One of the hardest things about the last 12 months is just how much most people are not paying attention. At all. Even people with trans loved ones are missing huge chunks of the escalating violence against us.

What is it with violence and the Patriots?

I just heard “Party All The Time,” Eddie Murphy’s attempt to make pop music, as Muzak. I sort of wish he’d just released his James Brown parody. youtu.be/yAJnpaFRrlw?...

This is true and I was the only one on set excited about it (and playing the song on my phone to blank stares)

All of the top 10 books borrowed through the public library app Libby were written by women. And Kristin Hannah's The Women was the top checkout in many library systems around the country.

I’ve been hanging out with my parents, and I have to say that it’s pretty shocking how little critical engagement is happening in the news they consume. For example, they had no idea that Bari Weiss intervened to spike a 60 Minutes segment on CECOT.

This is MTG'w bill. She personally authored. It's happening now, not in the past. Spare me her redemption arc.

I have literally walked into two celebrities: Chaka Khan at the Roxy and Ted Danson at my summer camp.

The way people have started to speak about infidelity as a crime akin to physical or sexual abuse is wild. You can’t send the whole of France to jail.

Just watched the new Knives Out and I think it's really important you know that the scene in the Seminary's Gym is filmed in the same place Rick Astley filmed the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up. I saw the window tracery and immediately made my friends pause the film so I could tell them.

Probably the most efficient take-down of AI I’ve read (from the latest newsletter by @fozmeadows.bsky.social )

This. The main point of the essay isn’t about Heated Rivalry, but rather what it means when we as a community recognize each other, the windows and mirrors that such moments afford. Breathtaking.

My friend and former colleague Larry Rosenwald reviewed an album, Lieder Mit Palestine, Yiddish protest songs about Gaza. ingeveb.org/blog/lider-m...

My 2026 resolution: I’d like to reduce the carbon footprint of my listening. For years, I collected audio files, most of which I purchased. Is there a user friendly music equivalent of PLEX where you can easily create and share playlists w/ random people? If so, I’ll start using it for my teaching

A podcast that is only, or primarily, on YouTube isn’t a podcast if you can’t watch that video without being on YouTube. The word “podcast” specifically *means* not being beholden to any tech giants like YouTube/Google/Alphabet. anildash.com/2024/02/05/w...

Trans folks, I would be absolutely *thrilled* if you would tell me something great that happened to you this year.

This right here is why I’ve massively reduced the amount of time I spend listening to podcasts unless they DON’T have visual content.

Funny Numbers xkcd.com/3184/

Lydia Tár would hate chatgpt but if she used it just once she'd succumb to AI psychosis immediately

If only Stranger Things was as good as the title sequence

As someone who has had to come out to my parents a few times (sigh), I’ve got to say this should have been a great week or so in streaming TV. We had the pleasure of seeing multiple coming out scenes, but the most anticipated one didn’t feel realistic. At all. Give me more smutty hockey.

One of my worries is that everything that Duffer brothers touch will flail like this show is. They have been tapped to adapt The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne and I’m not optimistic.

It’s really too bad that the final episodes of Stranger Things are this poorly acted.

Two weeks in a row this show had me crying.

I recently rewatched I’m Still Here / Ainda Estou Aqui. There’s this part when Eunice’s interrogator refers to arresting the children’s teacher because she’s connected to “subversives” in Chile. authoritarians always go after teachers, professors, people who work with books.

Everything is terrible, but in under an hour we’ll have episode 6 of Heated Rivalry.

My partner is trying to resolve a problem with a very large retailer and the hold music is making things much worse. It’s a really unwise choice to use hold music that never resolves the cadence. I’m guessing that customers sound more agitated when they finally speak to a service rep.

If you’re interested in a holiday themed steamy m/m romance written by a queer man, might I interest you in M. A. Wardell’s Mistletoe & Mishigas?

I think there's lots of ways the Heated Rivalry girlies can show solidarity with queer men other than fantasizing that the show will end homophobia in professional sports. The most obvious one, to me, is supporting queer men who write m/m.

Hockey Players Blast ‘Heated Rivalry’ For Unrealistic Depiction Of Anal Sex https://theonion.com/hockey-players-blast-heated-rivalry-for-unrealistic-depiction-of-anal-sex/

This is an actual self-hating Jew. I normally don't throw that phrase around, but come on!

I just wish someone would be honest and say “we are ending civilian science in favor of science that is focused on serving national security and war”

"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future." - @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit. Incredible words. Listen to all of it!

Do people actually think someone would sacrifice their ability to move around the airport to get seated early? The folks who push disabled passengers at airports refer to the people they push as chairs as tho we aren’t even human. Once at LHR, I got left by a sky lounge while my plane was boarding.

You know that conversation I had with my provider on Monday? She was referring to this. She thought this kind of move would happen over the next year.

“it’s reasonable to ask questions about trans girls in sports” was always intended to mainstream transphobia. It’s absurd that people fell for it. Democrats are constantly letting oppressors set the terms of debate instead of just saying “no, fuck you.”

Really weird that all of these folks think making life harder for trans kids will help grocery prices.

I know many things are awful but here is one genuinely useful and helpful thing you can do. No matter their party, your representative needs to hear that trans people and our families are not alone and this bill is an unjustifiable and extreme threat to criminalize the health care we need to live.

It is unreliable/wrong; but it’s also partly the consequence of teachers and professors being abandoned by administrators, politicians, regulators, media and their own unions, even. When all these groups seem to care more about making nice with AI companies than education, teachers have few options

I know I’m very Gen X about some paper-writing things (eg, like how to format a doc, how to do in-text citations, etc), but I can’t get over how stubbornly the kids these days resist using the ruler in MS Word and Google Docs.

Kudos to Boston-Logan Delta terminal for playing a klezmer tune for Chanukah.

First, to Mariah: kudos. Second, I don't understand the "All I Want for Christmas" haters. This is a certified banger. The melody of each strophe does interesting things (particularly at the 3/4 mark); the use of minor iv chords (with a b6) and a poignant cadence with the minor b6 -- it's all great

I don't have time to write a newsletter, but I can post my favorites of 2025 here. Not all of these came out in 2025, but I did consume them. So here goes: 1) Favorite non-fiction (outside my scholarly specialization): The Viral Underclass by @thrasherxy.bsky.social

"Queer Ear still centers masculine representations that presume an inherently cis and male subject...in many ways enforcing a false equivalence between what is masculine and what is wrong with what we might construe as the non-queer music theory: cis music theory."

Today I had a frank conversation with the provider who handles my hormones and let me tell you… it got dark really quickly. It wasn’t that different from a convo I had with the endocrinologist at the end of January.

The world is so chaotic today that the Rob Reiner thing isn’t even a blip compared to the rest of it. These sure are dark times…

I'm reminded of the photo by Rachel Posner of a menorah in her window with a Nazi swastika in the background. www.yadvashem.org/artifacts/mu...

NEW: 9 ex-DOJ lawyers who resigned from antisemitism investigations into UCLA and other UC campuses say they were pressured to find UC guilty of violations in a rushed and politically motivated process. One called it a "fraudulent and sham investigation." www.latimes.com/california/s...

Extraordinary courage from Ahmed al Ahmed, a Muslim, 43-year-old father of two, who bravely risked his life to save his neighbors celebrating Hanukkah. Praying for his full & speedy recovery. And so deeply inspired by his example.