nice article! gift link www.nytimes.com/2026/04/05/d...

Our 8 year old explaining Easter to us: Well, Jesus went extinct

I highly recommend putting this NASA #Artemis II mission livestream on and just leaving it playing as you go about your weekend. Live views of the spacecraft, occasional visualizations of the current config, views of the control room, space-ground radio audio. www.youtube.com/live/m3kR2KK...

I wrote about "On an Inland Sea," a collection of Great Lakes writing by @beltpublishing.bsky.social, edited by @mbwwelch.bsky.social. It's really a wonderful anthology, and deserves a place in the growing body of writing about the Lakes. greatlakesreview.org/shaped-by-th...

“We can feel so disconnected as a region because we all have this personal connection with lakes that seem to have no end, but when we stare out across the horizon it’s more likely than not that someone is standing on the other side doing the same thing.” New interview with @mbwwelch.bsky.social!

"Humanity's next great voyage begins" #Artemis

Pope Leo say God rejects prayers of leaders who wage wars www.reuters.com/world/pope-l...

I think often of a New York Times photo of a little Iraqi girl tending to her parakeets in a bombed house, probably from 20 years ago now. I will think of this man and his sweet dog often now too. People just want to love what they love, care for their little beings, and instead we do this to them

AI made elite chess more human, by @kevinlincoln.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I'm going to start referring to Chicago as "Paris on the Prairie" and people are gonna hate it

When I was 12 or so I veered hard into comics like The Maxx instead of the usual superhero fare. I think that was a genuinely positive development

I don't recall where I first read it - AP Lit? - but this by Auden has always stuck with me

Spring in Chicago

“in the new york fire department, there’s a special unit that fights fires in chicago”

New painting: Lake Michigan, oil on panel, 9"x12", 2026 #art #painting

Happy St. Patrick's Day, New York.

Remembering when the Chicago Bears decided to wade into Irish politics for St Patrick's Day

My full book review of "On an Inland Sea" is available at @sixtyinchesfromcenter.org: sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/finding-sola...

Some cool press highlights for On an Inland Sea, our Great Lakes anthology! Thanks to @chicagoreader.com @iprnews.bsky.social @emilymcclanathan.bsky.social

Ok let's do it: "Can this be a solution?" A thread.

Feels like my paintings of shoes have a new relevance

Really quite a ✨choice✨to use that passage as an example of “clunky” writing: “It makes no difference what men think of war…War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting the ultimate practitioner.”

"There’s something about being in nature and being alongside something that feels so much bigger than you that makes you turn inward." Out now: @celldeathvic.bsky.social's interview with @mbwwelch.bsky.social on "On an Inland Sea” (@beltpublishing.bsky.social). chireviewofbooks.com/2026/03/10/g...

Happy Pub Day to @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social editor-in-chief @mbwwelch.bsky.social. If you're in Chicago, the launch party for ON AN INLAND SEA is tonight at 6:30 pm at @roscoebooks.bsky.social.

It's publication day for "On an Inland Sea: Writing the Great Lakes." Thank you @mbwwelch.bsky.social and @beltpublishing.bsky.social The Great Lakes region is truly one of the most incredible parts of the world, and this collection captures what makes it unique and fragile and awe-inspiring

On an Inland Sea publishes today! Huge thank you to all the contributors! Several took great pictures with the book by the water in their respective locales! Photos by @mbwwelch.bsky.social, @saramaurerwrites.bsky.social, RS Deeren, and Antonio Díaz Oliva. Keep tagging us in your lakeside photos!

Going Full Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Conversation with @mbwwelch.bsky.social chireviewofbooks.com/2026/03/10/g...

Being Rod Blagojevich

Stop literally everything. Steve Albini's Fugazi sessions, widely bootlegged and full of lore, now available officially for the first time. fugazi.bandcamp.com/album/albini...

Getting my name in the @chicagoreader.com is a pretty major Chicago bucket list item for me: review of On an Inland Sea: Writing the Great Lakes chicagoreader.com/books/book-r... @beltpublishing.bsky.social @mbwwelch.bsky.social

Kansas just invalidated the drivers licenses of every trans person in the state. They’re being told to surrender their current licenses and get new ones listing their birth sex. No grace period. Get caught driving with your now-invalid license and you’re looking at jail and a fine.

Nurul Amin Shah Alam's violent arrest, by police who saw his walking stick as a weapon—and who, like the Border Patrol officers who dumped him, apparently made no attempt to reckon with his disability or his mental state—set off events that ended in his death. www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/20...

The reason you can’t give a single inch on anything be it trans rights or dignity for unhoused people is that they, democrats and republicans alike, will take it and say thanks what else is in your pockets? They won’t say thanks actually.

Our potted Ginkgo tree has begun budding, my personal sign of Spring approaching

"But he made the trains run on time" has always been a myth based on propaganda, things just get worse and less efficient

During my driving test I did almost all the little things wrong but didn't screw up any of the major things. Afterwards, sitting in the car, my instructor tallied it all up, sighed heavily, and said "Ok, we'll say you passed"

Spent today talking to just a few of the Black women who credit Jesse Jackson with their start in national politics. By inviting them in, he ensured they would help shape democracy for years to come. My latest on the coalition he built as part of his towering legacy: 19thnews.org/2026/02/jess...

Happy Paczki Day, Chicago. A selection of my annual paczki oil paintings

“The U.S. no longer has emission standards of any meaning,” said Margo T. Oge, who served as the E.P.A.’s top vehicle emissions regulator under three presidents and has since advised both automakers and environmental groups… “Nothing. Zero,” she added. “Not many countries have zero.”

Just three great excerpts from the upcoming ON AN INLAND SEA collection! 1: @gabrielbump.bsky.social 2: Christina Olson 3: @benmadeska.bsky.social It was nearly impossible to pick just three, but these felt right together. The preorder is on sale until release (March 10th)!

Lake Michigan, oil on panel, 9"x12", 2026 #art #painting #lakemichigan

So excited to be a part of this essay collection about the Great Lakes edited by @mbwelch.bsky.social & forthcoming on March 10th from @beltpublishing.bsky.social! beltpublishing.com/products/on-...

"On An Inland Sea" (@beltpublishing.bsky.social) comes out in a month, so we're hosting a release party @roscoebooks.bsky.social on March 10! Join us for a discussion & reading from contributors including @rsdeeren.bsky.social, Lina Tran, & Kristin Idaszak! RSVP here: forms.gle/34RkG1WWprCa...

you also need to unmute this for the perfect song / visual combo

it's like our entire sense of morality has been filtered through the act of consumption, and the highest good we can imagine is feeling good and clean and pure as individuals, unpolluted by the obvious evil are around us meanwhile, real change requires the kind of work you need a drink after

Read this in college in one of my first anthropology classes. It opened up a lot to me and genuinely changed how understood the world. One of those "Wow, I really don't know ANYTHING" moments

BREAKING: “in my 24th year of my quest to settle the planet Mars, I have just been informed of a basic fact of celestial mechanics.”

I've been to some countries where people live under military rule or autocracy. And without fail, one of the questions I get when they ask about life in the U.S. is whether it's true that Americans just let homeless people die on the street.

Listening to the ice move and crack on Lake Michigan