The First WORLD FENCING LEAGUE is happening April 25th!!! I'M GEEKING!!! Japanese engineers developed this "Sword Tip Visualisation" tracking technology specifically for this event that will make it so much easier for the average person to see what's going on! I MUST WATCH THIS ENTIRE TOURNAMENT

Palantir are about six months away from ordering their employees to leave audio logs scattered around their offices

Maybe they should have stopped calling him Little Father Time.

I posted the third installment of my journal of taking BEAST MODE from manuscript to publication. A process I am making up as I go along. austingrossman.substack.com/p/publishing...

this feels like a good place to recommend Ennuigi, a free game where you play as a depressed Luigi and wander through a ruined mushroom kingdom landscape smoking and making forlorn observations about his and his brother's lives

The nonprofit that runs the successful, Pulitzer-winning Baltimore Banner is going to take over the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Of all the possible outcomes here, this is likely the best we could have hoped for. apnews.com/article/pitt...

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), by Hieronymus Bosch, 1480-1505, 📸 by @alexbrandon

Rooms with no purpose, just a chair and a plant and a couple of shelves.

right now the astronauts are calling houston because the computer on the spaceship is running two instances of microsoft outlook and they can't figure out why. nasa is about to remote into the computer

lmao @ this week's popbitch

Origins of Beast Mode, part 2. Pitching it, writing it. open.substack.com/pub/austingr...

My view from a train passing through New London, CT. I couldn’t see where the crowd ends. #nokings

I grew up in Massachusetts, and I only just learned our state motto is Ense Petit Placidam, Sub Libertate Quietem: "By the Sword We Seek Peace, But Peace Only Under Liberty." Explains a lot.

I posted about the new book, and how it came about. open.substack.com/pub/austingr...

Fantasy Lisbon, ND

This is such a stupid time to be writing a book

@chrislkeller.com's essay on Wilco's "Via Chicago" is, well it's everything an essay about a sad 1990s song should be. Bravo. #marchxness marchxness.com#/2ndround-wi...

Done it.

I will finish this manuscript today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQdw...

I agree although it would be hard to find a video game this stupid.

Here is my best Habermas story. I am grad student waiting in LONG line for Habermas talk. There is a tall man waiting in front of me. Line moves so we are eventually visible to organizers, a woman looks over & makes horrified face. Runs out: "Prof Habermas! You don't have to wait in line!"

Replaying this now. It holds up shockingly well. @harvey1966.bsky.social

I’m only hearing negative! Let’s give Lisa her due!

Maybe Lisa Loeb *wasn't* all that sad in the 1990s, wearing those tortoiseshell glasses in Ethan Hawke's enormous SoHo apartment. But YOU were, and you know it! #marchxness #marchsadness marchxness.com/2ndround-gil...

It's Round Two, and Lisa faces off against another country singer. But sadness knows no genre boundaries! marchxness.com/2ndround-gil... #marxchness #marchsadness

happens every time

It’s iconic, she’s iconic, but what did it all mean? I wrote about Lisa Loeb and Stay (I Missed You) for @marchxness.bsky.social. We’re up against Lee Ann Womack and a worryingly good essay from @amygcb.bsky.social Come and vote and feel your feelings! marchxness.com#/1stround-lo...

“Okay, about the glasses. People roll their eyes at the glasses now, but if you were not there for the glasses you do not understand about the glasses.” Just read Austin Grossman‘s @marchxness.bsky.social essay on Lisa Loeb‘s stay on my lunch break AWP and it was awesome. marchxness.com

Hoping against hope that I wrote this one.

REM vs Liz Phair. This is going to break some hearts.

The original player character was my concept and totally ruled, and probably wouldn't have fucked Clive Barker in the first place so the issue is moot.

March Sadness 90s Edition is GO! You can VOTE on the website and keep up with all the latest news on the Substack. We will try to do lots of Bsky updates as well! marchxness.com#/1stround-di...

Oh my god I just spent an hour on the cursed island of cruelty and laughter that is Roblox. I do this for the readers.

beast mode

Imagine if drinking while writing were actually a smart thing to do.

Barista reading Less Than Zero is not taking questions

This article from 2014: US Border Agents Intentionally Stepped in Front of Moving Vehicles to Justify Shooting at Them. And remember, Jonathan Ross was a firearms trainer, a veteran, and spent over a decade working for DHS.

Happy New Year

A startling encounter at @portersqbooks.bsky.social in Cambridge, MA. I didn’t *quite* get that it’s on shelves in the U.S.

@samlakewrites.bsky.social Just started Control and I think the writing's top-notch, a refreshing angle on story moments that could have felt stock.

Thank you @emilystjams.bsky.social for reminding me of the existence of this @themountaingoats.bsky.social banger: youtu.be/z-lwTmJtEsg

It's annoying but true that the all-time best writing advice is "go for a walk."

Wait. Wait. Top Gun: Maverick and F1 were directed by the same person who directed the Gears of War ad with the slowed-down version of "Mad World." !! youtu.be/_ojz7Jd_MKY?...

Only a true hero can slay the Dragon of Light Duty Emissions Tailpipe Regulation. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Deep in my laptop's folder hierarchy, Chrome has generated english_wikipedia.txt, a file of exactly 30,000 words. Apparently in order of frequency (the first word is "the"). The first noun comes at word twenty: doc. Word fifty is year. Word 29,992 is hemsworth. Word 30,000 is evaporator.

“The president inhabits a position of moral leadership. When the president and his officials sell their policies, they’re selling a version of what it means to be an American” I wrote about the Trump administration, the boat strikes, and St. Augustine. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/o...

From the City/Town Encounters Table, Dungeon Master's Guide 1st Edition. We learned a lot. #tagyourself #ad&d #beastmode

reported to me “I’m at the Harvard Yale game and and the Yale fans are interspersing, ‘Harvard sucks’ with ‘Larry Summers!’” a pretty sick burn, we admit

The Secret History: MAGA ur-text, or merely a prescient allegory?