HYPOCRITE IDLER 3Q2026

By: Joshua Glenn
September 30, 2026

To idle is to work on meaningful and varied projects — and to take it easy. The title of the series refers to this self-proclaimed idler’s inability to take it easy.

HILOBROW is a noncommercial blog. None of the below should be construed as an advertisement for one of my various, more or less profitable projects. This series is merely intended to keep HILOBROW’s readers updated on the editor’s doings and undoings.

I am grateful to the talented and generous folks with whom I’ve collaborated during 3Q2026.

MORE HYPOCRISY: 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 1Q2026 | 2Q2026 | 3Q2026.

Also see: HILOBROW 3Q2026

HILOBROW

HILOBROW is published by King Mixer LLC; I’m the editor. To see everything that we’ve published during the past three months, please check out the post HILOBROW 3Q2026. Here, I’ll just mention two series that I edited.

HILOBROW published PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM, a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on our favorite… Country Music of the Fifties (1954–1963)! Here’s a sampling of the PATSY lineup:

Nadine Hubbs on Marty Robbins’ EL PASO | Elizabeth Nelson on Dave Dudley’s SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD | Lynn Peril on Jean Chapel’s WELCOME TO THE CLUB | David Cantwell on Porter Wagoner’s MY BONFIRE | Will Hermes on Johnny Cash’s RING OF FIRE | Mimi Lipson on Loretta Lynn’s I’M A HONKY TONK GIRL | Charles Hughes on Roger Miller’s YOU DON’T WANT MY LOVE | Eric Weisbard on Lefty Frizzell’s THE LONG BLACK VEIL.

As the series editor, I am very grateful to its contributors, many of whom donated their honoraria to Veterans Fighting Fascism.

The MEDIA DIET series explores the media “input” of a group of people — HILOBROW’s friends and contributors — whose “output” we admire. Here’s a sampling of the 3Q2026 lineup:

Here’s an index page for the series.

To see my solo HILOBROW series and posts from recent months, please check out the WRITING (HILOBROW) section of this post; to see what’s coming up soon, please see the post 4Q2026 SNEAK PEEK.

SEMIOVOX.COM

SEMIOVOX, my branding consultancy’s eponymous website, is published by SEMIOVOX LLC; I’m the editor. For a full update on what we’ve published recently, please see the post SEMIOVOX 3Q2026. Here, I’ll just mention a few highlights.

MAKING SENSE is a long-running series of Q&As dedicated to revealing what makes semioticians tick. Here’s a selection of the 3Q2026 series lineup:

The COLOR CODEX series — to which SEMIOVOX has invited 50 of our commercial / applied semiotician colleagues from around the world to contribute — explores the unexpected associations evoked for each of us by specific colors found in the material world. Vol. 1 ran from 2023–24. Vol. 2 kicked off on June 15th. Here’s the 3Q2026 lineup:

Rajan Luthra (India) on AMALTAS YELLOW | Carla Moss (Austria) on EASTERN BLOC GREY | Dora Jurd de Girancourt (France) on JACARANDA PURPLE | Alexandra Ncube (England) on PMDD RED | Katrin Horn (Austria) on PIER BLUE | Ľudmila Lackova Bennett (Czech Republic) on BARBIE PINK | Onaiza Drabu (India) on MOHARRAM BLACK | Manar R. El Wahsh (Canada) on FATIMID GOLD.

PROJECT:OBJECT KINGSTON

PROJECT:OBJECT KINGSTON, the team that (in collaboration with Rob Walker) brought you the literary / distributed exhibition project GIVE IT UP in August/September 2025, has taken most of 2026 off. As reported here, we did a small experimental object-oriented story telling event (GIFT IT UP) in January. (Robyn Hager joined the team for that event, and she’s part of P:OK going forward.) However, since August we’ve been meeting and planning for 2027.

Stay tuned! Follow our (renamed / new URL) Substack here; and our (renamed / new URL) Instagram feed here.

RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF

I’m editor of the MIT Press’s RADIUM AGE proto-sf reissue series. During 3Q2026 we published the following title:

Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men (abridged edition; originally p. 1930), with a new Introduction by Matthew De Abaitua. “Last and First Men is a seminal work of cosmological SF — a philosophical examination of the future evolution of humanity, inspirational to Arthur C. Clarke and so many of Stapledon’s successors. Great to see it included in The MIT Press’s Radium Age series.” — Charles Stross. “The story is epic in every sense of the word.” — Transfer Orbit | “The rise, fall, and rebirth of humanity.” — LitHub. See this title at the MIT Press website.

During 3Q2026 we also sent to press the following Spring 2027 title:

Mothership Rising: Afrofuturism in the Radium Age (anthology), edited and afterword by Lisa Yaszek, introduced by Nisi Shawl. A mind-expanding anthology of early Black science fiction — the visionary origins of Afrofuturism. Gathers early twentieth-century visions — utopian and dystopian alike — from Pauline Hopkins, W. E. B. Du Bois, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Marita Bonner, George S. Schuyler, and others. See this title at the MIT Press website.

More exciting installments in this series, including anthologies and collections, some of them currently being translated into English, are in the works. For the latest updates, keep an eye on this page.

RADIUM AGE SERIES UPDATES: 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 1Q2026 | 2Q2026 | 3Q2026 | 3Q2026. FULL SERIES INFO.

Mary Swanzy’s “Cubist Landscape with red pagoda and bridge” (c. 1925-1930)

Here at HILOBROW, I’ve continued to share my Radium Age-related research.

EMANATIONS is a series of posts, each of which features 10 of my favorite examples of Radium Age-era fine art exploring a particular proto-sf-adjacent theme. The series’ 3Q2026 installments include:

Also, via the series RADIUM AGE POETRY, I’ve continued to reissue overlooked proto-sf-adjacent poems from the years 1900–1935. Here’s a selection from the 3Q2026 RADIUM AGE POETRY lineup:

To see the full RADIUM AGE POETRY lineup, organized thematically, visit this page.

During 3Q2026 I’ve continued to build out the RADIUM AGE POETRY index linked to above, as well as the RADIUM AGE ART index. Also I’ve continued to sort — into much the same categories as one will find in these other indices — the Radium Age proto-sf novels and stories that, in 2022, I listed and described in the RADIUM AGE TIMELINE series. Here are the RADIUM AGE TIMELINE installments that were retrofitted in 3Q2026:

1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1931

WRITING (HILOBROW)

During 3Q2026, in addition to the EMANATIONS series (see above), I wrote the following HILOBROW series and posts.

For the PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM series, I wrote a series introduction. Excerpt:

It’s uncontroversial to claim that story telling is at the heart of country music’s appeal. Character arcs, conflicts, resolutions, vivid imagery, relatable characters — all packed into a 3-to-4 minute song. Songs that sound like direct conversations or personal narratives; songs exploring everyday struggles and experiences around heartbreak, redemption, and working-class life… yep, that’s country. What’s striking, to me anyway, about the discussions of story telling that you will discover in the PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM series installments, is just how formally and tonally sophisticated such story telling can be.
For PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM, I contributed an installment on Johnny Cash’s “The Rebel — Johnny Yuma.” Excerpt:

There’s a cinematic quality to the song that a diehard Cash fan might find… Hollywood-ish. But Sam, who couldn’t get enough of The Alamo and Errol Flynn’s westerns, adored the song for that very reason. I loved Sam; he loved “The Rebel — Johnny Yuma.” So by the transitive property, I started loving the song too.

ALSO: I’ve continued to add installments in the solo series SCREENSHOTS, PHOTO DUMP, and NOT TODAY, EBAY.

WRITING (ELSEWHERE)

During 3Q2026, I wrote the following SEMIOVOX series and posts.

Installments in the SEMIOPUNK series (cross-posted, in altered form, from HILOBROW) included, during 3Q2026: UBIK | SNOW CRASH | PATTERN RECOGNITION. Excerpt from the PATTERN RECOGNITION installment:

Working as a consulting semiotician can be fun… but it can take a toll. Pollard’s PTSD-like panic attacks, induced by a glimpse of Louis Vuitton luggage, or by the “terrible eyes” of the Michelin Man, are an amusing conceit. Her response to the Hilfiger brand suggests a deeper malaise: “simulacra of simulacra of simulacra…. There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul.”

GOOD VIBRATIONS

Getting the word out, during 3Q2026…

RADIUM AGE SERIES

For a full update on recent Radium Age series publicity, please see the post RADIUM AGE 3Q2026. Here are a few examples.

In the June issue of Fortean Times, David V. Barrett writes, about the MIT Press’s edition of Flaxman Low: “A collection of stories first published in 1898–99 about an investigator bringing scientific principles (specifically from the newly-forming discipline of psychology) to the study of supposedly occult occurrences — hauntings, unexplained deaths and so on. They’re an enjoyable read, though … stylistically very much of their time.”

Reactor included the MIT Press’s edition of Last and First Men on its Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for July and August 2026 list. “A story of the ongoing evolution of humanity that’s considered a classic of the genre. Radium Age’s new edition [of Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men] has a few enticing extras, including an introduction from IF THEN author Matthew De Abaitua and some truly excellent cover artwork from Seth depicting several stages in humanity’s development.”
On August 7, writing in The Times Literary Supplement, Emily A. Bernhard Jackson had the following to say about the MIT Press’s edition of Beatrice the Sixteenth. “As time passed, men managed to claim both SF and utopian fiction for themselves. There were exceptions — Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (1915) is the best-known — but until recently they seemed to be few. Now MIT Press and the newer Manderley Press are challenging this impression, the former offering Irene Clyde’s Beatrice the Sixteenth, the latter Susan Ertz’s Woman, Alive — two very different feminist utopian novels of the twentieth century — in thoughtfully edited editions.”
On August 11, the website Forces of Geek included the MIT Press’s edition of Last and First Men on its 2026 Summer Reading List.

On August 18, Transfer Orbit had the following to say about the MIT Press’s edition of Last and First Men: “The story is epic in every sense of the word: it spans billions of years, following the evolution of humanity from Earth far, far into the future, with plenty of highs and lows as they progress.”

A version of Matthew De Abaitua’s introductory essay, titled “The Man Who Saw Humanity From Two Billion Years Away,” was published on 8/24/26 by the MIT Press Reader. Excerpt:

Last and First Men is not progressive. Civilizations rise and fall, the tide of progress advances and retreats, variants upon the theme of humanity strike up and diminish — what endures of humanity is not spirit in the Christian sense so much as, in the philosophy of the Fifth Men, “a work of tragic art.” The Fifth Men regarded the cosmos as an aesthetic unity in four dimensions. Art focuses aspects of the cosmos, making it apprehensible even if its complexity means that it can never be entirely known.