Final Boss America
by Nicholas Grider
Like regular America, Final Boss America is over-designed and flatly lit and depends heavily on worldbuilding and lore at the expense of character and story, but everyone who lives in Final Boss America is a final boss, even the NPCs, who stare blankly and emit tough love and quest offers and toxic positivity from the oversaturated backdrops of our shared sad adventure world.
In our afternoon reading: an interview with Nathan Salsburg, thoughts on Deborah Levy’s memoir, and more.
Tom Hanks Is Still A Good Idea
by Nicholas Grider
Tom Hanks is a good idea. Like many good ideas (such as loyalty, consonance, simultaneity, Photoshop, and pockets) it may seem as if Tom Hanks must be naturally-occurring and evolved long ago when fresh water was easier to locate and imbibe than to purchase on sale in bulk. Idea experts have yet to reach a consensus, but in the meantime, let’s take a closer look at why Tom Hanks is such a good idea, may always have been and might forever light our way, never fading from the firmament the way that laugh tracks and summer camp and the Electoral College have, tenacious though they may be, the flower’s torn which Tom Hanks removes before handing it to us, so let’s delve deeper into the nexus of goodness and distraction and “Jimmy Stewartification.” Shall we? Let’s.