Seriously though how does he make this face even when he’s asleep?

Quick economic report from the Deep South: the Alabama beach town where we’ve been vacationing for more than a decade is dead. No traffic. No waiting lists. People are broke.

Aimee Mann joined them for "Time Stands Still"! Hold Your Fire was my first arena rock show.

30 pages into The Sea, the first John Banville novel I’ve read. I’ve already had to look up five words: Apotropaic Eyrie Strangury Moue Louring

“Never made a sandwich for someone he loves.”

The kid in Close Encounters has some really weird toys in his room.

My love of jam bands was short lived, but I got to see this lineup perform twice at the tiny Club Downunder in Tallahassee, and they were the best to ever do it.

If I didn't have two very online kids, I'm sure I wouldn't know that tonight there will be thousands of sold-out screenings of Digital Circus throughout the country. I bought my kids' tickets weeks ago. Theatrical exhibition is so wild right now.

If pressed to make a single complaint about Widow's Bay, it's that the personal drama would be even more interesting if the show didn't pretend that Loftis and Evan could live all/most of their lives on the island and be so oblivious to the lore. Such a great show.

At the risk of again siding with the enemy, I gave Claude some context for my taste and asked for 10 recommendations. I asked how it came up with those particular novels — the recommendations were excellent — and I think the answer is a useful example of how AI differs from older search tech.

John Qualen

I’m heading for the beach on Saturday. I’ve already picked a big read (James Baldwin bio) and an audiobook for morning walks (Naomi Klein’s Doppelgänger). Any recommendations for a fun and compulsively readable novel?

Is this true? It’s impossible to comprehend the tragic stupidity of humanity.

Nashville elites are head-in-the-sand delusional if they think this will be good for our city. It’s such a dumb piece of shit lol

After nearly 40 years I’m ready to call it. “Red Rain” is a great fucking song.

This is the most succinct explanation I’ve found for why my very online kids who don’t much care about movies were at The Backrooms on opening weekend. It really is similar to watching someone play Roblox or FNAF on YouTube.

Trey Gowdy is trending?

Maybe this is a dumb question, but what does “categorically” mean in this context? I assume in everyday usage it means “very, very”?

We've still banned more books than almost any other county in the US, but I guess it's good news that our superintendent was shamed into returning one of them?

This week's episode of Top Chef made me realize I'd have no idea what to serve, or where to take, a visitor who wanted authentic "Appalachian cuisine" -- despite living here for almost 30 years.

Another weird thing about getting older is that I’m holding a novel I hadn’t picked up since grad school 25 years ago, and reading the marginal notes is like having a conversation with a younger version of myself.

In the past, Catholic teaching was held to allow lethal force in three cases: 1. self-defense/defense of innocent life 2. just war 3. capital punishment John Paul II collapsed the case for capital punishment to defense of innocent life—and Francis stated that this criteria never actually applies…

The adjusted Moiree top 11. I went with 11 because the Wollner film looks really good.

I’m now six books into my Read All of Baldwin in 2026 project. This morning I read The Fire Next Time, which is only about 100 pages and is impossibly precise and revealing in its analysis of race. I’ve begun thinking of myself lately as a secular christian, and Baldwin is my patron saint.

(The Bride! is now streaming on HBO. It’s very good.)

The other big one: the girl I had a crush on in 1993 asked if I needed a ride to a conference in Atlanta. I was disappointed to discover when she picked me up that I’d be in the back seat with her weird roommate — who I’ve now been married to for 30 years.

Walked into a Kinko’s in 1995 because I needed a day job for a couple months and found myself sitting at a Mac for eight hours a day, learning graphic design on the clock. Used those skills to get my next temp job, which is where I taught myself HTML.

This is a great conversation.

Danny Carey, the greatest rock drummer of all time (this isn't up for debate right now), sits in with a little cover band on the side, and it's so good. Also, someone needs to cast Carey as John Sayles's little brother in a movie.

I was born into a white fundamentalist world, and I often wonder what kind of asshole I would’ve become if I hadn’t liked books, music, and movies so much, or hadn’t had parents who encouraged those interests.

Does anyone else remember there being a rumor when this came out that the guy in the photo was dead?

Given a chance to deliver a commencement address, I think it would be good fun to tell the organizers I'm going to encourage grads to "find their why" and then begin the speech with "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how," followed by a treatise on Twilight of the Idols.

I vibe coded a web app that does something I've always been curious to see: a version of the Moir.ee grid that reweighs scores to account for the individual critic's tendencies. For example, my buddy Pedro loves to give 0s and 5s (the app calls him a "polarizer") while Rapold is a "generous" rater.

Do they have sex with the robot? I gave up on Kore-eda after Air Doll, so I assume all of his movies are about people having sex with inanimate objects.

This weekend I read Clara E. Mattei's Escape from Capitalism, which will forever make me replace the polite euphemism "austerity" with "disciplining the working class."

I'd seen worse movies by 1983, but it's gotta be Return of the Jedi. I was 11 and had been obsessed with Star Wars for more than half my life. Boba Fett died almost immediately, the Ewoks were corny, and even then I thought it was lame that they best they could come up with was *another* Death Star.

Where do I buy a John Carpenter Was Right t-shirt?

Still thinking about Ainsley.

Have y'all seen Eye of God (Tim Blake Nelson, 1997)? Martha Plimpton gives a "Gena Rowlands in Faces"-tier performance. Every single line reading is interesting. I'm shook.

I do not think one needs to concede any kind of "goodness" to trump or his campaign to confront that when conditions are miserable and cruel people identify with brutish avatars of domination and transgression. this is not some ineffable butterfly effect shit

I just learned that Knox County Schools have removed ROOTS from our libraries. There’s literally an Alex Haley statue in Knoxville. This country will break your heart.

Looks like Riley Keough has made another terrible movie with an interesting filmmaker. Hopefully the Serra film will reverse the trend. She deserves better!

Every once in a while I try to watch a Spielberg movie — tonight it was Minority Report — and I just can’t do it. He and I aren’t interested in the same things.

Paging @sallitt.bsky.social

More new Shearwater!

New Shearwater!

It's a damn tragedy that this guy has spent his career playing in a band with Anthony Kiedis.

Moneyball is so good.

Probably not a coincidence that I seldom hear millennial and Gen Z cinephiles talk about most of these movies. The early ‘00s had too many bangers that have gotten lost in distribution limbo.

I love pieces like this: A touring band from overseas does a full cost and revenue breakdown for a recent tour. Fascinating! stereogum.com/2497822/los-...