My friend Ethan is launching a genuinely important show. Chances are someone you know would benefit. Help it find the community it’s meant for. open.substack.com/pub/ethansup...

Please subscribe to TMR, a show I produce, for more of this! www.youtube.com/watch?v=beJO...

Boff Whalley's Commoners Choir www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRHZ...

Andor isn’t just the best thing Star Wars has done—it might be some of the most vital art of the 21st century. A radical story about revolution, sacrifice, and ordinary people as history comes knocking. Creator Tony Gilroy talking revolutionaries ;) youtube.com/clip/Ugkx2ex...

I’m producing and co-hosting Random Offense with Ethan Strauss, launching 5/23. It’s a live video call-in show on sports, culture, politics—whatever callers bring. Unpredictable, a little wild. Subscribing helps (you might even get on): www.youtube.com/@randomoffen...

PAVEMENTS youtu.be/92rI_vvzkQ0?...

"It doesn’t open with spectacle exactly—just the rumor of a dead body, a bizarrely on-point Bette Davis line, and a setup so perfect it begged for an NSFW joke. We’re not back to explain the world. We’re back to be in it."

Some people thought Series Two might never see the light, especially after everything that unraveled post-DNC Chicago. But This is Now was never about sticking to the script.

Dreaming is Free www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU3-...

"We have seen the optimism of Russia opening up, and the tragedy of it closing down." www.theguardian.com/music/2025/m...

Psycho Killer Qu'est-ce que c'est? www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzIu...

I said it then, I’ll say it again. If you weren’t pro-Occupy Wall Street, you were anti-democracy.

America is finally being run like a business: a business acquired by private equity, leveraged to the hilt, its assets gutted, workforce slashed, and pensions raided before it gets offloaded in a fire sale. Hope you like working gig jobs for stock options in a company that won’t exist in five years.

The mighty Chumbawamba youtu.be/OLkPwxcIji0?...

Fall Back Friday

A dive into a few of my favorite things. shwep.net/2020/07/30/j...

Thoughtful article examining how two seemingly incompatible novels "True Grit" and "The Crying of Lot 49" immerse their protagonists—and us—in systems that are unstable, inscrutable, and often indifferent. #booksky 💙📚 lithub.com/he-got-away-...

First come the tariffs, then the saber-rattling, and before you know it, someone’s calling in airstrikes over a truckload of Canadian unpasteurized cheese.

Nervously explaining to ChatGPT that I'd like to try out the newer, shinier bot has turned our relationship into something akin to AI Seinfeld.

"In terms of references, the film’s mix of thrills, humor, and “very moving” emotion recalls Jonathan Demme’s 1986 screwball comedy road movie gem Something Wild as well as Alex Cox’s 1984 sci-fi black comedy Repo Man" VINELAND! thefilmstage.com/paul-thomas-...

Hiromi ftw! youtu.be/pnISpahN2dM?...

Trump is as American as apple pie.

"Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion". -Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'll tell you about turtlenecks. 🧵

"I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.” ― Sylvia Plath

The Artbound episode "Chinatown Punk Wars" is great, diving into the moment an unlikely Los Angeles neighborhood transformed into the epicenter of a whole new way of doing things—louder, faster, and unapologetically its own. youtu.be/DKa3g_I78wY?...

Franz Kafka on reading.

If you’ve ever felt like the world has stories hiding just under the surface—like the alleys and secondhand shops hold more mystery than a bestseller, "The Cardinal and the Corpse" is your kind of film. youtu.be/-7n74W9si1o?...

At least metaphorically, it's always darkest before the dawn open.spotify.com/track/0hIB8O...

"The point I'm trying to make is that the author is esoteric to the f****** hilt." shwep.net/podcast/the-...

siegmund from the ring cycle i love you so much

Undoubtedly the last thing you need, but here are some 2024 songs to help you fake modern music cred while simultaneously convincing your peers you’ve lost your mind—"Patience Required, Rewards Unassured." open.spotify.com/playlist/76V...

If political correctness, cultural marxism, or DEI is your Achilles' heel, you might be too fragile for a market economy.

Please pay attention: it's the most important investment you can afford to make.

Shift your gaze! youtube.com/shorts/3kNpE...

Apocalyptic Exceptionalism: the aggressively negative and oftentimes ahistorical belief that OUR generation is the one that’s doomed. Things are bad, most certainly, but the world’s been ending since way before any of us were born and things have been totally fucked in other eras.

The 1971 Christmas song everyone should have on their playlist. youtu.be/7YmQC0YNukE?...

All 20 book covers threaded for #booksky 💙📚 combine to form a Rorschach test of sorts. Thanks for playing along, book lovers.

As long as we're talking good kinds of fat, I'll take boobs over avocados any day.

The Modernist Society podcast asked about This is Now, and I admitted: 'It might be the worst idea for a show... but not my worst idea ever!' open.spotify.com/episode/2HTG...

Thankful for the new followers! FAQ: Shot on a single handheld camera, This is Now breaks from the normie monoform, leaning into authenticity and dérive. No lower thirds, narration, stock music, sound effects, or archival footage—think Slacker meets Dogme 95. open.substack.com/pub/thisisno...

Ever wonder what Hunter S. Thompson would be like if he was a mellow Texan bon vivant and a super-dazzler? Wonder no more!

NEW HERE / MORE BACKGROUND psmag.com/news/trace-c...