Ben Carter Olcott

@aliner @SlantBooks an incredible book, it deserves far more attention than it's gotten

Sometimes you read a book that makes everything feel entire, as if nothing else ever needs to be said. Wordless astonishment: the patch of sunlight where Morgan Meis left me today.

I can’t even remember what the world is supposed to be like

Alden hive rise up

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

@isaiah_bb @mcmansionhell Intelligence is an emergent quality of the human experience that is an integration of mind-body interactions — perceptual and conceptual worlds in inextricable interrelation. Right??? The answer is in the meshing, not some integral of the outputs!!

Not just correct, but self evident and obvious to anybody who doesn’t have an intrinsically misanthropic and fundamentally negative view of humanity and the world.

An insane story about corporate-sponsored terrorism almost too cynical to feel real -- but a bit of a bright spot out of France nytimes.com/2026/04/17/opi…

So pleased to share excerpts of two short stories out in 9VT/5's new anthology "Forgetfulness, naught else." “Search” and “Century City” explore frames, invented selves, memory, the entertainment industry, and the lure of the past. Buy a copy at 9vtbackslash5.com/catalogue/!

Saw Glazer’s Birth (2004) at the Egyptian — total cinema; Nicole Kidman on fire, her best work; amazing to see and hear in theaters with speakers that can deliver that score. A movie that should not work but is instead transcendent. Tonal tightrope masterpiece, amazing amazing

I'm so honored to have my story "Rates of Exchange" named a finalist in the @Missouri_Review's Editors' Prize! Thank you!! What fantastic company to be in. missourireview.com/submissions/co…

@aliner contemporary novel portraying a character infinitely replaying, dissecting, and spinning out an embarrassing failure to mount a horse. could do numbers

@bencarterolcott Hegel’s nightmare and Kierkegaard’s stallion. :)

Also contemporary lit fiction: 30% bad infinity & therapy failed me 30% everyone I know is a narcissist who failed therapy 20% how mom ruined my life 10% how my life ruined my self-esteem 10% watch me wip thru this archaic yet relevant lens

@JoyceCarolOates not even sure whether i agree, but god i love these new critic ice-cold flames. we need to bring archness back, we're getting too cute out here

"a movie changes your life" ---really?

@matthiasellis the illusion of inevitability is the AI companies' go-to marketing tactic. forces us to think of them as the keepers of some hugely important flame

Thrilled to have my short story “The Dock" published with @Pangyrus . It’s about manhood, acceptance, the fragility of harmony, the allure of lake life (and pontoons), all we get wrong about ourselves and others, and above all love. I hope you enjoy it!! pangyrus.com/fiction/the-do…

@yesterdaysprint The Brutalist (2024)

The Austin American, Texas, April 27, 1934

oh and there's a lil interview after feat. some thoughts on algorithms and culture: marrowmagazine.com/olcott-intervi…

It's spring again, which means it's time for my annual post. Here's a fiction piece of mine published recently with Marrow Magazine--it's about grief and a YouTuber who may or not be based on Mr. Beast. marrowmagazine.com/enter-the-hype…

I remember ten year old me looking for this song on limewire for days, barely knowing how to use the internet, finding lots of recordings of the Star-Spangled Banner, and feeling, when I finally did find it, like a totally new person

Congrats to the finalists of the True Story & PublicDomain Competition! @Sofielafille @voxmirage @kalebtuttle @ReneGutteridge @JohnnyGilligan1 @KatherineCronyn @WhokilledBugsy @bydanwilliams @montyrockhead @bencarterolcott @tennesseemartin @kylie_boersma @MahonriStewart @McGomp19

@MJMcKean That’s me in the photo of Annette (the cookies were delicious) — solidarity!!

Where shall the STRIKE BAKER strike next!