For hundreds of years, pagan civilizations in Mesoamerica, most notably the Aztecs, practiced ritual human sacrifice. So did the ancient Chinese and medieval Celts. Today, we look back on these bloody rites with shocked incomprehension. Surely, if we had been there, we would have protested these grotesque ceremonies, or at least avoided them.

You may recall that, last year, a few months into “two weeks to flatten the curve,” many Americans confined to their houses started baking bread. In my local grocery store, you couldn’t find a single packet of yeast. A 2020 swarm of stress bakers had picked the aisle clean. For weeks, white flour and sugar were sold out, so if I wanted something to put in my coffee, I had to resort to large, brownish, organic granules that were, oh yeah, not actually sugar.

The book of arcane knowledge the techno-capitalists don’t want you to read. The Unbroken Thread is a guided tour of influential thinkers from ancient times to the present, fusing philosophy, religion, self-help, and parenting advice. It is, of course, a work of nonfiction; journalist Sohrab Ahmari wrote it during the annus horribilis of 2020.

Witnessing the trial of a high-ranking Nazi, Hannah Arendt was struck by the contrast “between the unspeakable horror of the deeds and the undeniable ludicrousness of the man who perpetrated them.”. Something similar is playing out right now on Hulu, in a brilliant comedy series called “What We Do In The Shadows.”.

In the afterlife of normal life, I started watching After Life, a popular Netflix series whose fans are clamoring for a third season. The show’s promotional blurb says it’s about a newspaper reporter who, after his wife’s death, “adopts a gruff new persona.”. But to the audience, his persona is reassuringly familiar: the bearded guy muttering put-downs through a rictus of clenched teeth that is, in every venue foreign and domestic, Ricky Gervais.