NOW  in the Inkwell

The Yellow Vests and the Battle for Democracy,     starts August 11, 2026

What can France’s Yellow Vest movement teach us about democracy, resistance, and collective action in an age of growing authoritarianism? Join our conversation with anthropologist Ida Susser about The Yellow Vests and the Battle for Democracy, her illuminating account of a movement that defied conventional divisions between left and right—and created new possibilities for popular politics in the streets.

JOIN the live conversation

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If  you have a comment or question, send via email to inkwell at well.com.

To read all previous Inkwell interviews, go Here.

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Recently in the Inkwell

Tom Hilton, Aldora Britain Records,     March 24 – April 1, 2026

Our guest in Inkwell.vue is Tom Hilton, publisher of Aldora Britain Records. He will be discussing his experience publishing a music e-zine during an unprecedented period of transformational turbulence in the digital media environment and the integration of massive streaming services disintermediating traditional distribution models. He started the zine in 2013, and has been showcasing and interviewing independent artists across a variety of genres over 500 issues in 13 years. See the most recent issue.

He also produces 5-song sampler CDs of his subjects’ work and distributes them on Bandcamp. They offer his readers a great way toget exposed to new artists and to follow up on those who have appeared in ABR’s pages. We will be discussing this multifaceted micromedia property in Inkwell through the end of March.

VISIT the archived conversation

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State of the World 2026,  Jan 1 – Feb 4, 2026

Your co-hosts and lead commentators are author/journalist/design maven Bruce Sterling and yours truly, Jon Lebkowsky, digital culture maven and aging dharma punk. This is our 26th annual State of the World discussion. We tend to be more micro than macro in these discussions, which makes sense given that the actual state of the world is slippery, fluid, hard to assess reliably.
 
We offer an exploration of the chaos and complexity of the rapidly-spinning, always-evolving planet Earth and the odd bipedal and quadrupedal creatures variously crouching and wandering on its surface. We are observers of this world, sharing our observations here with no claim of extraordinary expertise.

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Visit the rest of the topics: g inkwell.vue

The books and commentary we’ve spotlighted over the years run the gamut from timely political commentary, to noteworthy blogs, to gardening and cooking books, to parenting issues, to the social implications of new technologies. We’ve delved into the evolution of online culture and communications technologies, and we’ve explored improvisational and collaborative branches of music history. Who can say what we’ll talk about next?

Previous Discussions

The State of the World 2026
The State of the World 2025
The State of the World 2024
The State of the World 2023
The State of the World 2022
The State of the World 2021
The State of the World 2020
The State of the World 2019
The State of the World 2018
Virginia Eubanks: Automating Inequality
Roger McNamee: Brain Hacking For Dummies
Ellen Ullman: Life in Code
Julie Rehmeyer: Through the Shadowlands

Hosted by: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl), Emily Gertz (emilyg), David Gans (tnf), and Alan Chamberlain (axon)

Host emerita: Julie Sherman <julieswn>