Imagine Inocentes

Can We Imagine A World Without Work?

Rachel Fraser | Boston Review | 21st November 2023

Self-cleaning houses were voted “the most eagerly anticipated of speculative technologies” in 2019, but the discourse of automation focuses on work outside the home. Oscar Wilde envisaged “the machine” taking over the tedium of mining coal, but gave no thought to who would fold the laundry. “Even in the age of the machine,” therefore, “women are mopping up after others” (4,761 words)

Los Inocentes

Clellan Coe | The American Scholar | 27th December 2023

Some English idioms are reversed in Spanish: black and white becomes “blanco y negro.” Others are lost in translation: cat got your tongue conjures “an absurd image of a cat dangling by its claws.” Both cultures dedicate a day to pranks; the Spanish one falls on The Feast of the Holy Innocents, remembering parents who tricked soldiers to save their toddlers from King Herod’s massacre (614 words)