WAY BACK IN 2019—before artificial intelligence went mainstream and long before anyone was seriously talking about “deepfakes” — I received an unexpected phone call that would lead me down a remarkable rabbit hole. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. I was out for an evening walk in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where I was living at the time, when my cell phone buzzed.