Why Human Painting still Matters in the Age of AI
“A human painting is produced inside a life. The painter gets tired. Attention shifts. A hand hesitates. A decision made in the morning may be reconsidered at night. A mark can be the result of confidence, frustration, correction, discovery, or fatigue. Some of these conditions are visible in the final work and some are only indirectly present, but they belong to its formation. The painting has duration.”
Thirty Minutes After Thunder: a Poem
“Maybe that is what a life is:
learning which deadlines are real,
which are merely printed,
which walls deserve a name,
which storms are not asking
to be overcome.”
Magpies Mix Tape: Working on Something Good
This playlist celebrates the joys, sorrows, doubts, and soul-nurturing importance of the labor of creation.
Gendered Contempt and the History of Language
“In the end, gendered insult reveals that language is one of the most durable carriers of inequality. It stores contempt in ordinary forms. It turns hierarchy into shorthand. It allows long histories of valuation to survive in single syllables and familiar phrases.”
September Issue, 2026
A collection of all the articles we’ve published over the past month, for those who like to savor their Magpies’ tidings as an issue.
You May Have Noticed That I’m Not All There Myself: Letter From the Editor, September, 2026
Late summer ramblings.
When I Go Back Home
“I came back because there are places that do not merely exist on maps; they exist inside the blood. I came back because no matter how far a person travels, there is a particular dust that remembers his feet. I came back because the village that raised us deserves more than nostalgia. It deserves attention. It deserves roads that do not punish the poor for being poor. It deserves schools where children can dream without apology. It deserves healthcare that does not force a family to choose between medicine and food.”
No Music On
A behemoth polemic from musician James Quentin Devine.
The Mā-hua-tsìng & The Strait
Set between the muddy paddy fields of Taiwan and a cold college room in California, this story weaves together Taiwanese bird ecology , traditional Taiwanese street delicacies and a linguistic misunderstanding. It explores how food, nature, and intergenerational love can cross geographical and historical oceans when words fail.
The Heptagon Project
Heptagon is an audio project exploring social, cultural, and artistic avenues within the limitless genre of electronic music.
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