When watching them became intolerable, I started listening to fireplaces. The most popular videos rumble through 10-hour-long loops that recycle the same video of peak flame over and over again, split up by a tiny, almost imperceivable blip. Natural wood log videos filmed outside by real outdoors-people are undoubtedly the best. They look better, too, though I don’t spend much time looking at them anymore. They satisfy this deep human urge to feel warm. The main problem with those videos is that you have to skip ahead to get to the good part (unless you like watching a bearded white guy crouch over logs for 10 minutes). And then you have to find another video before it dies out. That 20 minutes of satisfying burn used to be enough for me.…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, March/April 2025