I’ve been trying to get a website up for myself for a solid year, but can’t because I keep going through “medical stuff” — a sort of grab bag of non-serious midlife conditions that has me in a lot of doctor’s offices, lots of scans and tests and followups (1)

Thankfully the Prime Minister has now said something albeit not nearly as forcefully as I'd like: www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

The President of the United States is openly threatening to commit genocide against 90 million people. Prime Minister Carney: if there was ever a moment to denounce this illegal war, withdraw your support, and call for accountability for war crimes—it’s now.

Kathryn Blaze Baum’s (In)fertility, a memoir-slash-investigation, tells the story of assisted reproduction in Canada while also offering a window into infertility’s emotional devastation. My (first-ever!) book review is up on @theglobeandmail.com now: www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/90e516f...

A thing I’m enjoying about middle age is getting to participate in these classic intergenerational exchanges from the other side as it were

We looked into a green burial for my father in 2023 but the restrictions were incredibly difficult to navigate — one of many ways families are denied autonomy over death and burial. Wherever he is now, I know he’d approve this story 💚

I read this last night and am still thinking about it — especially Earth’s ever-growing “nimbus of space trash” from previous expeditions. Just heartbreaking.

Amazingly it’s *worse* than the correction suggests because it wasn’t just an error within the headline, the headline was deliberately crafted around the error.

“To see a jailed human face-to-face breaks through the erasire upon which America bases its prison system.” I’ll be thinking about this gorgeous @mollycrabapple.bsky.social piece for a long time.

The part I can’t wrap my head around is what *professional writer* would not be deeply ashamed of using AI in the first place

This is why when I run for mayor of Toronto my slogan will be “embrace the cringe”, which my 7 year old tells me is itself a “dead meme” and itself cringe!

The role of crossing guard was once seen as an idyllic job meant for local retirees. Today, most crossing guards are poorly paid contract workers employed by private companies, and their job is more dangerous than ever, writes Angela Misri @karmicangel.bsky.social. thelocal.to/crossing-gua...

Ok so after a day of processing the Lindy West memoir I’ve landed on this: it works really well as a kind of autofiction about self-loathing. The poly/throuple stuff (which is generating the backlash) feels tacked on by marketers. It might ultimately be a blistering condemnation of publishing

One more thought about Adult Braces: I don’t understand the thing where for 5 pages, Lindy West’s husband is organizing her chore list and they call that BDSM?

As someone who wrote about gender on the internet during the 2010s I feel legally required to say something about Lindy West’s memoir, though as per usual the backlash is more telling. This is the best thread I’ve seen so far:

I think my #1 issue with many artistic depictions of Toronto is that they try to make Toronto seem “cool” (1)

Which fast food megachain CEO are you rooting for? I’m a Tom Curtis girl myself but Chris Kemczinsky has a great underdog backstory rising from the trenches of Kraft Inc and the grit to prove it

I never get to do BREAKING NEWS, but here's some: B.C. is scrapping the time change, which reams of scientific research and anecdata from exhausted parents can tell you is a good thing. here's an update to my reporting from last year, which now has a more celebratory tone:

Gorgeous article about the new Catherine Opie show at the National Portrait Gallery in London: www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Social media created this nonsense idea that not exposing yourself to hatred is isolationist. Choosing to not spend your free time with bigots isn’t living in a bubble. I don’t need to know what’s going on at X. I won’t be smarter or more knowledgeable or empathic by being there. Neither will you.

Women and children were deliberately targeted in one of the largest prehistoric mass killings discovered in Europe. The Gomolava burial sites in northern Serbia uncovered a grave containing the remains of more than 77 individuals, most of them women and children.

Fifth episode of Love Story: John & Carolyn (do people do hashtags on here?) has been consumed by me and there were the usual Ryan Murphy highs and lows (1)

I always thought the aging related transition to bifocals would be one of the least annoying/ominous/emblematic changes of midlife but so far for me it’s pretty much the whole thing

The larger the gaps between pop psychology, DSM psychiatry (overdetermined by clinical needs) and neuro/psych research, the more zombies will abound

“Brontë demonstrates that not all trauma has a resolution, that belonging is a gift that not even the most powerful of novelists can readily bestow.”

There was definitely a layer of culture nerd Twitter that was wholesome and fun. RIP to that. I recommend Pasolini’s interviews about fascism because he really prophesied the moment: www.goodreads.com/book/show/70...

I feel like this happens every 7-8 years. One thing I have been thinking about is how my generation launched perimenopause (as a cultural flashpoint) and how that’s become immediately commodified and slopified.

This thread is true public service. Twitter is the devil fr!

I can’t get over how overtly expository the dialogue in Ryan Murphy’s Love Story is. It doesn’t even sound like a wiki entry, it sounds like someone reading a deposition, like they’re legally required to repeat certain facts in certain ways

ANTM was such a dark portrait of the 00s. It bumped up against the existing fashion culture in interesting ways. I still remember the silence in the room when Andre Leon Talley joined the judging panel and pointedly refused to verbally abuse the scapegoated contestant of the week.

What’s interesting about Ryan Murphy nonfiction series is that for every 10 scenes of blatant exposition dumping there is usually one scene that is brilliant — subtle, elegant, truly affecting. I don’t know what to make of that.

Ryan Murphy is the original AI. If you type “Carolyn Kennedy” into Chat GPT, then give it a Netflix budget and some sort of blood pact with Naomi Watts, it would produce exactly this

I’m watching the JFK Jr/Carolyn series and the way it barrels through every possible trending stylistic genre of music, visuals, editing, the way people speak (!) while still being “this is the 90s!!” is absolute peak Ryan Murphy

UK press rooms must be *so* fun right now. The best pun guys are living their best lives.

I just described Timothee Chalamet and Zizek as having “cameos” in the Epstein files and that about sums up how desensitizing this coverage has been

A conflict as old as cities themselves! Here’s my story on Toronto’s rats from 2022: thelocal.to/rats-toronto....

Ok so apparently it really is just bad, including the visuals. I still think a super-air-quoted, pulp-on-purpose version *could* have been interesting, though? And the outsized nature of the backlash is still weird.

@matthewrowlinson.bsky.social Would love your take!

I keep trying and failing to get cormorant! Thank you @thenarwhal for showing me how similar my partner is to several species of birds 😊

Am I missing something? It’s “Wuthering Heights”, not Wuthering Heights — it’s openly an interpretation, not an adaptation (1)

Hyperaestheticized discomfort and confinement goes hand in hand with collapse! (Either that, or Emerald Fennell made a type of self-perpetuating perfume ad)

They can also do multipart gen-z handshakes

Honestly I think the Epstein apocalypse connects to the existence of WH and its backlash in an interesting way… (1)

Yes! (the book) is about toxic confinement and people being sutured to each other against their will

My favourite song about illness/the horror of *having* a human body is by Catherine O’Hara’s sister (and Toronto legend), Mary Margaret O’Hara…sadly relevant right now. RIP to a comic lodestar. youtu.be/Lq1CXw2UzXQ?...

As someone with an ex who *wore the bandana* and had an early 00s blog that was largely anti-litbro listicles this piece really captures the vulnerability and…earnestness? of DFW and his (male) fandom: www.wired.com/story/infini...

And as always I’m v interested in female creators who invite the disproportionate outrage Fennell does. (I liked PYW a lot but not permanently, Saltburn was ok, I’m not especially invested in her) (4)

In any case I think the violence in everything from the casting to red carpet styling is part of the point…it’s a movie about the (punishing!) legacy of WH more than a retelling (3)

I think what I can’t understand about the WH backlash is the assumption that it’s…*not* an obvious commentary on how power and violence repeat through romance narratives (aks “great love stories”)? (1)