Radio Free Pizza

Knowing I’m a writer, you’d probably guess that I’m interested in language. Those of you with exceptional memories (and, I suspect, a peculiar interest in semiotics) may also assume from my brief discussion of diaphoristics that I’m particularly interested in how differences arise depending on how speakers of a language use it. Since languages are dynamic systems that adapt to the needs of their s...

Since starting Radio Free Pizza , I’ve set a mental target for the first eight posts. I picked the number because restaurants usually serve pizza pies in eight slices (when they’re not cut into squares), and there’s some utility for me in staying faithful to a theme, even if it’s something as absurd as “developing a ‘personal brand’” solely from the username I’ve staked out across platforms . Of c...

Last month, Mark Bailey (one ongoing participant in the experiments of Diaphora Co. ) launched The Free Mind Gazette . In his most recent release , Bailey touched briefly on cancel culture—a subject I explored in my last dispatch —and speculated about the roots of this modern social phenomenon: Our control regime has arranged our legal and economic systems in such a way as to shield powerful bad a...

Alright, time for me to stop stalling: “ Radio Free Pizza analyzes society, culture, politics, economics, and media,” this newsletter’s description currently warns, so let’s drop the literary pretensions . But, rather than surrender comic books (literature’s ugly stepchild: someone should care for it), I’ll use it to provide an example of, and a segue to discussing further, a familiar phenomenon i...

“Diaphora is (becoming) Diaphora,” we told them. By that I mean the slogan of Diaphora Co. in one of its several iterations over the past eight-or-so years, the variations of which one could track from the changing URLs of content shared to our Facebook page . Of course, despite the tremendous effort invested in branding, the name still isn’t significant enough for ChatGPT to know it as a proper n...

What comes to your mind when you see the name “Metropotamia”? I’m guessing you imagine a city of dazzling lights and breathtaking architecture: a bustling, vibrant cityscape with towering skyscrapers, bustling streets, and a diverse range of people and cultures. See the same name on a poster for a movie, I suppose you might imagine a city of hushed intrigues, dark secrets, and hidden depths lurkin...

Scrambling on Wednesday night to brainstorm my dispatch for this week, I’ve suddenly realized: Wednesday's the old-school new comic book day that would’ve had me excited as lad! So—since : 1. I’ve told you twice now that I write indie comics; 2. I publish these dispatches on Sundays; and, 3. I understand writers on Twitter promote themselves on  #ShamelessSelfPromotionSunday—let me tell you all ab...

Looking over my last dispatch , it seems a little grandiose: “the world has problems that we can solve together.” When I see someone in the public sphere virtue-signaling their commitment to some undefined altruism, nowadays I feel pretty suspicious. I suppose I can at least give myself some credit for building the backdoor for me to mention Better Futures, the podcast miniseries I’ve released int...

Hello again world, allow me to reintroduce myself: I’m Zach ( @zacharonipizza ; “Zaquerí Nioúel” to keep the stink off my gov’t name), writer of software documentation by day, and by occasional nights and weekends, writer of indie comic books, and, as interim founder of Diaphora Co. , editor and publisher in the field of arts and entertainment. I’ve spent my working career with one goal, among man...