Grading the last seven days in End Times culture…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.

Dear iPad user;

iDrain Productions is pleased to announce our suite of new applications: iBlank from iDrain

iBlank has been fully optimized for the Apple iPad2 and will arrive like a blitzkrieg of futurity, a torpedo of truth, a laser beam of luminescence…at the App Store on the day after tomorrow.

iBlank. iBlank. iBlank.

Improved over its gutter-licking and formless iPhone counterpart, this hot new app suite—iBlank—isn’t just for use at the places we know you frequent, the magazine rack at Walgreens, the 7-11 lottery counter, your kid’s soccer games in a half-hearted attempt to appear parental, and the lunch counter at the Addison, IL sex club. No, it can work wonders during your efficiency meetings or while you take in a lunchtime video porn-viewing session.

Very recently I learned that one of my favorite Mary Gaitskill stories, “The Nice Restaurant”, has never been collected. I still have the issue of the New Yorker it appeared in, and while I do own Mary Gaitskill’s work, it had never occurred to me she wouldn’t have collected it yet until a friend mentioned it in passing on Twitter and I was reminded, again, why for at least 20 years now, I save stories from magazines.