“I thought I would be scared. I thought it was very strange. I thought, Wow.” From eyewitness testimonies sent to the National UFO Reporting Center. harpers.org/archive/2026...

“Some were drawn first to the language and its interna ideo, only to later realize the travel benefits involved; others had learned the language specifically to bum around.” Katie Thornton reports from the 110th annual World Esperanto Congress in the Czech Republic.

“Maya, as much as I love her, is no less susceptible than any of us to being blinded by a glimpse of something we desire—in this case, our long-discussed but repeatedly delayed plan to have a child together if both of us were still single by thirty-five…”

“Humor allows people to stand back from what they are in reality.” From “The Hormone Pill,” by César Aira, a story in the collection Five, which will be published by New Directions (@ndbooks.bsky.social) next month.

“When he pulled his gun on the 2 train that day, Goetz could hardly have been aware of all that he would come to represent about this era—but from a certain angle, you can see history coursing through him.” — @kevinlozano.bsky.social

“In principle, there is no such thing as intrinsically degrading work; degradation is a cultural phenomenon. In practice, however, activities having to do with dirt, waste, and garbage have been the object of disdain and avoidance in just about every society.”

From the June Harper’s Index. buff.ly/p2g3jQR

“The cause for Republicans’ general unwillingness to embrace anti-AI politics is obvious: Donald Trump himself is closely aligned with the tech oligarchs who run the industry. But for Democrats, the aversion may seem more puzzling.”

"Weather modification is among the oldest and least successful human projects." harpers.org/archive/2026...

“Suitable takes us through yards of silk, linen, cotton, and wool; over the high collars, supple broadcloths, and plush lapels of high-society ateliers; into the grazing pastures of America’s first merino rams, imported at great expense…”

From expenditures made by the U.S. Department of Defense in September 2025. buff.ly/i3OFNHo

“Around three-thirty in the morning, I could hear it begin to happen. One drop after another, slow and then steady and then hammering down from above. It was finally raining.” @wyatt-williams.bsky.social on cloud seeding and the battle over weather modification.

“LSD Kingpin Turned Everest Guide KGB Officer Turned Double Agent” From obituary headlines that have appeared in the New York Times since 2020. buff.ly/7smTwfr

“Sure, even I could see there was an erotic dimension to what he was proposing, the thrill of domination and the risk of losing control, an invitation to do something taboo, to play with the truth…” From a story by Kevin Brazil. harpers.org/archive/2026...

“In two decades, I’ve handled tens of thousands of tons of trash, and the looks I get along my route suggest that people sometimes mistake me for the garbage I handle.” —Simon Paré-­Poupart

European man decapitated by mistake (3)

Golf carts $1,031,215 Peanut butter $457, 438 Calculators $379,897 From expenditures made by the U.S. Department of Defense in September 2025.

“These believers were already fomenting, in admittedly small numbers, the kind of unity that Esperanto’s skeptics say the language could never help facilitate. As an impostor—a fake Catholic and fake Esperantist—I felt a pang of jealousy.” —Katie Thornton

“Their grievance was not just with government obfuscation but with the epistemological clusterfuck of the Information Age. As one academic put it: ‘At what point, and why, are we satisfied to stop looking?’” —Dan Piepenbring

“One day, a paunchy man in his fifties by the name of Rosales played a prank that captured his character to a tee: he swallowed a hormone pill from a bottle in the bathroom cabinet of his apartment.” —César Aira

“Rachel Cusk has said we’ve reached the end / Of character in fiction / I begin an affair // With the sound of Steely Dan / For all sorts of reasons, you be the judge.” From Shit Hike, by Callie Garnett, which was published last month by The Song Cave.

“As it stands, the data-center economy appears remarkably unstable in light of the shocks caused by Trump’s war on Iran. The price of the diesel needed to fuel data-center generators has already climbed by 30 percent.” —Andrew Cockburn

“If all dustmen were dukes, they would find some new group, under another name, to handle the dust. Hence the question: In a society of equals, who will do the dirty work?” From “Dirty Work Should Be Shared,” which appeared in the December 1982 issue. harpers.org/archive/2026...

“I thought it was a deer tracker, but they appear to be $15K–$20K and I don’t suspect anyone in this area could afford that. I thought it was Starlink; however, I’ve seen Starlink before.” From eyewitness testimonies sent to the National UFO Reporting Center.

“Strange as it may be to say, Goetz was a messenger, here to announce something terrible taking place in the city, a harbinger of a disaster we haven’t yet managed to escape.” @kevinlozano.bsky.social on the city that Bernie Goetz made.

“Interventions in foreign countries have long been attempts to refashion America’s identity and to reinvigorate, through external validation, the weakening faith of Americans in their own institutions.” —Pankaj Mishra

“In his statements to reporters at the time, Meyer insisted that his crusade was a divine one. The weather was being modified, there were powers out there that could control it, and this was against God.” @wyatt-williams.bsky.social on the battle over weather modification.

“Through the eyes of a scammer, America is a nation of satyrs and harlots, our concupiscence interrupted only by occasional trips to Walmart or the gas station.” Dan Piepenbring on The Yahoo Boys, by Carlos Barragán.

Wyatt Williams, whose essay “Hard Rain” appeared in our June issue, spoke with Will Stephenson about weather modification, conspiracy culture, and the theology of meteorology. buff.ly/3m19TRh

Harper’s writers Christine Smallwood, Andrew Martin, and Lynn Steger Strong will convene for a panel on siblings in literature at Greenlight Bookstore on June 2 at 7:30 PM. RSVP for a free ticket.

“Platforms reward perceived momentum, not actual demand. If you can manufacture the appearance of momentum, you can trigger platform-recommendation systems and attract the attention of real users.” —Tony Price

From this month’s Harper’s Index.

“From the moment we created the first photographic likeness of a human being or a landscape, we also lost something: the chance to see earlier humans, landscapes, animals, and objects with that same clarity.” —Thomas S. Mullaney (@tsmullaney)

“If Virginia Democrats are beginning to style themselves as data-center opponents, in Michigan, the politics of data-center resistance remain up for grabs.” Andrew Cockburn on the opposition to data center construction and Democratic strategy.

Missiles $8,523,839,979 Bombs and explosives $1,061,726,930 Lobster-tail $6,919,553 Alaskan king crab $2,019,613 From expenditures made by the U.S. Department of Defense in September 2025. harpers.org/archive/2026...

Last summer, I saw security footage of a man attacking a weather radar tower in Oklahoma City. He jumped a fence and destroyed the power supply, disabling a system designed to keep people safe. He was angry. His eyes were glowing. I wanted to understand why he did it. 1/9

“Tax Lawyer Turned Reformer Stock Trader Turned Art Dealer TV Heartthrob Turned Serious Actor Berlin DJ Turned Award-Winning Translator” From obituary headlines that have appeared in the New York Times since 2020.

“The once-militant politicking of the anational anarchists and militant trade unionists, it appeared, had largely given way to niche hobbyists and feel-good social practitioners.” Katie Thornton reports from the 110th annual World Esperanto Congress.

“The garbageman is Sisyphus, a hapless laborer condemned to go from house to house picking up bags, swept along in the never-ending flow of the refuse we produce.” Simon Paré-­Poupart on the life of the garbageman.

“To My Fellow Members, Lifelong activists know the truth: democracy is always worth the struggle.” From letters that appeared in a newsletter published by the Park Slope Food Coop, a member-owned-and-operated grocery store in Brooklyn, New York.

Harper’s writers Christine Smallwood, Andrew Martin, and Lynn Steger Strong will convene for a panel on siblings in literature at Greenlight Bookstore on June 2 at 7:30 PM. RSVP for a free ticket. greenlightbookstore.com/event/2026-0...

“A Florida biologist was awarded a $485,000 settlement after being fired for reposting a meme criticizing Charlie Kirk’s stance on gun control after his death; and a Florida man who discovered $30,000 in the bathroom of a Wawa returned the money.” harpers.org/2026/05/week...

“For thousands of years, we have sacrificed children, sung songs and danced, brewed alchemical concoctions, chanted prayers, fired cannons, and made many other futile efforts in the attempt to somehow change the weather a little more to our liking.”

“He’s gone rappelling into the bottomless pit that surrounds desire. The result is a compassionate, elegant, unsettling book about some extremely shabby people.” Dan Piepenbring on Yahoo Boys, by Carlos Barragán. harpers.org/archive/2026...

“Gratuitous acts were already secret jokes in themselves, and the more gratuitous they were, the more secret, because jokes played on other people need some justification or precedent, whereas a joke played on oneself does not.” —César Aira

“In short, I realized I was being played, and this wasn’t at all what I wanted from someone older and (or so I had hoped) wiser than me.” From a story by Kevin Brazil.

“Entropy offers no hope of salvation for media, however. Benign neglect doesn’t work for digital artifacts. To leave a floppy disk untended for twenty years does not permit one to pick it up later and reminisce, the way a letter or a photograph does.” harpers.org/archive/2026...

“Among these delusions is the perennial faith that Iranians are potentially ardent converts to American-style freedom, rather than inheritors of an ancient civilization with a trajectory outlined by its own specific history.” —Pankaj Mishra

“What’s being shaped is not the audience directly, but the atmosphere in which the audience encounters something, the environment that determines whether it appears meaningful or real.” From “You Don’t Actually Like the Band Geese,” by Tony Price, which was published in April.

“Though much has changed in the intervening decades, it’s easy to recognize these aspects of Goetz’s era in our own. The renewed interest in his case raises an uncomfortable question: Is the city still ruled by its own violent id?” — @kevinlozano.bsky.social