by David Schneider He'd disappeared. I searched and searched –– nothing but null sets. For the past four days, around the clock, he'd been beaming the news, minute by minute, from Cairo. But Tuesday morning, a vast silence on FaceBook. He'd ceased to exist. They'd just released Wael Ghonim; did they nail my friend Ahmed…

One balmy evening in this decade's youth, I sat al fresco at a South Floridian restaurant with another couple. They were advancing to the further reaches of middle age; they had done well; they had prospered. As two men at our table cornered one another in conversation, the wife leaned toward me. Something flashed in…

by David Schneider I'll give one thing to the demagogues – they sure know something about basic human psychology. For those of us waterboarded by the economy, we're close to Depression desperation. It's a commonplace that depression is “anger focused inward”; and the cheap-and-easy way out, if you're too cash-strapped for the shrink or the…

Meditations on Maps by David Schneider I'm hunting for an apartment in Brooklyn. It's 2010. I only halfknow the borough; it's hipster havens and borderlands, vacant lots and lofts, new towers and old clapboard – a shredded psychogeography re-folding itself every second, like hyperactive origami. I take CraigsList to the GoogleMap, stroll a StreetView to…

At the City University of New York's Graduate Center, a friend of mine named Lydia Hazen is testing subjects to see whether they have greater perception of certain colors or shapes after reading poems by Wallace Stevens. She's engaged in what the New York Times recently dubbed “neuroscience lit crit,” in an article wondering whether…

–– an experiment in small friction An out-of-work adman named Daniel awickened from befogged sleep in the bright March sun of mid-morning. There was much to be done. He reeled the news quickly while throwing on a shirt. Dolphins had been spotted in the East River. The spokesman for Al-Qaeda had been nabbed. American. The…

A consideration of “Vampires with Dreaming Kids” and “The Girlfriend Experience” David Schneider These days, my life is lived on the hypermedia broadband, incessantly, obsessively. And occasionally, I have some remarkable experiences there. I'd like to tell you about two of them which chimed together. Recently I discovered a quite extraordinary band just starting to…

David Schneider T.S. Eliot might well have smirked at the events of the Naughty Oughties. By one yardstick, they came in with a bang and ended with a whimper, trussed up and devoured by the dirty deeds, done extravagantly, of the stuffed men, the hollow men. Back in the green days of Communism's defeat (which…

David Schneider In September of 2008, we found a safe-house of ruination, and blessed it. My girlfriend and I had wandered over to the Bruckner Bar, Grill & Gallery, which over the past couple of years had become a hub for the South Bronx's rising art scene. Inside, people were streaming out from the opening…

It's grown tiresome, but it still needs to be said. The Story So Far: Very Famous Black Harvard Professor is arrested for breaking into his own Cambridge, MA house. Obama outraged. Media mayhem ensues. Cops pissed off. Tempest enters teapot. Obama invites VFBHP and cop to White House for a beer. In other words, chillax,…

David Schneider I applied for a copywriting job the other day. The employer was a maker of some intriguing educational technologies, and needed someone to fully update the website's text, and determine a new voice for the firm that would be more appealing to buyers. It was a good job; and a not inconsiderable one.…

by David Schneider If you're asked, “So, what are you reading these days?” do not under any circumstances reply The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Unless, of course, you intend to frighten off acquaintances, old friends, petrified Republicans, pie-eyed Democrats, overstaying guests, job interviewers, potential lovers– heck, just about anyone. Trust me. In…

by David Schneider Last Saturday night, over dinner and drinks, the President of the United States was overheard saying: Michael Steele is in the house tonight. Or as he would say, 'In the heezy.' Wazzup! For the last time, Michael, the Republican Party does not qualify for a bailout. Rush Limbaugh does not count as…

David Schneider Last Sunday, April 4, Spring came to New York City. Sixty-two degrees it was, and calm in the bright sun of a cloudless sky. The city had been waiting. The winter seemed unusually brutal and long. As late as March we got mugged by the winds Chicago-style – sucker-punched from the northeast, a…

One of the great achievements in the art of today will draw to its conclusion this Friday on the Sci-Fi Channel. If you're not familiar with Battlestar Galactica, but you admire superb filmmaking, literature, or the languages of symbol and myth; if the sci-fi genre gives you the geeky creepies, but you consider issues of…

David Schneider In 2000, I was in my mid-20s, an embittered grad-school dropout. It was the last thing I could have imagined happening. Halfway through my undergraduate career in America, I got the chance of a scholar's lifetime. I was accepted into Oxford for a full undergraduate degree. It was a dream world I'd entered,…

My Doorstep Welcome to my space. Come in, take off your boots, and make yourself at home: especially if you haven't got one any more. Warm yourself by my fire. It's going to be a long, cold winter. You know it and I know it. It's 7 degrees in the South Bronx this morning, as…

David Schneider They fuck you up, your mum and dadThey may not mean to, but they do.They fill you with the faults they hadAnd add some extra, just for you. – Philip Larkin It's Christmastime, Solstice-time, that annual ritual of family and SADness. But whenever I get depressed, I remember that poets frequently intuit the…