Every update is more pathetic than the last. I'll say one thing, Weiss is certainly a creature of our era of malicious incompetence, elite vulgarity, plutocrat bootlicking, and overall dumbness.

This is not just a media problem!

Really interesting conversation here. I'm still thinking about Minor Black Figures, rotating various parts of it in my mind.

The real question re: Weiss's future at CBS is whether Ellison views it as an actual business or as a propaganda outlet that will gain him power and influence with the regime. Basically, does CBS stay an actual news network or is it his version of Elon Musk's Twitter? If the latter, she stays.

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

Bari Weiss is best understood as an anti-speech activist on behalf of power. This is through line from her start trying to get professors fired for critiquing Israel to running interference for Elon Musk to now working as regime censor for Trump at CBS www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Weiss has always been a hack-for-hire whose only goal was to flatter power, and this is what they paid for

The battle is long lost, but I cannot believe we let them get away with calling themselves "influencers"

"the novel has all of this technology we don’t use anymore. there has been a wholesale deaccessioning of narrative technology from the novel as a form" instead: scale, mediation, Lukacs, 3rd person, full Dickens, full Morrison - all the IMMEDIACY keywords countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...

When it comes to GenAI in literature or visual art, AI boosters seem to have given up pretense AI users will produce better art much less radically new art. It's a more honest "AI will flood the market with infinite slop so you need AI to flood with slop too!" pitch/threat now.

It's a whole genre it's beautiful

@thelincoln.bsky.social + Brandon Taylor = instant read…

"It blows my mind that 2020 saw one of the greatest uprisings in modern history, and our novelists and short story writers are acting as though…we were all just inside talking about fruit ninja. Solely because they are afraid of being called didactic." countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...

This is the shit that'll get them. We already have footage that all the public has seen (even the dopes) & photos of them together. A smart crook would leave a few photos/emails/notes in the files to show that what contact he did have with Epstein wasn't as bad as others, but instead they do this

One of the weirdest parts of this error--that I imagine is incomprehensible to younger generations--was the "smoking section" that was supposed to isolate smokers but was normally just... right next to the non-smoking section as if smoke doesn't waft.

Do you know how many generated and partially-generated stories authors have tried to submit to Clarkesworld over the last three years? Thousands upon thousands. But they all check a box saying their story didn't use it. It's no longer just side-hustle crap and it's really depressing.

what a great interview, shout outs to brandon taylor

"It blows my mind that 2020 saw one of the greatest uprisings in modern history, and our novelists and short story writers are acting as though…we were all just inside talking about fruit ninja. Solely because they are afraid of being called didactic." countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...

I... had no idea there were Gregor Samsa truthers

Tech guy watching Planet Earth III and shaking his head the whole time to let everyone know he thinks it would be more efficient to burn down the forest, build a data center, and generate the documentary with GenAI.

the epstein files as rick owens fall/winter 2024

TBH, these guys use the same fake math that the tech plutocrats their in league with use. Not sure why expected any different.

"Metallic Realms by Lincoln Michel ... Easily the funniest novel I read this year." 🙏🚀✍️🌌 verydistantlands.substack.com/p/the-best-o...

Are you telling me that maybe we should not rest our entire economy on this?

and similarly these people always position themselves as "anti-establishment" while offering nothing but the same reheated establishment leftovers.

What in the small press poetry collection title headline

And this one, too, from Esquire's @adamm0rgan.bsky.social, whose year-end list I always wait for! www.esquire.com/entertainmen...

Important thing to remember about Venezuelan oil: their reserves skyrocketed when they decided to start counting something that isn’t oil in any conventional sense and isn’t recoverable unless prices triple, which is unlikely because sharp spikes just result in the Saudis opening the tap wider.

Saw a Substack article titled something like "I'm an AI Novelist and AI Haters Will Just Have to Deal With It!" and clicked on the profile and they had... 14 subscribers. I fear that you are the one that has to deal with it, mon frère

I think one thing tech world people--who seem constantly confused why so many people hate them--haven't registered is how for most people the last few waves of hyped tech products (NFTs, crypto, LLMs, etc.) have just led to a lot of scams, spams, and grifts. They've just made life more annoying.

The main effect of AI on my life has been getting a shitload more book scam emails evading the spam filter. Every day I get some email from like "Borfin Squimble" at "Enjoyable Books Readers Reading Club" wanting me to pay money to be "the featured novel in a club of readers who enjoy reading"

Very honored to have METALLIC REALMS on this list, and love how it includes books across genres, small presses and big presses, fiction as well as nonfiction and poetry.

Wait, are you telling me FIFA picked a warmonger for their inaugural Peace Prize? Is FIFA corrupt or something?

The funniest part of this for me is that implicit admission that NFTs, Metaverse, crypto, and all the other stuff that this author hyped weren't actually good ideas.

I would like to know what other dishes where this person substitutes geese fat for milk. Mac and cheese? Milkshakes? Coffee?

Very honored to have METALLIC REALMS on this list, and love how it includes books across genres, small presses and big presses, fiction as well as nonfiction and poetry.

For Esquire, I updated my list of 2025's best books to include 8 more titles. @atriabooks.bsky.social @riverheadbooks.bsky.social @doubledaybooks.bsky.social @milkweededitions.bsky.social @graywolfpress.bsky.social www.esquire.com/entertainmen...

Rian Johnson location scouting

Saw a pretty compelling tweet that if Rian Johnson had actually set the movie in the American evangelical milieu that the story seems to be pointing toward it would've looked like garbage

This is the lib version of online leftists who think posting will bring about "the revolution." There is absolutely nothing you are doing to "combat the right" by posting on Elon Musk's MechaHitler training platform. Be a little serious.

"He's not quite as bad as Larry Summers" how faint can one's damning praise get?

Love to see an institution protect the vulnerable rather than grovel before this vile president. When we've defeated these people, let's remember who did right, and celebrate them.

ICYMI the Tournament of the Books shortlist is out. Very chuffed to see my novel METALLIC REALMS here. And please feel free to vote for it in the zombie poll at the bottom!

Okay I'm halfway through Knives Out 3 and I have no clue what country this is supposed to be based in. Everyone is doing a different bad accent. Fun otherwise though

It’s here! The shortlist for the 2026 Tournament of Books, presented by @fieldnotesbrand.bsky.social (We’ll also need your vote by midnight ET on Dec. 18 for which book you think should get a second shot at the 2026 Rooster!) www.tournamentofbooks.com/the-2026-sho...

Thank you! 🙏🚀✍️🌌 bookshop.org/a/88357/9781...

Metallic Realms, an excellent meta spec-fic novel by @thelincoln.bsky.social , joins this year’s Best Books of 2025 #booksky

Wrote about my favorite non-2025 books that I read this year. Homer, Iris Murdoch, Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, old German fairy tales, and more. countercraft.substack.com/p/the-best-b...

"Many teenagers are assigned few full books to read from beginning to end — often just one or two per year" This kinda thing does bring out the old man yelling at clouds in me. I went to rural public high school in Virginia and we were still assigned lots of books! www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/u...