Best thing I’ve won in an Interfilk auction: one-of-a-kind Agent Carter sock puppet by Erin Bellavia (used in Via Bella’s Pegasus Concert performance Friday). It has weird hypnotic powers & suggests that you, too, should donate to Interfilk to support filker travel to cons. Do not ignore the puppet.

I have been a Daily News reader since the 1960s, when my Teamster father-Local 804-would bring the paper home every night. I actually subscribed, out of a stupid notion about saving print journalism. Well. Let me just say, fuck you and your spineless Vichy editorial board.

Tearing Down The House (With apologies to the Talking Heads) Stand back He’s got a giant backhoe Too late He’s chewing up a building That survived the war of 1812 Tearing down the house

Pirate Cove Music Fest time! What a week. Vindictive Prosecution headlines Friday touring behind their multi-platinum album (the number we hear is 7 million) “Motion to Dismiss.” Saturday kicks it up a notch with Cassandra’s Mallet. Expect massive cosplay for their TikTok smash “Maleus Maleficarum.”

Now comes Proverb 73 with a generalizable rule from Taskmaster.

An image of a building in ruins just came up in my feed, and before I read the caption, I couldn't tell whether it was Kiev, Gaza, or the White House.

Proverb 72 cannot believe we have come to this point, but here we are.

This is just to say i have taken back everything i ever sent you in the chat and which you were likely quoting in a story Forgive me you're not a journalist so it's weird just letting you know.

Latest review up at BroadwayWorld.

The Times still assumes that it's "people in rooms" who make news and that "people in the street" don't. This is the new normal for institutions that depend on a Mad King's largesse for access to those rooms.

Karen and I went from the Portsmouth event up to Providence, and it was packed. Just about the most folx I've seen at the State House; the mall was full all the way down to Gaspee Street. We couldn't get close; here's the best shot I got of Rep. David Morales, one of the excellent speakers.

Big crowd at Turnpike Ave in Portsmouth. #NoKingsPortsmouthRI

Big fun this weekend at the Pirate Cove Music Fest! Friday’s Kavanaugh Stop brings their trademark agitpop, and we expect dancing in the pit. You know their moves from all those videos. We want to see that Portland hop.

Proverb 71 reminds us that infosec matters. Don't make things easy.

A POEM ABOUT LINE BREAKS Sometimes it's just where a line breaks that makes the words meaningful like this week i saw a headline: French crisis piles which sound terrible until i read the next line pressure on Macron and i said whew that's much better.

Proverb 70 is calling all inflatable frogs, T-rex, unicorns...

Robert De Niro: “Now we have a would-be king — King Donald the First. Fuck that. I’m Robert De Niro and I’m asking you to stand up and be counted in the nationwide No Kings protest on October 18th” 👉👉 nokings.org

I've started re-recording a very old album that was part of the e-lit novel "Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse." Here's the first bit. Photo by Adam Chinitz.

The gulls are unionizing and the dolphins paying off Big Oil for the extra real estate—it's festival time at Pirate Cove! Friday opens with Plenary Authority, touring behind their new album Faraday Cage, a dense weave of drone-metal harmonics and normalized compliance.

Proverb 69 would like to reframe resistance as an opportunity for solidarity, art, and joy.

Proverb 68 reminds us that the territory for today's culture wars is the soul of America.

A folk/filk twofer! Michelle and Ed Siegal host "The Not So Far Apart Open Mic," featuring originals from local musicians. They've been doing this for a while (Episode 71!) youtu.be/XQBqdIAkiBU?...

Paper Mill Playhouse to see “Bull Durham” with music and lyrics by NESR instructor Susan Werner!

While I respect his decision, it's still a bummer. Neronha has been an impressive fighter as AG and and his team (and the coalition of AGs!) deserve massive props for taking it to the Trump administration in court. Having met and chatted with him a few times, he's also just a nice guy.

PCMF: War-Ravaged Portland scorches Friday with apocalyptic folk-punk. Saturday’s Fat Generals cosplay brass-heavy chaos, and Sunday’s LLM Brachistochrone bends spacetime with algorithmic jazz. Plus: Snacksonomy and Faustian Prix Fixe, straight from the Venusberg Odeon. Cover photo: John McDaid

Proverb 67 strays from the usual register, but these are desperate times, Mrs. Lovett.

Proverb 66 is looking for some leaders from the subphylum vertebrata.

The horror, the horror….

Latest review up at BroadwayWorld. "Dancing at Lughnasa" at the Players, Providence.

PCMF storms the beach: Friday, Eglinton Crosstown brings transit-core jams. Saturday, float with the Rapture Balloons prog-folk orchestra. Sunday’s agent and friend headline, but keep an eye on a whole lot of plopping touring Terminal Velocity Meatloaf—expect impact. And gravy. So. Much. Gravy.

Proverb 65 has a story to tell...

Proverb 64 doesn't have to tell you.

So, behavior that would be extreme for cartoon villains is the standard set by the party of family values. What kind of void must one have in their soul to use a person's five-year-old child to get them to surrender?

tl;dr: Story from the archives up on Medium. Wanted to point someone to my 2005 novella about AI and it was hard to find. It's a near-future parable about musical performance that anticipated some of our issues with LLMs and features a canon, an NTSB transcript, and a pAIno that quotes Lacan.

@lesliehudson.bsky.social dropped an amazing tune this morning, a torchy number about perfectionism. With the inimitable @drmaryccrowell.bsky.social on clarinet. Soooo good.

PCMF: Friday brings Princess Track, plus “maybe jeff koons has had a point all along”—critics call it bubble-wrap maximalism. Saturday, Dunker Church drones up eldritch Appalachian hymnody. Sunday, Cornell Boxes conjure impossible instruments. Bring sunscreen. And cream cheese. Mmmm. Cream cheese.

Proverb 63 mulls the lights of the city through a shattered window. Hrm.

Achievement unlocked. Shpx ESX. (Rot 13)

Proverb 62 reminds you that you're free to start worrying...oh... pretty much any time now...

PCMF Spinal Tap tribute band weekend: Friday Puppet Show finally gets top billing with Hello Cleveland! and Dust 4 Vomit. Saturday, None More Black + Shit Sandwich keep the big bottomed bass coming. Sunday, we turn it up to Eleven, joined by Dobly, Too Much Fucking Perspective, and Rockin’ the Urn.

Violence is never progress.

Well, that's a lede: "President Trump ventured one-tenth of a mile beyond the gates of the White House for dinner on Tuesday night, only to be met almost immediately by protesters who called him “the Hitler of our time.”

Abe said where you want this killin' done / God said out on Proverb 61.

"No mercy, no power but its own controls it." Melville's ocean, or this PCMF: Friday, Department of War rains extrajudicial riffs. Saturday, Simple As Whales drop "From Hell’s Heart," a Moby Dick–infused harpoon of prog-folk fury. Sunday, Agent of Enshittification mulls collapse in four-part harmony

Proverb 60 slips out of a locked cabinet in your hippocampus and starts redecorating. Don’t worry—it brought snacks...and, uh, a stack of Polaroids you strangely don’t remember taking.

Still buzzed from a magical weekend at the New England Songwriters Retreat with Ellis Paul. Longread trip report over on Medium. tl;dr: the kind of workshop that can turn bituminous coal into crazy diamonds. medium.com/@jmcdaid/a-m...

Congratulations to all the nominees! What an outstanding representation of where filk is at!

Pirate Cove Music Fest weekend: Friday, The Vibe Code Monkeys fry circuits with bug-ridden EDM. Saturday, D.C. Hoagie Hurlers debut Unindicted, their deli-wrapped indictment of indictments. Sunday, The Anubis Gateaux close with dessert-metal oratorio. Also: Bundestag chaos + Mrs Murphy’s Chatbot.

Hey, that's the stick shaker announcing Proverb 59. Don't overthink it: just push the nose down. You'll thank me later.

At least in the New York production, there's something soft to land on in the pit, which stands in for the swimming pool. The A.R.T. version was a melted chrome nightmare.