Lauren Martinez

TikTok might mimic the spontaneity of meeting a stranger or the serendipity of finding common ground with another person, and it may have even served as an anchor in community life during the pandemic, but third places hinge on this element of place, and TikTok would be more fairly considered a “nonplace.” 

Somehow I've wrestled free from the 21st century and stepped into another world. What hits me at once is that this choreographed reunion with the past is aesthetically driven; I find myself in a kind of time warp marked by colonial gazebos, iPhones, Charleston dance-offs and a picnic of props where I never lose the sense that I’m in a decade-limbo, never really fully in one time or another.

Inspired by Italo Calvino’s “The Castle of Crossed Destinies,” seven of the Weekender’s staffers came together to write short pieces based on the same set of five tarot cards.

Frank Jackson proposed a thought experiment, “What Mary Didn’t Know,” where Mary is sequestered alone in a colorless room.

With all of the possible people I could have been and paths I could have taken, I never know if I’m picking the right version of myself.