1. Easter is both completely bizarre and totally quotidian. A divine son dies gruesomely, only to emerge from the tomb to pass along a radical message. I look out my window at the green blades of grass rising, the pink buds announcing themselves: resurrection blooms everywhere your eyes land.

As the pandemic dragged on, I (a little self-consciously) turned to the Psalms. Since I was raising a baby, each one seemed to say something about that completely quotidian miracle when we make families out of only feelings and time. I'm pumped to say that turned into THE PSALMIST, out in January.

From the index for my book THE INTERNET WILL DIE, AND SO WILL YOU (out in Sept. 10). Here are some accidental poems: globalization Glück, Louise God G/O Media control of fragility of function of as human as magic as transporter Macbeth machine learning maggots

hello 👋 i have developed a new tool called blüuümpíi. blüuümpíi will convert every file on your hard drive to a .wav file without asking you, maximize your system volume, and play them on every bluetooth speaker you have ever connected to. if you offer feedback on blüuümpíi i will take legal action

“Frog, Frog,” cried Toad, “taste these cookies that I have made.” Frog ate one of the cookies, “These are the best cookies I have ever eaten!” said Frog.

1. I'm finally catching up with some open tabs, and I just got to this excellent @masnick.com piece, which you should go read. www.techdirt.com/2026/03/25/a...

“Toad,” said Frog, “you never know when someone may send you a letter.” “No, no,” said Toad. “I do not think anyone will ever send me a letter.”

🤯

it's a wonderful thing when a friend does something amazing. @johnwest.bsky.social looks deeply at link rot and what it means for our lives and times. there's beauty in these words! buy it! herebelowbooks.com/978080288542...

Presenting THE INTERNET WILL DIE, AND SO WILL YOU, out in September from @herebelow.bsky.social, a new imprint doing awesome things. Here's the cover, a lil' excerpt, and the tagline of the press: "Books for the subversive work of being human." herebelowbooks.com/978080288542...

Issue Five of The HTML Review is here! Get to your browser for 15 excellent new pieces of web-based literature and art thehtml.review/05/

An absolute treat to see @elan.place's perfect newsletter ESCAPE THE ALGORITHM yesterday: escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/the-studen.... And I"m not just saying that because he linked to Homer, my performance art masquerading as a social media app: internaut.club.

🚨 NERD ALERT 🚨 I built a little tool called Fluster, which clusters large corpora of documents or images. Say you have several thousand documents from a lawsuit or a FOIA or whatever: This would let you organize and explore them. It's model-agnostic! It's fast + free! github.com/jswest/fluster

Inspired by a perfect post from @marcusjmerritt.com, I built a art piece masquerading as a social media app called Homer. It uses an LLM to recursively summarize every post, again and again, until everything becomes nothing: internaut.club. Sign ups are now fully open, capped at 100!

Accidental Haiku #10650, from "Going All In on Steak Made Texas Roadhouse No. 1 in Cas…" in the Wall Street Journal: Line dancing at some point during their shifts. Peanut shells crunch underfoot. https://www.wsj.com/business/texas-roadhouse-steak-beef-costs-casual-dining-8204b179?mod=hp_lead_pos7

I just finished @garthgreenwell.bsky.social's perfect explication of James Merrill's poem "Rescue," and it makes me wish I were more committed to the act of reading and understanding poetry—entirely free of the blind urge to insturmentalize it. garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/james-merr...

Accidental Haiku #8460, from "Telluride, America’s ‘Most Luxurious Ski Town’ Is Tearing Itself Apart" in the Wall Street Journal: Down Telluride’s main street chanting, “End it now!” People were crying. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/telluride-ski-resort-dispute-6e2cc777?mod=hp_lead_pos7

I guess I just think that Albany—and actually the entire zone east of the Catskills from Westchester to Albany/Troy should be considered New England.

Accidental Haiku #8106, from "The Week the Dreaded AI Jobs Wipeout Got Real" in the Wall Street Journal: respondents said they worried AI could pose a threat to humanity. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-week-the-dreaded-ai-jobs-wipeout-got-real-3ba5057b?mod=hp_lead_pos1

My automated haiku-finding program, "The Seventeen-Point," found one for the State of the Union (it tracks what I read at the Journal, finds all the haiku in it, proposes the best ones, and then posts it with my permission).

Ever read a news article and wonder at its accidental poetry? Well, I made @seventeen-point.bsky.social, which tracks the Wall Street Journal articles I read, finds all the accidental haiku, proposes the best ones for me to approve, and then posts it for me.

IMPORTANT pls RT My online novel seed-story.com is loading sporadically/not at all The servers belonged to Google Creative Labs Sydney (now apparently defunct) If anyone reading worked there/knows someone who did pls get in touch urgently so this pioneering work of digital literature can be saved

On coffee filters and filter bubbles escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/on-coffee-...

From my colleagues at the Journal: www.wsj.com/us-news/vide...

I even made this kinda silly data visualization because I couldn't help myself.

🎄 It's that time of year again—end-of-year list time! 🎄 This year, I've read 100 books (though it was only 99 when I wrote the newsletter). I was aiming for two a week, so I missed my goal by four. At least I got to a round number! I "starred" eight of them. johnwest.substack.com/p/the-year-i....

🎄🎄🎄

My daughter is currently obsessed with THE GRINCH, and I'm realizing that Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" would have had Cindy Lou et al. in stitches if the Grinch and Max had put it on after dinner.

Book thought of the day: I just finished ORBITAL, and I'm pretty sure it's the literary equivalent of a "cozy" upmarket book. No real drama--and lots of descriptions of food. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🎵 It's the most wonderful time of the year 🎵 End of year list time! I'm working on my 2025 "Year in Books," and feeling pretty good about how it's going to turn out.

Here's one of them...

Watching The Grinch (2018), a cutting piece of commentary on neoliberal governance, in which the daughter of a struggling single parent in Whoville appeals to Santa for help for her family, all while the mayor drains the city coffers in order to make the Christmas “three times bigger.”

Trump came back to power after knitting together a multiracial, working-class coalition. Now, it's fraying. For @wsj.com, @jackgillum.bsky.social, Peter Champelli, and I took a look at exactly where—merging precinct-level election results and tract-level demographics. 🎁 www.wsj.com/politics/ele...

I couldn't stop thinking about this perfect Borges idea from @marcusjmerritt.com. So I made it: internaut.club. (N.B., if you want write access, you'll have to DM me.)

I made an "AI-powered social media app" that's really ~digital performance art~. It's called HOMER. Every hour, everything that's been posted gets summarized by AI, including all the summaries that came before it. Eventually, everything you write there turns to meaningless nothing. internaut.club

I made an "AI-powered social media app" that's really ~digital performance art~. It's called HOMER. Every hour, everything that's been posted gets summarized by AI, including all the summaries that came before it. Eventually, everything you write there turns to meaningless nothing. internaut.club

1. Here's a link from today's edition: dirt.fyi/article/2024.... "Attention is what makes us human" by Daisy Alioto at DIRT. (I stumbled on this after reading @caitlindewey.bsky.social's incredible Substack, "Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends.") Here's a thread with some ~feelings~.

1. I've got a friend who, for personal reasons, can't read the news on their websites, but still wants to read from time to time. So I coded a little CMS that produces "editions" of a daily magazine just for him. I copy–paste articles, pick an open-source image, and text him a mobile-friendly PDF.

I wrote this essay, which is, in part, about the time I tried to turn a language model into Bartleby the Scrivener.

I know AI is a polarizing topic, but I created a very-little-language model using Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener." I asked it to finish my sentence: "I would..." and it responded "...prefer to, yes." My AI never quite got it right—the most human thing about it. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ive-...?

Miles Davis, upon being asked to tailor his own pants, “You want me to sew what?!”

Toxic fumes are leaking Into airplanes, sickening crews and passengers. The problem is getting worse and not much is being done about it. From Ben Katz, me, and @andrewtangel.bsky.social for @wsj.com. 🔓 www.wsj.com/business/air...

Kantians must be stopped.

Every year!

I really loved this new Elvia Wilk essay: clereviewofbooks.com/elvia-incorp... (If you haven't read her book, DEATH BY LANDSCAPE, you should.)

Over @wsj.com, my colleagues Sara Randazzo, @ceostroff.bsky.social, and Shane Shifflett have a deep, fascinating look at how researchers are amending grant language to keep federal funding and avoid getting flagged in the Trump administration’s push against "DEI." www.wsj.com/health/scien...

I studied Baroque music, and Beethoven is definitely *not* Baroque, but I did have some fun with this Sonatina of his. And, yes, I know my interpretation is pretty far off, but I was, as they say, ~vibing~.

I absolutely loved this essay by Patrick Nathan. patricknathan.substack.com/p/soul-searc...