Pandemic Time: A Distributed Doomsday Clock

Even within a single apartment building, neighbors experience different temporalities. In one unit, we have a single extrovert experiencing the acute trauma of being forced to work alone from home. Next door, we have parents suddenly juggling childcare and work. At the end of the hall is an immigrant using WhatsApp to track the fate of family members on the other side of the globe who are suddenly physically unreachable due to travel bans. Even members of a single household experience pandemic time differently.

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Rao on the Longform Podcast

The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millennial

“Premium mediocre is the finest bottle of wine at Olive Garden. Premium mediocre is cupcakes and froyo. Premium mediocre is 'truffle' oil on anything (no actual truffles are harmed in the making of 'truffle' oil), and extra-leg-room seats in Economy. Premium mediocre is cruise ships, artisan pizza, Game of Thrones, and The Bellagio. Premium mediocre is food that Instagrams better than it tastes.”

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Rao on the Longform Podcast

Welcome to the Future Nauseous

Why the future feels frozen in time, as framed by Marshall McLuhan (“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”) and William Gibson (“The future is already here; it is just unevenly distributed.”)