MEDIA DIET
By:
November 13, 2026
A weekly series exploring the media “input” of a group of people — HILOBROW’s friends and contributors — whose “output” we admire.
Colin has been a valued HILOBROW contributor since 2015. His first post was on the topic of KAIROS. His most recent contributions to this publication include: ACÉPHALE | IN THE MYSTERY CAVE (series) | WITHOUT CARE (series).
Brooklyn…
HILOBROW: What work of literature (old or new) would you recommend to someone trying to make sense of today’s world?
COLIN DICKEY: Borges’ “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbus Tertius.” I’ve always loved this story, and I’d read it, I dunno, a dozen or so times since I first came across it in my early 20s. And then at some point in the past decade, I realized: Oh shit, this is a story about fascism. I’ve come to believe that Borges was basically re-writing Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu,” except where the monster in 1939 wasn’t some unspeakable Dead God but the rise of fascism. And specifically, that fascism doesn’t always arise out of the blue with jackboots and pogroms. In Borges’ story, it is the allure of the clockwork world of Tlön that first attracts, leading to a gradual corruption of reality in favor of something pure and without blemish. (“Enchanted by its rigor, humanity forgets over and again that it is a rigor of chess masters, not of angels.”) And a desire for purity, as Mary Gordon once said, is always a desire for death.
HILOBROW: What are your reading habits?
COLIN DICKEY: I spend every morning reading/writing at a coffeeshop. I try for 3 hours a day. I can’t go more than at most one day without this ritual or else everything gets screwed up. So I’m always reading something to start my day. If I’m lucky, it’s someone whose prose has a strong enough sense of its own rhythm that it resets my brain from whatever pace the world of consumerism and social media is trying to set for me. Anne Carson, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Michael Ondaatje — and recently, Simon Armitage.
HILOBROW: What’s the best book you’ve read recently?
COLIN DICKEY: A few months ago I heard Maria Pinto read from her new book, Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me About Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden History, Zombies, and Black Survival, and bought it immediately and have had a difficult time shutting up about it since. Pinto’s essays are all mycologically-focused, but her writing is incredibly dynamic, her questions fascinating, and her insights truly incredible. It’s just one of those books that comes along so rarely, and we’re lucky to live in a world where it exists.
HILOBROW: What’s the best movie you’ve ever seen?
COLIN DICKEY: For a long time I would tell anyone who asked me about my favorite movie that it was a tie between Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man, and the Coen Brothers’ Barton Fink. And then at some point I realized that all three of those movies are about a man who doesn’t understand the world he’s been thrust into, and blithely travels through it, causing destruction and killing people, all the while refusing to take responsibility, leaving a mess for others to deal with. And I had to think about that fact for a very, very long time.
HILOBROW: Do you subscribe to any magazines or newsletters that you’d strongly recommend?
COLIN DICKEY: I love Stranger’s Guide, The Believer, and Arnoldia. I hope Lapham’s Quarterly is able to publish again someday. I want a periodical that’s physically beautiful, that is a joy to touch and leaf through. My friend Anna Moore makes amazing zines that are lovingly put together and physically magnificent, though they’re not a periodical as such. But if you ever get a chance to grab one, don’t hesitate.
HILOBROW: How do you use social media, these days?
COLIN DICKEY: The only social media I’m still on is Bluesky, and for the sole reason that it has no algorithm. It is nothing but a reverse chronological feed of people you follow. And so you know exactly why you’re seeing what you’re seeing. I believe strongly that if you don’t understand what you’re being shown, you’re opening yourself up to any and all kinds of manipulation. If Bluesky ever defaults to an opaque algorithm, I’ll quit that app too.
There’s an anonymous account on Bluesky named Gef the Toking Mongoose, whom I started following just based on the name, who is, to me, exactly the kind of account I want to follow on social media. Dumb memes, weird jokes, benevolent shitposting. I spent a long time using social media to advance my career, and it worked at times. And I spent some time trying to use social media as a platform for good, and I still do sometimes, and it sometimes works. But mostly, man, I just want to joke around with weird friends.
MEDIA DIET series: MATTHEW BATTLES | ADRIENNE CREW | HOLLY INTERLANDI | CAROLYN KELLOGG | MARK KINGWELL | FLOURISH KLINK | ADAM McGOVERN | CHARLIE MITCHELL | TOM NEALON | ANNIE NOCENTI | GARY PANTER | LYNN PERIL | JONATHAN PINCHERA | NICHOLAS ROMBES | CARLO ROTELLA | LUCY SANTE | SETH | MIKE WATT | JUDITH ZISSMAN | & many others! Visit the SERIES INDEX.