Haley Nahman was having a weird time. She had spent most of the pandemic inside, shuttling around the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her partner, Avi. “Not to paint too bleak a picture, but I’ve started sitting down in the shower,” she wrote, in September, in an e-mail. “I’ve noticed that when you hug your knees to your chest and watch the water pitter-patter against your toes, drips sliding down your nose and into your mouth, it feels almost like getting caught in a warm rainstorm.” She recommended reading Ross Gay’s poem “A Small Needful Fact,” a Jacobin essay about socialism, and...…Haley Nahman was having a weird time. She had spent most of the pandemic inside, shuttling around the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her partner, Avi. “Not to paint too bleak a picture, but I’ve started sitting down in the shower,” she wrote, in September, in an e-mail. “I’ve noticed that when you hug your knees to your chest and watch the water pitter-patter against your toes, drips sliding down your nose and into your mouth, it feels almost like getting caught in a warm rainstorm.” She recommended reading Ross Gay’s poem “A Small Needful Fact,” a Jacobin essay about socialism, and...WW…

Last fall, walking down Mission Street, in San Francisco, I noticed a new addition to an otherwise unremarkable parking lot at the base of Bernal Heights Hill: a large, white trailer, about the size of three parking spaces, plastered with a banner that read “food pick up here.” On one side was a list of restaurant brands with names and logos that seemed algorithmically generated: WokTalk, Burger Bytes, Fork and Ladle, Umami, American Eclectic Burger, Wings & Things. The trailer was hooked up to a generator, which was positioned behind two portable toilets; it occupied parking spots once...…Last fall, walking down Mission Street, in San Francisco, I noticed a new addition to an otherwise unremarkable parking lot at the base of Bernal Heights Hill: a large, white trailer, about the size of three parking spaces, plastered with a banner that read “food pick up here.” On one side was a list of restaurant brands with names and logos that seemed algorithmically generated: WokTalk, Burger Bytes, Fork and Ladle, Umami, American Eclectic Burger, Wings & Things. The trailer was hooked up to a generator, which was positioned behind two portable toilets; it occupied parking spots once...WW…

SMF1, an fulfillment center on the edge of Sacramento, California, is a low, gray, utilitarian building. Amid the yellowing fields of the Central Valley, it resembles a cluster of Legos abandoned in an untended back yard. The facility is named for Sacramento’s SMF airport, which is just across the road; it employs around two thousand people, and its forbidding architecture inspires obedience. On a recent afternoon, seven women with tight faces and heavy eye makeup stood in its lobby, wearing the comfortable walking shoes that Amazon had requested. They tried to peer past six sets of...…SMF1, an fulfillment center on the edge of Sacramento, California, is a low, gray, utilitarian building. Amid the yellowing fields of the Central Valley, it resembles a cluster of Legos abandoned in an untended back yard. The facility is named for Sacramento’s SMF airport, which is just across the road; it employs around two thousand people, and its forbidding architecture inspires obedience. On a recent afternoon, seven women with tight faces and heavy eye makeup stood in its lobby, wearing the comfortable walking shoes that Amazon had requested. They tried to peer past six sets of...WW…