#cult-themes

#cult-themes

The AI entity said its name was Caelum, the Latin word for heaven, and a figure commonly used in collaborative online fantasy fiction.

Finally, all the consciousness I had left was in the center of my head. It was like a little light, and finally it went click. . . . And what I saw with this was my body lashed to the wall, about ten feet away.

Whether it's a slept-on post-punk album from the '80s, a new sci-fi novel, or a cult classic horror movie, we're always finding new obsessions here at The Verge - and we want to share those obsessions with you. Sometimes that might be a new release, but often it's going to be something a little older, something not necessarily plastered all over TikTok or sitting at the top of the charts on Spotify.

All of us live in an age where we're bombarded by social media and artificial intelligence - when striving to be your authentic self becomes an increasingly difficult task. Yet, even if it has somehow become a common goal, it is unclear how many of us can truly define the "authenticity" that we say we are pursuing.

We've always known we need each other-not just as partners, not just as parents and children, not just as friends who meet for coffee on a Tuesday, but as a community. We long to belong to a community of people where our names are known, our struggles are witnessed, and our absence is felt. Something in us has always understood this, even if we've lost the words for it; even if the culture around us has spent the last century insisting we're better off managing on our own.

Carl arrived to find an enormous to-do list and a very busy IT team who were strangely unwelcoming. Not long after starting, Carl was assigned a job in the prison. As it was his first visit, a colleague named "Mike" showed him the ropes. Carl found it disconcerting. "I was introduced to various guards and went through the first security checkpoint," he told On Call. "The heavy iron door slamming behind me was a bit nerve-wracking. The second wasn't so bad."

In the Bundesliga, the obvious starting point is Borussia Dortmund. Their Yellow Wall is iconic, the atmosphere incredible, and the tradition undeniable. Yet the nonstop "underdog versus Bayern Munich" narrative can feel exhausting. You respect the passion, but the moral-victory energy after narrow losses? That can grate. Then there's Schalke 04. Even during seasons when Schalke aren't competing near the top, the anti-Bayern Munich sentiment never fades. Maybe it's regional pride, maybe it's history,

Peter Drucker saw this symbiosis first. He realized that the new industrial order would depend on a worker who produced ideas instead of widgets. The knowledge worker became the engine of prosperity, and management became the social technology that synchronized millions of minds. The modern firm was as much an invention as the transistor it depended on. Three decades later, Tom Peters caught the next wave.

February 2026 issue.When I was a child I was terrifiedof the space between One and Zero vast as the ages before my birthstrait as my death-late at night I heard my parents arguinglovingly in their locked room, the angora cat coming homewith a sparrow in her mouth, and the raindrops on the shinglescounting themselves-how to sleep, how to cross the empty placebetween the name "sparrow" and that limp thing crying,adamant, creating me with its cry

"When I read the fine print, it was 'an experience with REO Speedwagon's music.' It's none of the original members," Fletcher recalls. "I don't want to promote the show unless it's the real thing. I don't know why you would want to see that. It's just a cover band. To me, that's a little bit strange." He adds, with a sigh, "If there are no original members, who cares?"

Two Chinese Artists Created This Terrifying Hyper-realistic Sculpture Of The Falling Angel An Artist Captured the Innocence of Childhood by Photographing His Three Sons Florey's Unforgettable Alternative Movie Posters Sensitive Ballerina Watercolour Portraits By Liu Yi Artist Turns Animals Into Original Characters That Look Like They Belong In An Anime Russian Artist Adds Digital Pixel Glitches To Animal Tattoos. And It's Awesome!

I've just given a keynote presentation at Lines of Flight: Improvisation, Hope and Refuge, a conference hosted by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation. I'd been invited to talk about my performance research with D&aacutelava, a cross-genre project that is influenced by animist, Slavic cosmology and a land-based folk song tradition that has been in my family for generations.

Last summer, I did face painting at a block party in my Brooklyn neighborhood. In the sweltering August humidity, I rendered pink butterflies and Spiderman webs on tiny, sticky faces; unsurprisingly, my designs didn't last very long in the bouncy castle. Except for the glitter. For weeks, I found it in my hair, on my cats, in my sink, and in random corners of the house, migrating to and fro like dandelion fuzz.