Today on Volts: I'm joined by the great @michaelhobbes.bsky.social to discuss "reactionary centrism," an intellectual tendency that's come to dominate US public life. You know the type: would never view themselves as conservative, yet finds voluntary pronoun use vastly more aggravating than fascism.

Recorded a solo guitar record yesterday for Kou Records at Studio Dede in Tokyo 🇯🇵 Engineer: Randall Dunn Vid: Charmaine Lee

My jam for 2026 released… 13 years ago!?

Woke up to a cramp in my side and a text from someone who swears they know me but I can’t remember them. I usually remember people. Happy New Year.

Almost finished the year without discovering this gem.

My 2025 Christmas in a nutshell:

A little list of some of my favourite words for the season. Some beautiful, others potentially necessary. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Official household jam of 2025: youtu.be/A5q_xm4rGrc?...

How my week went, basically.

Beginning of the end.

I was today years old when I learned the Japanese for Caturday is ケツ曜日 (“ketsuyōbi”)

Deathrace 2025

Times are rough but…

I came 1st in a bar trivia quiz on the subject of actress Loretta Devine. Nobody can take that from me.

CASTLEVANIA: SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT KONAMI 1997 PSX

Hell is singing Swing Out Sister’s “Breakout” at karaoke when you’re still ‘recovering’ from months of bronchitis.

Sandwiches by Jeff Koons, 2000 https://botfrens.com/collections/212/contents/137313

Increasingly rare

Hell yeah.

I want to honor Diane Keaton with a watch but unsure if I should watch “Annie Hall” or “Mad Money” instead.

"CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss" is the exact same deal as "Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth"

Is it too late for Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to produce my album? Only then will I know I have died.

Thinking about Marcy Borders today.

Judging by the shamefully opportunistic & politicizing rhetoric of some rightwingers on Twitter, & their cynical use of Charlie Kirk’s horrific murder for political point scoring, it’s almost as if Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman wasn’t murdered by a Trump-voting MAGA maniac just 12 weeks ago.

Zines!

My job is surreal sometimes.

The announcer on this train has to be Emo Phillips. I’m sure of it.

we should fund hallmark movies where a lady returns home for Christmas and her high school sweetheart looks like shit because he’s been worn down by the mundanity of small town life

@mushycrouton.bsky.social all over Facebook and Reddit today.

More new good stuff!

Amazing stuff. #PPU always.

I would use this song for the ending credits of a film.

Every non-californian who seen Gavin newsom on some 30 second news show clip is like "oh wow, he's got juice" and every Californian is like "if you see Gavin in a dark alley, run as fast as you can, but it won't save you"

I got this dang Apple Watch and every day I achieve my ‘stand goal’ before I even get out of bed. What?

My life’s ambition now is to have dinner at Enya’s castle.

This is going to be a real one.

Summer Night

Dubai chocolate finally arrived at my local liquor store and damn… I’m a convert. Can’t go wrong with pistachios.

Some context about the period in which she wrote this tragically ever-relevant global history of concentration camps:

Pretty good anthem for our times.

Who remembers Chingy and Hoku?

People don’t realize that a good majority of drag queens are terrible and boring as hell.

What?

1. After the Skrmetti decision, the New York Times has published 6 articles dancing on the graves of trans youth and spreading disinformation on care. It was cited 7 times in the ruling. Read my latest on what will be a black stain on the NYT for a generation. Subscribe to support my journalism.

Cat owner kidnapped by ICE. Cats need a place to land. Can anyone step up? Cats are in the Baltimore area.

The Alt National Park Service account calls itself the official "resistance" team of the US National Park Service. With 887k followers, is one of the biggest accounts on Bluesky. It is the 11 most followed account according to some trackers. This thread will dive into its activity. 🧵 1/x.