means something’s next to something else. Two concepts not quite kissing, but sitting hip to hip on the subway. It comes off sounding tentative. Why so afraid of asserting connections? It’s easy: for fans of X; listen if you like Y. Or I hear an edge of accusation: Who are your affiliates? Are you a double agent? Have you fallen in with the wrong crowd? The way politics are now one big choice: you check each box in a row or you are suspect. Enemy-adjacent. Things are polar or they are party line. They can no longer be jumbled together. No junk drawer, no piňata of mixed candy, no menagerie, no spattering of wildflowers on the side of the road. The algorithm can’t parse that. Shall we kill the machines beside us, leaking their scripts into our skins?