Dereka M. Smith

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION (All Periodicals Publications Except Requester Publications) Company Name/Publication Title Daily News/ Daily News Publication Number 144300 Filing Date 08/27/2026 Issue Frequency Tuesday-Friday Number of Issues Published Annually 156 Annual Subscription Price $99.00 Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication (Not printer) (Street, city, County, state, and ZIP+4) PO Box 3663, Memphis, TN 38173-0663...

What esotericism says about our current times Press enter or click to view image in full size They have done it. It’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alivvvveeee. I was scrolling through my Linkedin feed and came across this one post from a tech bro- promoting this new platform that has more “soul” than Midjourney. This new AI tool can generate hyperrealistic photos that look similar to the selfies and photo-ops in your camera roll. Astonishment and underlying dread filled within me.

She Who Becomes Chair I’ve seen too many paintings to remember most of them. By now, my eyes, trained in habit, skim brushstrokes the way others scroll through headlines with casual admiration and detached awe. I file things into categories like compositionally strong, or aesthetically interesting, but rarely do I feel pierced. And then, a few nights ago, a painting caught me in the middle of my evening ‘numb-scrolling’ through Pinterest.