Famous Times

Poetry. FAMOUS TIMES investigates the shapes escapism takes as a response to the malignantly mundane: the boredom of the American workforce, puttering forward and waiting for the bottom to fall out. Ilya Kaminsky writes, "in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, / our great country of money, we (forgive us) // lived happily during the war," but what comprises that happiness? It's not just the money, which is mercurial at best and consolidated elsewhere. Spectatorship? Likes and retweets? Love? TV? There's a kind of disembodiment that happens via escapism, too. We can build a brain space more soothing to our anxieties, but we ourselves become spectral in the process. Sometimes that's a relief. To some extent, those of us fortunate enough to be getting by do so through dreams, falling into and out of moments that reveal something wondrous--despite it all, there's still time--wonder still happens, and we need it to. Resistance without play can feel hollow.