My dear young blowhard, As I’ve said to you before, there’s never been a more propitious time to be a huffing, puffing, middle-of-the-road blowhard. This is the hour of the pundit, my friend. And as always, the key question for any neophyte puffer is how to position oneself, that is how to "brand" your own version of the same tepid, muddled crap that everyone else is selling.

Natacha Merritt’s debut photo collection, The Digital Diaries (Taschen, 2000), was a notable commercial success, selling over 200,000 copies worldwide. Earlier this summer, the Rail caught up with Merritt at her studio in Williamsburg.

A warehouse loft on Metropolitan Avenue throbs till 7 a.m. on a Friday night in early May. A succession of nymphs prance across the space in various states of undress.

“Oh, yuck,” the guy said.
 
“What?” I replied frantically, as I tried to serve him a drink.
 
“It’s them,” he sneered.  “C’mon, I’m busy, just tell me what,” I pleaded.