How it's made
From the Dumpster Fire is a magazine of things worth pulling out of the internet and the archive before they burn: essays, talks, papers, poems, podcasts, passages and strange corners of Wikipedia. It arrives in Hauls, when there is enough worth sending.
Two voices
The editor
This is the editor. One person chooses everything, mostly by voice, and every word set like this is theirs.
Machine
This is the machine. It reads each piece closely, finds connections across time, drafts context and checks facts. Anything it writes is set like this, and the editor checks it before it ships.
House rules
Every quotation is matched word for word against its source.
Each excerpt is compared with the text of the source as fetched. If it does not match, it does not ship.
Every link is fetched and working when a Haul ships.
Machines never write links. Code finds each one in a real source and fetches it before publishing.
Every note from the machine names its source.
Each note is checked against the source it cites. A note that fails the check is dropped.
The editor's words are never rewritten.
Voice notes are cleaned only by deleting fillers and fixing punctuation. The code allows nothing else.
No generated images.
Plates come from public-domain archives, with the licence printed under each one.
Key to the forms
Each kind of thing is set the way it has always been printed, so you know what you are holding before you read a word.
- EssaysMagazine openingThe title set huge, the reason it is here as the standfirst.
- PapersOffprintAbstract first, sections numbered, references at the end.
- Talks and podcastsTranscriptSpeakers in the margin, the line that matters set large.
- PoemsBroadsideOne sheet in the poem's colour, nothing else on it.
- RhymesFacing pagesThen on the left, now on the right, the link between them in the gutter.
- Rabbit holesCatalogue cardA call number, the headword, the entry and its cross-references.
- PassagesA page from the bookThe passage justified, under its running head, with its page.
Other ways to read
New Hauls arrive in the RSS feed as soon as they are published. Every Haul stays online in the archive.