Went up on our roof this morning and our neighborhood hawk was perched on the nextdoor building. Flew away as I fumbled my phone trying to get a better picture. Usually I just find the remnants of its pigeon meals

in general, the best advice for writers is, "be independently wealthy."

Neighbors don't disappoint on the 4th

Donald Trump came one vote away from getting the Supreme Court to say that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented and temporary immigrants, a view held only by fringe far-right nativists until VERY recently. This is shocking. I am stunned.

The Supreme Court strikes down Trump's attack on birthright citizenship. By a 5–4 vote, it holds that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to children born of unauthorized and temporary immigrants. Roberts and Barrett join the three liberals. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

GOOD NEWS! A personalized mRNA vaccine, known as mRNA-4157, has shown promise in keeping melanoma, a deadly skin cancer, from returning. FIVE years later, NEARLY 70% of people in the vaccine group are CANCER-FREE. The vaccine also cut a person’s risk of the cancer metastasizing by NEARLY 60%.

They found Popeyes. 😭

Musk says not a single person has died due to him axing USAID. Sadly, part of my job involves tracking aid spending. So here’s a thread with just some of the people who lost their lives because of USAID cuts

Today's architecture column: the MSI's plan by Robert A.M. Stern Architects to re-open its south entry, likely last routinely used by patrons who sailed up to the entrance by gondola when the building was the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World's Fair.

Bumblebee checking out our Foxglove Beardtongue

this is a catastrophe and he will do harm, and only harm, to those living with disabilities

New painting: Lake Michigan, oil on panel, 8"x10", 2026 #art #painting

Greatest city in the world

David Hockney, Who Restored the Human Form to Art, Dies at 88 www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/a...

When the Artemis program was first announced, the claim, all over the website, was that the landing mission (which has since been shifted from III to IV) would include "the first woman and the first person of color" to walk on the Moon. Last year, that language was deleted from the NASA site.

Nice lake today

Went off caffeine for a week, my longest stretch without in probably 30 years. Just had half a cup of coffee and I feel like my third eye has opened

Just need everyone to know that the Belgium men's soccer team has new jerseys based on the art of Rene Magritte and this is the official photo shoot

Took our kid to the Sears Tower for the first time today

Look, I'm not the biggest fan of hawking my own books but this is such a great deal I want to highlight it: for just a few days more (thru May 31) "Van Gogh & the End of Nature" available at 50% off. Beautiful reproductions & thoroughly new take on an iconic artist yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Welles Park Gazebo in The Onion!

Doing this shit on your own 50 times back and forth is the whole point of writing!! I’m gonna ask Claude for a synonym for igtkms

Introduce yourself with 10 bands / musicians you've seen live REM Flogging Molly Bouncing Souls Bad Religion Dropkick Murphys The Menzingers Social Distortion Alkaline Trio Jimmy Buffett Guy Clark

"I ask all of you to think of it, graduates and families alike, let yourself dream of a future in which we can harness this amazing new technology to eliminate entry-level jobs entirely. Indeed, that work has already begun, and that future is now." /college kid booing intensifies "Wow okay,"

And there it is, folks. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/05...

What there is in life is being open and vulnerable with at least one other person and being open enough to hear their vulnerabilities too. That's how we get through this. If you can't do that, you missed the point of the exercise.

Coming around to the idea that I don't "need winter" to appreciate the good weather. I think a lifetime of Midwest winters has maybe put enough into that particular bank

the severe misread of youth by ai prophets is that at 22 you’re starving for agency. all your life you’ve waited to call your own shots. the idea that what you get instead is “tell the machine to draw a horse” is inherently offensive

Some unexpected guests on our roof deck this morning

hitting the gravity bong with mr M and taking him to go see speed racer and he is just crying in that movie theater seat

we don’t talk enough about how Chicago is the most gorgeous city in the country

This reminds me of the time a coworker was telling me about seeing Hamilton, and I thought they said Hamlet, so they were going on and on about Hamilton and I tried to stay with it and just increasingly flummoxed trying to parse what kind of production of Hamlet this was

A month before the camp was destroyed, I distributed disposable cameras in Legion Park so residents could tell this story from their perspective. Below are the photos they took of the people, belongings, and spaces that made their encampment home. chicagoreader.com/city-life/so...

“There was zero plan, except causing pain,” said one U.N. official about the Trump administration’s decision to stop funding the group with no notice or communication. “And that is not forgivable.” Revisit this story from our series “The End of Aid,” a 2026 Pulitzer finalist.

While the world’s eyes are on fashion’s biggest night, we’re turning ours to the garment, retail, and warehouse workers who keep the industry running. From true love found on the picket line to a free tailoring school out of a Brooklyn basement — meet the New Yorkers who make it all possible.

There's an autism crisis, all right -- a "crisis of public trust" as RFK Jr and other high-profile officials fuel misinformation, advocates say. My latest: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Today is Kentucky Derby day so I am obligated to post Hunter S. Thompson's "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" because it is and also because it's such a nice piece of writing that introduced the world to Ralph Steadman.

Not enough people are talking about this.     The Trump Administration is moving to cut benefits for up to 400,000 disabled Americans — people with Down syndrome, severe autism, dementia — for no other reason than that they live at home with their families instead of in an institution.

🍍 💚 No better night to watch CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994) on the Criterion Channel🍍💚

There still is absolutely no plan for how to finance & operate our universities without foreign students or restored federal funding, & the public still has zero awareness of the magnitude of this existential crisis, because our leaders have been totally absent from the public stage.

I know we get inured to stuff, but it is hard to fathom the cruelty here. At a time of tax cuts for the most powerful, they are trying to remove basic supports for the most vulnerable. The Trump administration's war on people with disabilities continues.

A thread of our prairie flowers this year as they come up First off, Prairie Smoke

I know this is hardly a novel observation but damn groceries are expensive

I've workshopped this with some coworkers before: a bar, kind of like Sukiyabashi Jiro, underground with 10 seats, simple cocktails made perfectly, and a TV off to the side that only plays South and Central American soccer games from the 60s

St. Paul’s @subtextbookstore.bsky.social is celebrating the release of On an Inland Sea with a reading from four Minnesotan contributors! Martha Lundin, @lilacwaabigwan.bsky.social, @sheilapacka.com, and @minnesotabrown.bsky.social. 7:00PM. Check the link for more details!

"Imagine the badger in all his relentless violence."

In honor of fellow Wisconsin Fan, Werner Herzog @edsbs.bsky.social

On May 1, kids can once again play among the exotic plants of the Garfield Park Conservatory as the 118-year-old institution opens its renovated Elizabeth Morse Genius Children’s Garden to the public, with tickets available starting Friday.