Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley

Author:Sloane Crosley
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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I had to go into the office for a day of weekly and annual meetings that had a disturbing amount of thematic crossover. Our directives for two weeks out and six months out had the same tenor, balancing ideas with branding. Our editorial director, a hyper pigeon of a woman in her early thirties, dubbed these “ideas sessions,” words my calendar liked to weaponize in bold. Even the robots knew ideas was a big word for it. It could be disheartening, working at a glorified content aggregator, covering the culture instead of creating it. Our jaws clamped down on prey with clickbaity headlines, only to find we’d caught nothing in our teeth except for the occasional lawsuit. At real media outlets, arts coverage was an art unto itself. But focusing on trends that we had no part in creating or even spotting had a bottom-feeder effect. The younger staffers took it more seriously. Radio New York was the only world they’d ever known. Their earnestness made me feel simultaneously jaded and indignant.

At least, at Modern Psychology, the publication and the field it covered were locked in a regency dance. Maybe it wasn’t Radio New York’s fault. Maybe it was New York’s fault and Amos has been right all along: There was simply nothing new or unexpected happening on this island. Except for the Golconda.

It was impossible to maintain focus. During lulls in conversation, I piped in with regurgitated ideas that gave the illusion of attention being paid. After the meetings disbanded, I wandered back and forth between my desk and the pantry, getting coffee, forgetting milk, going back to get the milk, forgetting sugar, going back to get the sugar. Stirring it with my finger. I silenced the occasional wail of the phone.

Boots texted to say he’d landed. He got a thumbs-up in return, followed by a Yay, the plane didn’t crash, yay! This elicited a befuddled: lol?

I skipped lunch to sleuth, opting for vending machine pretzels, pushing grains of salt into my mouse pad as I scoured my brain for anyone with whom I’d been on a date ever. A Rolodex of faded faces creaked in my head. Men are the sitting ducks of the internet because none of their names have changed. Every stroke of the return key brought more professional headshots, more neckties, more grinning into the camera like children trying to recall the state capitals. Or else these men were engaged in an industry that required them to lean against a brick wall, arms crossed. Their “about” pages made me feel an almost parental pride, forgetting these were the same people who’d once made me pay for more of the bill because I’d ordered goat cheese on my half of the pizza, the same people who’d exfoliated my face raw with stubble when surely not one of them would appreciate a sandpaper hand job.

My whole life, I’d been telling myself the story of every breakup so that I had more agency in it. Men

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