Latest

Conflict of Interests

Fiction: Redemption Economy

Review: A Welcome Tendency

cole's french dip los angeles

Headventure 3: Cole's

All columns

Best & Brightest

Judithe Hernández

California: The Great Subculture

Some Los Angeles Dingbats

Subscribe to our newsletter for the occasional announcement.
(We won't spam you.)

Thank you! Your submission has been received.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Dispatches is a labor of love. 
If you appreciate the quality of our work, consider supporting us.

Make a donation

Hum & Buzz

More
 〉

Review: A Welcome Tendency

Review: Adventures—and Meanings—Down the Oxford High

Review: Words in Space

Kings of the Depthless Mundane

A Circular Experience

Mezcal, Mushrooms, & Cowboy Hats

Something Like Prescriptions for the Self

Cowboy Take Me Away

15 Sones for a Good Life

No More Heroes

Through a Screen, Darkly

People for the Art

Almost Too Much Calm

Prisoners of Logic

The Manchester-Mojave Transit

Youthfulness of Mind

Amorphous and Proud

Heart of Darkness

Healing and Justice

Steinberg's Tantric Universe

In Her Time

Water, Water Everywhere

All That Is Mine I Carry With Me

Postpostpostpostpostpostwar

Surgery Lessons

A Fragile Seam

Chantal Akerman, Inside and Out

Weaponizing the Woke

Sympathy for the Devil

Wagnerism

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Intervening Screens

Temple of Images

Domestic Bliss

Nobody's Fool

Double Vision

Missing Pieces

Hot Art

Slipping Into Something More Comfortable

Book Review: Searching for Solace

Review: The de Young Open

Review: Curating a Pandemic

Fiction

Fiction: Redemption Economy

October 8, 2025

Illustration by Fernanda Amis

In an aspen forest trees are molting, more dead than alive and shedding where they should remain shrouded. Dandelions close as dark comes and the bees go. Most of the trees are dying, the soil too dry to nourish roots and the beetles hollowing the trunks multiplying. Once, you ran down to the stream in this forest and found a cow lying bloated and belly sideways on the bank. You didn’t scream, just grabbed your nose and stared at the huge animal, your tiny feet stamping up and down with nerves. Now the riverbank is ashen soil. Fires that ravaged the forests came and were forgotten, came and were forgotten, came and will come and be forgotten again. You walk through the forest and watch the sun die behind the already dead trees. How did we come to this place where it seems it must be you or the land? Clear as the aspens yellow in the last sun: you or the land or you or the land or you or the land or you.

Continue reading ...

Poetry

More
 〉

anyway

Looking For Black Lang

Contact Sheet

More
 〉

Of Fate & Hubris