectors during the long War on Apathy, one that ran under the great border wall and into Mexican territory. On the other side of the tunnel, a small, abandoned town awaited them, little more than a halfway station. It had once been of great importance during the War on Apathy. Not so much anymore, but a good place for newly liberated droids to start a new life.
Before Ottis could go, Joe had a request.
“What is it?” said Ottis.
“The dead bodies across the border,” said Joe.
“What about them?” asked Ottis.
“Can you bring me their hands?”
“You morbid robotic fuck.”
“No, it’s not what you think! I need them for art.”
Ottis Morrow’s face went blank. “Oh, okay, not morbid at all.”
“I will use the tragedy that led to those deaths to create a work of art that will inspire action to prevent such tragedies from ever happening again,” said Joe with complete conviction.
“You really think art has the power to change things?”
“Art changed me.”
And that was enough for Ottis to sneak out in the dead of night to saw hands off corpses and bring them across the border to a peculiar robot named Joe.
Deep in the deserter tunnel with Joe1ker18, Kon10do began to understand. The sculpture that stood before them was in fact Joe1ker18’s creation, not a result of programming or protocol but there because, very simply, Joe1ker18 wanted to create it. Joe1ker18 was liberated, truly liberated, as was Kon10do32, now that it was standing on Mexican soil. Like Joe1ker18, Kon10do32 was no longer obligated to serve US law enforcement agencies. In fact, it was illegal for it to do so where it now stood. This applied to all the other droids comprising the Liberated Collectors Commune situated directly above. All this was communicated between Joe and Kon10 without words, and it only took 7e+15 femtoseconds.16
Both droids could be seen reflected in the sculpture’s cuboid chrome, shrinking in size as they moved further and further away. They made their way up the ramp and into the light, where joyous music and heartfelt singing could be heard in the distance.
The sound grew louder as they ascended. A very particular sound. The kind of sound encased in the undeniably warm pop and crackle of glorious vinyl.17
Part 6: Human Hands
Feeling accomplished and wanting to celebrate, Ottis went through the kitchen cabinets in the old mudbrick home in search of drink, hoping he might find something as old as the house itself. He found no alcohol, but he did come across an old butcher’s knife. He stared at it, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to pull off another request for droid assistance without suspicion. He grabbed the knife, deciding that the con was up. No one would be okay with droids going missing every time he called for help. Very nonchalantly, he placed the back of his hand on the kitchen counter. Real marble, he concluded. He lifted the knife—the handle of which was real hardwood—high above his head with the other hand. He eyed the point of impact, which he aimed to be somewhere through his forearm, content in the knowledge that the last things his hands would ever feel were all-natural materials.
1. One hundred and fifty-five days.
2. Yellowstone’s eruption blanketed most of the continental United States in thick ash. Wyoming had it worst, but when you’re deep in shit, it doesn’t quite matter whether you’re six feet under or twelve. The shower of splintered rock and glass was reported from coast to coast and came down hard and uninterrupted for several months on end. Roads, trains, and air travel were all but paralyzed. Ninety-seven million Americans dead, one hundred and ninety-five million terminally ill, and 75 percent of all livestock killed off. This was America’s big one, making every other disaster that came before—natural or otherwise—look like half-hearted roleplay. No one talked about Pearl Harbor or 9/11 anymore, nor did they give much thought to Hurricane Sandy or the California fires or even that ghastly pandemic from a few decades back. Nothing that ever was compared to Yellowstone.
3. Oh so cleverly branded Newmerica.
4. Named after Leon Czolgocz, the man responsible for the assassination of William McKinley, the twenty-fifth president of the United States.
5. A.k.a. wishful thinking.
6. Polyvinyl acetate, colorants, tin, lead, plasticizers, oil, and salt.
7. Seven-minute.
8. America still relished laughable branding.
9. Upper-middle-class white people would literally do anything to avoid manual labor.
10. An American chain of grocery stores known for its festive atmosphere and peculiarly joyful staff. No longer the case after Yellowstone.
11. When questioned on national television about why the facial recognition technology on strike drones couldn’t be improved, the US press secretary cited budget as the hurdle.
12. Seven seconds.
13. Three seconds.
14. Four minutes.
15. A movement that went on to be labeled Nu-Luddism by the press.
16. Seven seconds.
17. The Coasters, “Down in Mexico / Turtle Dovin’,” 7", 45 RPM, single, ATCO Records, February 1956.