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we’ve got a ways to go until 2030 so this could change but it’s pretty much an across the board disaster if it doesn’t building more housing isn’t just good policy, it’s existential politics

open.substack.com/pub/levgross... This is definitely true for me. Leiber was a terrific influence, both as a fantasy writer and an sf writer. Genius, and now virtually out of print.

Thesis: ICE is un-American and the Minneapolis protestors are real Americans. Antithesis: Ackshually ICE is operating in a long American tradition of racist terror. Synthesis: Minneapolis is now the epicenter of a clash between two distinct but historically grounded American political traditions.

I like some things about winter and having a dog who needs to be walked 3x a day really forces me to acclimatize every fall. But I am ready for a break.

Reporting in after 1 month, I switched to Qobuz— higher audio quality and they pay the artists more. Not as good as buying albums on Bandcamp or whatever but a step in a good direction and at least I’m not giving Spotify money

He lays it out and gets applause from the studio audience. This is the message Democrats need to repeat over and over again. It could not be more clear.

A “triumvirate” doesn’t just mean any three things

one of my favorite customers at my old grocery/coffee job started a beauty/holistic health/crystals type store in St Louis and I get her ads everywhere I go because I follow their page on Instagram. I wonder how much she’s spent on me

Something I wrote in my column today and want to reiterate is that all these anti-ICE operations are manifestations of local civic health

I think as a spouse you should get one freebie call to yell at your spouse’s boss

Had a nice little staring at the wall in horror moment just now when I imagined moving the car for alternate-side parking and walking the dog with a newborn

May we have a fraction of this man’s courage and integrity www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/w...

OSR freaks salivating rn

We can stop framing this is a hypothesis that has to be proven every 4 blocks in New York City. We know for a fact that safe infrastructure will lead to an increase in usage. So let's just cut through the NIMBY nonsense and build out a network of safe, protected lanes.

If you cannot make “these people are leaving BABIES in CARS in WINTER and then returning them to their carekeepers with BRUISES” into popular sentiment as a politician, you’re either inept or you want this to keep happening.

Ask me about the Brooklyn Old School Renaissance discord if this sounds fun to you

TODAY'S TTRPG PLAYERS: I roll to squeeze my wife's hand as I pass away peacefully at home after spending fifty beautiful years together GARY GYGAX: you're dead, you're dead and you're dead. roll up some new characters and have them waiting outside the dungeon to join the party

this is the good stuff. environmental review for urban apartments should be abolished, just like it was in california.

Ishmael looking at a huge painting of a whaling disaster 🐋

We are having a Problem because my parents know that the more they push me to do something, the less likely I am to do it, but my in laws do not know that. So every time my wife talks to them they ask why we aren’t moving apartments to have a bedroom for the baby

I would have worn my homemade Grateful Dead shirt today but it’s in the laundry bin because I wear it basically once a week

Very charming to visit my wife’s southern grandparents and discover they absolutely LOVE Zohran

I was tossing and turning in bed in Portland ME with dried out sinuses from the radiator, and due to what I read before bed my brain was like “of course everything is dry-- the ship is empty. We haven’t met half the sailors yet and haven’t taken on a single teaspoon of whale oil.” 🐋

One of my biggest takeaways from living in Tokyo was that the city is incredible in spite of the fact that 95% of the architecture is unremarkable. It makes the years-long design review process for a single apartment building in the U.S. seem all the more frivolous.

The loving detail and painstaking care of these wood engravings is sending me. #MonthOfDick 🐋

Now that we’ve reached the Chowder chapter I can share my recipe. I always make the people eating it listen to me describe the “clam or cod” scene from Moby Dick. I made it last night and I may have rinsed the oysters too much, I could use a little more smokiness. 🐋 docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Literally a publication for eight-year olds 40 years ago

“With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, i am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote.” Moby Dick 🐋

“The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid — what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvelous…” 🐋 Moby Dick

We got our baby name ideas from a book that’s just a big list of names and their meanings, and tbh I don’t think this is that different?

The energy I want to bring into this year: on NYE a man who lives on the upper west side said he wouldn’t ride the subway after midnight, “especially the L.” All the baby boomers in attendance were nodding and agreeing. I asked him out loud whether he’s on drugs that make him think it’s 1980

If you play the story of Portopunk into early indie rock back at massive speed it’s a movie about taking all the Pink Floyd space jams out of rock music and then adding it back in

One of the best to ever do it

It’s killing me I don’t remember the exact quote but when I first moved to New Jersey I came to hang out in Manhattan and saw H John Benjamin walking down the street. He was asking a kid something like “and then we made a… do you know what a pilot episode is?” in basically the Coach McGurk voice

Do we think this was Martin Scorsese at the Brooklyn Costco last week?

I bet some of you D&D weirdos would love this upcoming vampire book

this is completely delusional

While he is still with us I need someone to ask Paul McCartney some in-depth questions about his songwriting. Like I know he does not read music, but I want to know how he thinks about harmony— like did he learn about keys and key changes and stuff or was it purely intuitive/imitating?

manhattan permitting numbers are always funny because the answer to "Since COVID, in absolute numbers, how much does one of the most in demand areas in America build?" is "around as much as Omaha and way less than Columbus"

Queens, a borough of 2.4 million people, permitted just 3,240 homes last year, a bit over 1 boatload. Austin, a city of less than a million people, permitted that same number every month last year. The results? Queens rents: ⬆️ 4.6% Austin rents: ⬇️ 3.1%

Girl, is your name Drizzt Do’urden? Because I’ve read a lot about you

A+ no notes

something there about Carl Yastrzemski playing for the Red Sox and Mike Yastrzemski playing for the (formerly Boston) Braves

It’s very very good

My Chilean distant cousins reached out because they’re coming to NYC in January and I’m trying to find the exact right tone to ask “you know we’re in the northern hemisphere so it’s winter and the average temperature will be 0 degrees Celsius, the sun will go down at 4pm, etc, right?”

One of the reasons the National League decided clubs needed to provide dressing rooms for the visiting team in 1892: hotels complained about players ruining their carpets walking around in spikes

A man has been double parked on our block, directly next to multiple open spots, for hours. He’s sitting there in his running car looking at his phone