"Over and over, officials described the agents’ arrival as an attempt to goad residents into a confrontation that would give the president a pretext for a military crackdown."

I have a downright unwieldy number of thoughts but mostly I just think everyone in any corner of publishing should probably read this

rip vibes it was a good word, perhaps a bit overused, but it served us well and now it’s dead, killed by Zuck

I would never do anything so underhanded as to use some entirely unrelated topic to actually talk about Black Sails, I have noooooo idea what you're talking about, pffft

Sometimes a column is about something specific, and sometimes it's just about everything I've been reading and thinking about, and this one is definitely the latter!

Bret Stephens claiming that people speaking out about Gaza are perpetuating the left's war on free speech is demented, even by his dismal standards www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/o...

trying to find a four-panel image that's maybe that guy who does the aliens but it's like ... sort of about people forcing their way into other groups' spaces? it was making the rounds recently and I want it for reasons but cannot remember what it is

deepest of deep breaths feeling nervous about this one, friends! I've written about the mainstreaming of pull-to-publish, its impact on fandom, and what it means for an increasingly corporate and IP-driven creative landscape.

This is delusional but you don’t have to read the whole thing. Boils down to: he’s shutting down the government because he thinks he’s a king.

honestly when I'm looking at upcoming books to find things to review and/or just be excited about, it's always kind of a letdown when I get to the "praise" section of a book's page and all the blurbs are by white men. it tells me a lot about who the publisher thinks the book is for.

I don't think there is either coffee or caramel in the "caramel cold brew" M&Ms but as my partner observed, they are sort of like crunchy Rolos; I would add "inappropriately, but in a good way" to that. Also at the end they suddenly taste like paper for a second. The aftertaste is foul. I love them.

super useless questions in my brain today include several queries along the lines of "okay, but how does a hutt get muscles? is there a hutt gym? tatooine fitness? what kind of weights do they lift? do they, like, bench press with their tails?"

:sobs quietly:

happy hobbit day, the takes, they are wild

how your email found me

cat logic: person isn't playing with me get on person and yell in face person only provides pets! BETRAYAL fine, will get behind person then smell person head what is this long fur? dirty, needs clean LONG FUR NOT NICE IN MOUTH WILL FIGHT LONG FUR WITH CLAWS

release the epstein files

it's always kind of funny to repost posts I wrote in the first place but I cannot know about everything cool people are doing out there (especially in the realm of video), and if I don't know about it I cannot share it with my boss, so please do not be shy about sharing!

I'm getting offline in order to go hunt down all the softcover medium grid Moleskines I can find in this city. goddammit.

the only Wikipedia citation I ever cared about was when the page for The Fall said something like "Molly Templeton of the Eugene Weekly named it the best movie of 2008" which is TRUE and I DID and I STAND BY THAT but alas someone deemed the Weekly just not that notable I guess, lol

Since this whole debate is still happening, and since we are still not listening I will summarize what I understand the argument to be in the Lingua Franca of white nerds: Lord of the Rings analogies.

Hey Friends, this week in Minneapolis there were two shootings at homeless encampments, making it even harder for our neighbors. Sanctuary Supply Depot is raising money to help bring a little more comfort and care. If you have a few dollars to spare (they're only trying for $300!), info below:

Only seven Senate Democrats are signed onto a resolution put forward by Jeff Merkley for the United States recognize the State of Palestine. They are: Sen. Jeff Merkley Chris Van Hollen Tim Kaine Bernie Sanders Peter Welch Tina Smith Tammy Baldwin Mazie Huron

"The decision also notably comes, however, just weeks after Nexstar announced a $6.2 billion acquisition of rival Tegna, which would ... bring the company’s market coverage of the U.S. to about 80 percent. And current FCC rules cap any one company’s share at 39 percent."

In the wake of Trump’s declaration that Antifa is a domestic terror group open to RICO investigation, Oregon Republican activists are now singling out elected officials for scrutiny. This particular GOP activist just spent about a week in DC meeting with a range of high level officials.

crowdsourcing my reading once again: if you had not yet read any Claire North novels, with which one would you start?

he still has a job. how many people have been fired for saying much milder things about a right-wing figure?

"artists’ lives ... are often lived queerly in relation to time — not always in terms of sexuality or gender, but in the refusal of normative clocks. We start late, shift mediums, pause for caregiving or parenting, recommit after detours. Our timelines are asynchronous, cyclical, out of sync."

this kid absolutely rules

Do this to voice your outrage at Disney's unjust cancellation of Kimmel and other people's shows for simply practicing their free speech, ASAP.

lately I am taking a weird sort of joy in the tiny things that annoy me that are not actual problems. there are so many massive problems, terrible situations, true horrors. somehow the capacity to still frown and and mutter "but song titles go in quotation marks!!!" to myself is a tiny bit soothing

the apparent difference between "cancel" (meaning "say something critical about") and "cancel" (meaning "actually take off the air/remove from circulation") is really something right now

everything about the Brian Eno documentary was wonderful, but I feel astonishingly, impossibly like I saw exactly the version I needed to see: one where he talks about how you can't do input and output at the same time, and about feelings being the point of art. if you get a chance to see this: GO

sorry did someone say it's wednesday? that cannot be right

having just spent a really long time trying to verify the artist of a set of books from the 90s I would like to loudly thank all publishers who make cover information readily accessible!!!! please we want to credit things. and by "we" I mean people posting decades-old cover art and weeping gently

sometimes one loves a set of books so much that one posts a photo of them even though it's kind of a crappy photo

With alt text:

Hmm. publichealthpolicyjournal.com/mit-study-fi...

"Thus, in the late 19th century and much of the 20th, this country’s most storied intellectuals transfigured hate-mongers into heroes and ignored their words—just as, right now, some are ignoring Kirk’s." - Ta-Nehisi Coates www.vanityfair.com/news/story/c...

thanks to @cxorlando.bsky.social I now know this book is coming in March and that means for the next six months my brain is never, ever going to shut up about it!!!!! please go read Confessions of the Fox if you have not. it is the Greatest.

I'm only halfway through this list and it's brought me so much joy. Christmas Carol on an airplane? A Buffalo Bills Christmas movie? Brandon Routh in his Christmas movie era? Phrases like "a passionate glassblower striving to establish her artistic identity"? Truly this is a rich text.

ahhhhh HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY, WILL! (small black cat keeps trying to add something to this post. unclear what she thinks she is typing. perhaps she feels book needs more cats?)

sobbing at the state of Oregon: please, please just let me have my goddamn shot!!!!

this note in Le Guin's draft of The Tombs of Atuan is part of one of the displays in the Oregon Contemporary exhibition! just saying in case, y'know, you're interested in seeing what she did in subsequent drafts www.oregoncontemporary.org/a-larger-rea...

hello yes I AM very excited about this

“'AI isn’t magic; it’s a pyramid scheme of human labor,' said Adio Dinika, a researcher at the Distributed AI Research Institute based in Bremen, Germany."

it's 7 am and I've been up for an hour, mostly cleaning up after a cat whose digestion is reacting to her stressful day yesterday. the news is already a lot. the news is always a lot but this morning feels like a LOT a lot. take a breath, pet your (shit-ass) cats, donate to good causes if you got it

I am so tired and I have had such a day please forgive all the very obvious thoughts that come out of my face right now I mean I've reached the point where I'm re-downloading Age of Calamity because that seems like a good idea? This is not, in fact, a good idea, I'm almost certain

Somehow I only JUST learned that there's a Yoshi game for Switch and it came out six years ago and it STILL costs sixty American dollars? Nintendo please. Nintendo buddies. I am trying to still play Switch games bc I am too broke for a Switch 2. Just let me hang out with Yoshi for a modest price.