The first hour of Vince Gilligan's PLURIBUS is great. No idea if they can keep it going for a season... but I'm in.

Reverse Jesus turns wine into water and food to serve a crowd into a single serving.

"Corporate death penalty" is a great idea. They're not people; we can choose to dismantle them.

It's new Goats day, everyone!

We found Jerry to Schrödinger's Tom!

Raphael wondering why no one's responding to his bluesky posts and realising it's the "hide rude" setting.

Remember when Ridley Scott said that everyone wanted to know the origin story of the aliens and we all said "no, not really"? I feel like that was a kind of pop-cultural turning point.

"And so, although chatbots may be built on the familiar architecture of engagement, they enable something new: They allow you to talk forever to no one other than yourself."

I am like the moon, in that I also look underwhelming in photos.

Would the Satanic Panic have been so widespread if not for the eldritch power of rhymes?

One must imagine Sisyphus jealous.

Pretty proud that I managed to end my abstract on a cliffhanger.

"Weeks ahead of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Lex and I were told Anna [Wintour] didn’t want to hear the word 'politics' in our team’s annual strategy meeting. I introduced myself as the editor handling coverage of 'social issues.'"

So, Melbourne... who's going to see Pulp in March?

In case you were wondering what my superhero PhD is about, here's the official blurb on the novel!

In the next SCREAM installment, Ghostface will murder anyone who dares mention Palestine.

In 2019's AVENGERS: ENDGAME, Tony Stark sacrificed himself to save the world. It was the last time we'd take the idea of a heroic tech-bro seriously.

"CBP Agent Gregory Lairmore, the government’s first witness, said the sandwich 'exploded' when it struck his chest hard enough that he could feel it through his ballistic vest. 'You could smell the onions and the mustard,' he recalled." (Sometimes... in my darkest hours... I CAN STILL SMELL THEM!)

"Look. I’m not saying that the ghosts don’t work on any level. The little clown boy that pops out of the fridge startles the shit out of me every time I grab a handful of cold cuts. But he doesn’t make me think."

Do your own Re:Search! (By which I mean those books that were in every piercing shop in the mid-90s.)

Not wholly convinced by DOWN CEMETARY ROAD yet, but it does make me think Emma Thompson would make a great John Constantine.

Will Mamdani winning in New York finally convince liberals that the way to succeed isn't always by moving further right? No. Of course it won't.

"You might as well be looking at random GIFs from some show you’ve never seen before."

I had to watch the Melbourne Cup yesterday (work thing) and I felt pretty sick with worry that I was about to see an animal die on live TV. What fun!

"Democrats terrified of winning!"

I like praising a character rather than an actor as a character is created by everyone: the actor, the writers, the director...

Amid all the character and vibes, THE LOWDOWN at excels at plotting.

Cookie Monster telling his mistress that his true love is the C.

I honestly think we need to start thinking of massive wealth as a kind of acquired brain injury, like this classic tweet suggests.

Howard Hawks' BRINGING UP BABY is tough to watch these days without feeling really sorry for the leopard.

"He was what physicians in Gaza call W.C.N.S.F. — wounded child, no surviving family."

The Gutter Review is no more, but I've republished this essay I wrote for it on Marvel's lesser-known vigilante, Foolkiller: "Killing fools – it’s still just killing, isn’t it?"

"In reality, the American family is not a safe place in America, and everyone knows it. [...] The family man is, with grim frequency, the greatest threat to the health and safety of his wife and children."

I prefer a romcom, or romedy-comedy.

Occasionally it hits me how utterly dystopian it is that my feed is always full of GoFundMes for medical expenses. Turning staying alive into a popularity contest!

I am so jealous of “Relaxium” this sounds like something they’d use to make Superman fall asleep in the fifties.

Another reason FRANKENSTEIN hits hard right now is it's a damning portrayal of tech-bro ideology.

It's Overland's subscription drive! Here's a link to most of the writing I've done for them over the past few years about pop culture and politics. overland.org.au/author/marty...

I once went to a Letter T costume party as "Typical – Martyn didn't wear a costume" which gives you an idea of how much fun I am.

HEAT 2 has a budget of $170 million? Jesus. (And by that I mean it'd better star Jesus.)

Oof, this poem. "Cruelty again."

A painful admission: I've been buffering since 2008.

Ears!

"Weird" should probably be like "ally" – a term that others apply to you, but you don't apply to yourself.

A Great Gatsby party is a party that you force high school English students to attend.

I only just found out that some schools don't have libraries anymore. This breaks my heart. Where are the unpopular kids meant to spend their lunchtimes reading Piers Anthony novels now?

Don't get me wrong – I think if you're telling an oft-told story like FRANKENSTEIN you *should* make changes! But I think here people just go "arctic framing sequence" = "faithful adaptation".

Just out of Del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN, which I really enjoyed – especially the killer performance by Jacob Elordi. (Although surprised by how many critics have talked about its faithfulness to the book. It changes a whole lot!)

I never stop being delighted that to much of the comics reading audience it is absolute madness to suggest that “Squirrel Girl” contains a rhyme.

One last spooky story for Halloween: what if you got a fortune cookie that described the act of you reading the fortune cookie? And what you did afterwards?