Mahmoud, For You

Without going too much into it bc it isn't my thing to share, I have a friend who knows Platner decently well—like, has spent holidays with him in the past—and said, this weekend, more or less exactly this: he's an idiot, absolutely a dumbass, but his heart is actually mostly in the right place.

brb sending this quote to everyone who knew me then and still knows me now

I just keep thinking of Aaron Sorkin's cameo in THE SOCIAL NETWORK when, visibly bewildered, he says "guys, what is this??" to Zuck and Eduardo. Feels like it sums up how I am encountering basically every recent development of basically everything. Like... guys, what IS this??

now is a very good time to tune in, bc they're playing the films!!

At the risk of doing something human on the internet, I think it could be instructive to open this up to the class. What impact(s) do YOU believe (or fear) that the use of AI in the creative industries will have? (TO BE VERY CLEAR: DON'T BE A DICK. Respond with generosity, even if angry, or else.)

Doesn't pass the sniff test, considering she said she asks the machine something to the effect of "how can we develop this beautifully" which sure sounds like using AI to help you write but hey I don't have a Nobel Prize so I guess I'll just pony up to the trough for more slop and stop complaining!

My (totally unfounded vibes only) theory is that the AIfication of everything is just the on-ramp to a gated world in which the quality of info one has access to depends wholly on how much one is willing and able to pay.

This is tomorrow! Come if you’re cool!

i think this is just how it always is. the french revolution wouldn't have happened without spiraling bread prices. the protests that toppled caeusescu were in part because of shortages of cooking oil.

I love this book, it's SUCH a good summer romp! With death and mushrooms! Good for these hot days (and hopefully the cooler ones too)

Okay seriously what the fuck did a memo go out about "today's the day the publishing industry decides to go all-in on AI" or something?

JUST DO THIS. Pick a small press publisher who focuses on translation and spend even just a year with them! Expose yourself to the new and interesting and surprising and the GOOD.

Nah, dude, fuck this. Fuck this. Time to fight.

secondary question: what are booksellers thinking about stuff like this? I'm talking to my sales rep for Penguin next week, I'd like to say something to them about this at the very least.

I'd like to know what PRH is going to do about this new Tokarczuk book, honestly. I am sure they're going to keep it on the schedule, citing some hand-wave bullshit — but I want so desperately for someone to set the bar, make an example, and why not do it with a Nobel laureate?

I guess if there's a silver lining to be found in all of this, it's once-and-for-all smashing of literary establishment idols. Even the worst half-assed idea you've ever had is better than this shit, and it's an irrevocable stain on the gatekeepers that they think this is good. Write your shit.

Your grandma uses gen-AI? Mock her gently but relentlessly. Your students use it? Mock them savagely. Your favorite writer uses it? Mock her loudly and whenever she appears in public, because with the use of it, she has become a tool of the fascist oligarchs who want to kill us all.

are you fucking kidding me

They're stealing billions of your money to pay off violent right-wing psychos while doing everything in their power to spike gas up to $5 a gallon, make groceries into a luxury and hand the country over to the oligarchs who want to permanently replace you.

If you happen to be in the Kingston area, this event on 6/4 is gonna be an absolute blast: a short convo introducing MARION before a screening of PSYCHO! come hang out! www.upstatefilms.org/psycho-marion-book-launch-foreword-author-series-w-leah-rowan

@ndbooks.bsky.social has a spring cleaning sale on today, so might be time to get a bunch of books to improve your life / street cred (20% off 2, 30% off 3, 40% off 4)

Honford Star funneling talent into Anglophone publishing for everyone else to pick up Ministry of Culture, London Book Fair, SOMEBODY give them a medal

How have I never heard of THE LINGUINI INCIDENT before? Bowie! Rosanna Arquette! Marlee Matlin!! Andre Gregory!!! Total weirdo delight of a film.

God they never just go away!! They never just fucking go away!!!

gonna need @ifbookspod.bsky.social to record an emergency ep on YOUR TURN from Widow's Bay

apparently someone is impersonating me and trying to charge authors to come on the program. To be clear, I’ve never once charged a guest to come on the show and I never would!

While we aren't open for submissions, we are looking for strange/surreal manuscripts in translation. Anything under 200 pages. The weirder, the better. DM us.

It's just so nice to be nice to people! Why do some people choose to be absolute twats when it turns out you get to feel nice just by making someone else feel nice!

OK. But... .... ...no, really.

Tell you what, if you come to Rough Draft, you'll not only get a recommendation *from me* but you can get your tasty beverage AND treat here too! If you come in today before 4ish and you cite this message, I'll even buy your beverage.

Our take is go to an indie bookstore, get a recommendation from a bookseller, & spend the rest of the afternoon reading outside, perhaps after acquiring a tasty beverage & treat from a local cafe.

Live your life so @dorothyproject.bsky.social always sends you galleys

and yet one of these does not appear on the guardians 100 best novels of all time list. INTERESTING

Imagine making a best novels of all time list that doesn't include Hitchhikers Guide, Fellowship of the Ring, The Shining. At least Butler and Le Guin made the cut but come on. (I know it is useless to get mad about this stuff but still.)

a gift, to get to think and write and read alongside such great thinkers and writers and readers as @vajra.me

absolutely mindrending to see people complaining about people not giving Democrats enough credit and then also like 6 instances today of Democrats folding or gleefully voting to give Trump shit he wants!

Also HAPPY FRIDAY we made it! (I made it! one week since getting SLICED IN HALF with a RUSTY BUTTERKNIFE!) I would love if folks pre-ordered my next novel, a weird city fantaspionage (??) story with a government nerd and his assigned group project: to save the world!

I keep thinking about how AI is the end result of Granny Weatherwax’s idea of sin meaning ”treating people as things” — it’s a thing they pretend is a person so they can justify treating all people as things.

THIS THIS THIS. God, I'm so fucking angry about where we are as a society, as a civilization, as a species. What a miserable time we're being forced to endure.

sufficiently large polygons are the domain of lovecraftian horror

Still can't get over the run that The Mountain Goats are on these days, and this new one sounds dope. I've said it before, will say it again: if Dylan can get a Nobel for 'literature'... WHY NOT JOHN DARNIELLE! (Not least of all because he's written great fiction on top of his transcendent lyrics.)

This is the situation I refer to the most when trying to explain a the state of book bans right now. Utah has state mandated book destruction for books like Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, and Damsel by Elana K Arnold. The vast majority of the books are written by women.

please consider, should you read this, that Helen Lewis is completely comfortable with the rights of trans women being taken away

The biggest lesson I learned, coming of age artistically during Peak TV (pre streaming)?  How to tell a story that welcomes folks who do NOT start from the beginning.  Before streaming, we joined shows in the middle. Our friends talked us into trying it... (1/3)

as long as an AI agent can never feel bad after being chewed out by its boss or worried that it'll get fired and fall behind on rent or be unable to afford groceries, it's gonna keep doing inexplicable shit. They're actors removed from the realities that govern us. That's why they're untrustworthy!

when people ask if a computer can ever be said to "think" the answer is no, because a computer cannot ever be made to feel, *and those are the same thing.* Your actions are governed by feelings which are governed by your wants and needs and countless other real, material things.