Posts By: Peter Lunenfeld

Whatever Happened to Fuck You Money? Cowardly Billionaires, Golden Commodes and Copper Pennies

By Peter Lunenfeld, November 17, 2025

Dear Geert— Greetings from a Los Angeles that while no longer reeling from assaults like the devastating fires, appalling abductions by masked federal agents, and occupying troops, cannot be described as having recovered from these past ten months. Instead, we are numbed and in remove. Southern California feels very far from Washington where the lords [...]

Depressifying and Terripressing Times, or, This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

By Peter Lunenfeld, September 7, 2025

Los Angeles, September 6, 2025 Dear Geert — I’ve been writing “The Present Crisis” letters not only to explain what the America looks like from the inside to those outside its borders, but also to sketch new taxonomies for US citizens to have a mental map for how to move forward. Yet, as the attacks [...]

Senescence Cosplaying as Vigor: Klein Bottles and the Optics of Fear

By Peter Lunenfeld, July 8, 2025

July 7, 2025 Dear Geert— These missives trying to explain what’s happening in the New World to friends in the Old World become more and more like describing the contours of a Klein bottle, the higher dimensional version of the better known Möbius strip. Like the Möbius strip, the Klein bottle, which can only exist [...]

We’re Not Happy Until You’re Not Happy: America’s KakiKleptoKryptocracy

By Peter Lunenfeld, June 5, 2025

Los Angeles, June 4, 2025 Dear Geert— More and more, I see what’s happening in the USA as a war on the young that they don’t even know they are fighting, much less how much they are losing. Much has been made of MAGA edgelords and the “vibeshift” towards conservatism, especially among young men. Perhaps [...]

Heir of the Dog that Bit You: Cloutmaxxing, Failson’s Luck, and the Day Before

By Peter Lunenfeld, April 10, 2025

Los Angeles, April 9, 2025 Dear Geert, Writing to friends in Europe to explain what’s going on in the United States in the Spring of 2025 is like taking notes on a mental patient to feed to an AI therapist. One can’t capture everything, and there’s no certainty that any diagnoses will be either forthcoming [...]

The Triumph of the Feels in the Age of Celebrity Governance

By Peter Lunenfeld, March 24, 2025

Los Angeles, March 24, 2025 Dear Geert, Greetings from the Formerly United States of America. It’s almost impossible to understand what’s going on day to day here, and to explain it to old friends in Europe harder still, but I’ll try. We are not even ten weeks in, but Trump’s resurgent administration has drawn from [...]