The Dev­il, the Beast, Beelze­bub, Lucifer, Satan: whichev­er name we hap­pen to call him, we know full well who the guy is — or at least, we think we do. The ancient Mid­dle East­ern reli­gion pro­pos­es a per­fect­ly good divine being Ahu­ra Maz­da “locked in bat­tle with a whol­ly evil being named Angra Mainyu.” In ref­er­ence to the ori­gins of Satan, the Book of Isa­iah offers the line “How you are fall­en from heav­en, O Day Star, Son of Dawn!” Whether we fear him, con­demn him, deny his exis­tence, or even — depend­ing on our musi­cal gen­res of choice — imag­ine that we wor­ship him, our cul­ture does, in some sense or anoth­er, seem to need him. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les.