dirt-fyi-3hauqg.txt (14317B)
1 [1] 2 [2][ ] 3 • [4]Stories 4 • [5]Podcast 5 • [6]Partnerships 6 • [7]Shop 7 8 Sign in 9 old world 10 11 [11]Technology 12 13 Feb 5, 2026 14 15 The feeling of the old world fading away 16 17 “Undone by a string of clues” 18 19 Heather McCalden on the struggle to articulate the present. 20 21 • [12] 22 • [13] 23 • [14] 24 • 25 26 For a long time, I’ve been experiencing something I can only describe as the 27 feeling of the old world fading away. It’s as if some deeply embedded internal 28 architecture is slowly dissolving and leaving in its particle wake a sorrow, 29 for which there is no name. The causes are spoken of: the global conflicts, the 30 ecological catastrophes, the social injustices—but the actual, visceral, 31 experience of losing a coherence that held reality together, remains under 32 examined. To be clear, this sorrow is not about nostalgia or “getting older”, 33 this is about living in a moment when the question, “Has the world changed or 34 have I?” is irrelevant because the separation of the self and the world no 35 longer makes any sense. 36 37 ∞ 38 39 I can tell you exactly when it happened, the moment the world cracked away from 40 me, or rather I from it. I was standing inside a narrow café on Redchurch 41 Street in London, distractedly scrolling Apple News on my phone when my eyes 42 caught a headline my mind could not understand “Reality Winner, N.S.A. 43 Contractor Accused of Leak, Was Undone by Trail of Clues.” Maybe it was the 44 overcrowding of the room, and the resultant heat which created a sensation of 45 being squeezed into a corridor, but as I read the words I experienced a 46 syntactical meltdown. My synapses spasmed. “Reality Winner” as a name, could 47 not be processed. Instead, I understood that a contestant from America’s Next 48 Top Model was moonlighting as an N.S.A Contractor. After a nanosecond of 49 bewilderment, this not only seemed plausible, but felt correct. It was 2017. 50 51 The composition of the headline, coming at me on a tiny screen, viewed 52 sideways, pointed toward a new way of existing: of information from other times 53 and places splintering the present moment into a mist of shards, fracturing it 54 open until all possible moments were all time. This time. The time of the 55 device I held in my hand. 56 57 ∞ 58 59 In 1923, Cecil B. DeMille built what amounted to a city in the wide, empty sand 60 dunes of Guadalupe, California. The so-called “City of the Pharaoh” was 61 designed to simulate ancient Egypt for his epic The Ten Commandments. Used in 62 the film’s Exodus scene, it was considered, at the time, to be the most 63 extravagant film set in the history of cinema. 64 65 Paul Iribe, a decorative artist and illustrator who precipitated the Art Deco 66 movement, was tapped for the production design, resulting in an Egypt of sharp 67 geometrical forms and the occasional sunburst. However, the stylish aesthetics 68 were secondary to the set’s sheer scale which included gates measuring 110 feet 69 high, four 35-foot-tall statues of Ramses II, an 800-foot-wide temple, and an 70 avenue of 21 sphinxes. Each sphinx weighed five tons and was assembled piece by 71 piece, as heads, paws, and legs arrived on trucks from Los Angeles 165 miles 72 away. 73 74 Aside from these creature components, everything else was fabricated over the 75 course of six weeks on location by over 1,000 craftspeople. The location, owned 76 by the Union Sugar Company, was rented to the production for $10 and one 77 stipulation: no trace of the set could remain. The sand dunes had to be 78 restored to a pristine condition, as if nothing had ever happened. For the 79 responsible parties, the cost of dismantling the set was unappealing, so the 80 idea of abandoning it, intact, and fucking over Union Sugar was floated. To 81 this, DeMille objected. He assumed other filmmakers would flock to his creation 82 and use it for their own, potentially successful, projects. Rather than leave 83 the set exposed, he preferred to detonate it; according to legend, dynamite was 84 taken to the City of the Pharaoh, leaving it in ruins, eventually washed over 85 by sand. 86 87 Time passed, and other than the locals who lived near the site, knowledge of 88 this place evaporated from cultural consciousness. 89 90 ∞ 91 92 We know the old world was definitely not better, more functional, or even more 93 beautiful than the current one, but it held together. By the “old world” I mean 94 the 20^th century and slightly beyond but, this is less to do with time and 95 more to do with what was inside those years that carried us forward. 96 97 We know the old world was definitely not better, more functional, or even 98 more beautiful than the current one, but it held together. 99 100 ∞ 101 102 The phrase “undone by a string of clues” implies a betrayal, implies the 103 technology Reality used ratted her out. The famous printer signature, or the 104 tracking dots, are all anyone seems to remember, though this was old tech, 105 invented in the mid-80s by Xerox and then deployed worldwide as a failsafe 106 against counterfeiting. The real mistake, if it even can be called that, was 107 pretending the surveillance of certain types of documents didn’t exist, or 108 didn’t matter. That it could be overwritten, or outrun, which is to say she was 109 undone by the ethos of the previous decade: move fast and break things. 110 111 ∞ 112 113 The City of Pharaohs was briefly resurrected in a single line from Cecil B. 114 DeMille’s 1959 autobiography: 115 116 “If 1,000 years from now, archeologists happen to dig beneath the sands of 117 Guadalupe, I hope they will not rush into print with the amazing news that 118 Egyptian civilization, far from being confined to the valley of Nile, extended 119 all the way to the Pacific coast of North America.” 120 121 ∞ 122 123 Cultural theorist and writer Mark Fisher remarked in a 2014 lecture that, 124 “Smartphones shouldn’t be thought of as objects which we have, but as portals 125 into cyberspace, which means that when we carry them around, we're always 126 inside cyberspace.” By cyberspace, he meant a specifically capitalist 127 cyberspace, in which the nervous system is radially seduced/assaulted by an 128 uninterrupted flow of content. The consequence of this condition, of living 129 online and offline, simultaneously, is not just dysregulation, but a 130 recalculation of physical space. From Einstein, we know that if space changes, 131 so does time, the two components interwoven in a single geometric structure 132 called spacetime. So, as our spatial reality shifts, we find ourselves immersed 133 in a new temporality, which Fisher touched upon in his essay “The Slow 134 Cancellation of the Future.” 135 136 Fisher writes, “In the last 10 to 15 years, meanwhile, the internet and mobile 137 telecommunications technology have altered the texture of everyday experience 138 beyond all recognition. Yet, perhaps because of all this, there’s an increasing 139 sense that culture has lost the ability to grasp and articulate the present. Or 140 it could be that, in one very important sense, there is no present to grasp and 141 articulate any more.” 142 143 ∞ 144 145 Nighttime, late June, the strange lights of Hollywood melting through the 146 windows of my friend’s white Saturn Ion sedan. It’s 2009 and we are parked on 147 Ivar Avenue off of Hollywood, talking a mile a minute about music. Nowhere to 148 be. No one missing us. No money in our pockets. This is how we spend many an 149 evening, stationary in a vehicle, near the glamour, but always outside of it. I 150 am just back from London where a single song seemed to play across the entire 151 city, La Roux’s “In for the Kill.” I keep trying to describe sound, and I keep 152 failing, “Imagine the voice of a wood sprite climbing over a jagged electronic 153 throb—” She cuts me off by shaking her head, and then pulls out her brand-new 154 iPhone, which is so jet black and sleek, I actually gasp. “Let’s download it,” 155 she says. 156 157 “You can do that? From here?” 158 159 She taps a thing, and very slowly, the album begins to materialize on her 160 phone. It feels like if we can do this, well, what can’t we do? 161 162 ∞ 163 164 The feeling of the old world fading away comes from witnessing culture lose 165 “the ability to grasp and articulate the present,” but it is not, as Fisher 166 says, because the present no longer exists, it’s just that the present, now, is 167 so beyond what a human mind can hold. 168 169 ∞ 170 171 Over drinks one night in the autumn of 1982, Bruce Cardoza tells his friend 172 Peter Brosnan about The City of the Pharaoh lingering, theoretically, somewhere 173 in the sands of the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes. Brosnan’s life has recently burned 174 to the ground, a fire having claimed his house, and wiping out all traces of 175 his professional, creative output. This is why he finds himself crashing at 176 Cardoza’s, and now, having a strange conversation about a lost replica of a 177 lost civilization. Eventually, DeMille’s autobiography is pulled off a shelf, 178 and the sentence about the city is read aloud. This incites a eureka flash for 179 Brosnan: he decides, then and there, to make a documentary about excavating the 180 film set. 181 182 The idea, though laser sharp in its hook, appeal, and simplicity, takes an 183 unexpected thirty years to execute, the production thwarted by almost every 184 imaginable circumstance including environmental concerns for the western snowy 185 plover and city politics. A reprieve comes in 2012, when a cash infusion paves 186 the way for exactly one archeological dig, during which, the plaster head of a 187 sphinx is gingerly unearthed. Brosnan has described himself as an “obsessive 188 lunatic,” but aren’t we all at this point? 189 190 ∞ 191 192 Sometimes I think there is nothing more difficult than articulating feeling 193 because nothing is more true and more stupid and more brilliant than a simple 194 one scraped off the surface of the heart. 195 196 ∞ 197 198 It is a cold night in December 2016, and instead of watching shadows spread 199 across my thoughts I’m streaming four ten-year-olds on bikes, frantically 200 peddling down a suburban street. On the back of one bike is an elfin-girl with 201 a shaved head wearing a Crayola blue jacket. She stares down a white van on a 202 collision course with her party, and with a narrowing glare, sends the van 203 airborne, flipping it in a somersault above their heads, and for reasons that 204 are quite difficult to explain, I’m crying like a motherfucker. Something 205 deeply buried in my brain is sending out a sonar ping; I know this autumnal 206 color palette, the synthetic textures of the kid’s clothes, the freedom of 207 getting lost on a bike. All of this looks like my childhood, or actually, it 208 looks like my fake childhood, the one I used to watch on TV. The show is about 209 the 80s, but it is also made to feel like it is from the 80s, without quotation 210 marks, and this very sincerity makes it appear benign. This is pure 211 entertainment, right? Not cultural commentary, except the pinging in my mind is 212 growing louder, and my heart is sinking lower, because somehow I understand 213 that the only way to address what is happening now is through the past. It 214 contains the thing we are currently missing: the wonder of the future. 215 216 It contains the thing we are currently missing: the wonder of the future. 217 218 ∞ 219 220 In order to relive the anticipation that the future once held for us, we 221 venture backwards in time, creating cultural artifacts cloaked in the 222 aesthetics of previous decades. A constant, obsessive regression in the face of 223 everything Now. The feeling of the world fading away is the same as the 224 sensation of losing a memory. We can’t quite remember how people once thought 225 about the future, so we search for it endlessly, and perhaps this is why 226 history repeats itself. 227 228 ∞ 229 230 DeMille’s last motion picture was a VistaVision version of The Ten Commandments 231 shot partially on location in Egypt three years before he died. At the time of 232 its release, in 1956, it was the most expensive film ever made. Despite the 233 fact that it was not a remake of the 1923 film, the set possessed an enhanced 234 replica of The City of the Pharaoh built just outside Cairo, complete with a 235 series of alabaster pyramids positioned on stilts to create a more visually 236 striking horizon. However, the most impressive element of this déjà vu was the 237 Gates of the City Per-Ramses, standing 107 feet high and 325 feet long, or the 238 equivalent of a ten-story building and a standard American football field. 239 240 At the conclusion of production, the Egyptian government offered to turn the 241 Gates into a museum. DeMille refused, preferring, again, to obliterate the 242 set. 243 244 Next Read 245 246 [16]britney cover 247 248 Dec 19, 2025 249 250 Tabloids predicted the future 251 252 Jeff Weiss on Britney Spears and her scribes. 253 Read More 254 255 Dirt is a daily(ish) newsletter about digital pop culture. 256 257 [17][ ]Sign Up 258 [19] 259 260 • [20]Pitches 261 • [21]About Dirt Media 262 • [22]Cancelling a subscription 263 264 • [23]Website Terms of Use 265 • [24]Privacy 266 267 • [25] 268 • [26] 269 • [27] 270 271 © 2026 dirt Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 272 [Group_1] 273 274 Scan to connect with our mobile app 275 276 Coinbase Wallet app 277 278 Connect with your self-custody wallet 279 280 QR Code 281 282 1. Open Coinbase Wallet app 283 2. 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