Weekly Bafflements
Hey, a bunch of people who sometimes write for us wrote good shit other places!
This is a picture of my dog for absolutely no good reason | Brandy Jensen o
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“Can jokes bring down governments?”
For Frieze, our own Jonathon Sturgeon wrote about the failures of protest art under Trump. “The election of Donald Trump was a traumatic event, but it does not justify protest art that bears the precise legibility and perishability of memes.”
Eat the rich.
Over at The Outline, Bafflercontributor Vincent Bevins has a piece about the history of cannibalism, Brazilian identity, and the logic of cultural appropriation. It is as wonderful as it sounds.
The Russians are coming.
“A specter is haunting Russia. The specter of… an apoplectic Morgan Freeman informing America that ‘we have been attacked’ and ‘we are at war.’” Former staffer Hannah Gais breaks down why the Committee to Investigate Russia is a scam.
On getting too old for this shit.
“There is a vulnerability in openly loving something, and so, naturally, there is a shame that comes with that.” For Buzzfeed, ?Baffler writer?Hanif Abdurraqib wrote about the bittersweet experience of aging out of fandom.
Sad Mary.
And for the same series on fandom, Bafflercolumnist Niela Orr wrote about Mary J. Blige and how “in an era obsessed with artists’ personal brands, Blige’s has been sorrow from nearly the beginning of her career.”