Listen I read a lot, and a lot of it is dull as hell, and I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learned: tedious writing is almost always a product of the writer conveying, rather than discovering. When a writer is discovering, or sharing discovery, no editor on earth can scrub out the vividity & joy.

Agreed—possibly an all-time top 10 for me, but I rarely hear about it. Devastating.

As a child I was stumped on how they got the motion blur in this scene. It's claymation so it can't just be drawn in. Much later I found out that all the blur in the tracking and panning shots is actual *motion* blur. The sets were moved for a fraction of a second during each exposure!

From the lovely little Phinney by Post book, here’s @tomnissley.bsky.social on Elizabeth Hardwick’s novel Sleepless Nights.

Happy anniversary of this not happening

I've spent a lot of time in countries where graft and grifting are the norm and I assure you it is worth a truly immense cost to prevent that from taking hold in our society. You do not want to live in that kind of society.

the way this makes sense for RFK is that "healthy people" and "sick people" are ontological categories.

Dreamed I was on Scruples, where you’re only allowed to post your opinion on what cannot be allowed be posted there. Re-posting someone else’s opinion is called a reScrupe.

I’m making a point of not finishing this, because it’s so delightful.

So the Clean Power Plan was never implemented. Now, want to hear something funny? The targets in the Clean Power Plan -- for growth in clean energy, for retirements of dirty energy -- were exceeded. Before the deadline. *Without the reg being passed.*

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help” is almost literally what Mayor Mamdani is saying and it’s great actually

The two reasons I'm glad this is finally opening: a) I want to see it, and b) I hope it means Ian Frazier is getting a nice check

I'm thinking that the best rejection of my editorial career was when I turned down HILLBILLY ELEGY in manuscript. Me so proud! ( It wasn't badly written at all, I just didn't like how he portrayed his mother and other family members. An early taste of his momumental assholery.)

No living novelist I love more than her but taking no-strings money from Peter Thiel is mauvais ton.

An mRNA treatment for PANCREATIC CANCER was in trials, among many other uses. Choosing to end this research is choosing to sentence millions to an early, painful death

Many of you have heard that my editor Sean McDonald will no longer be working at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. I wrote a little bit about my feelings at the end of an era.

hand-drawn by Modern Lover Jonathan Richman in 1970 showing bands that attempted “god like status” vs. “artistic death” - Sterling Morrison of the Velvets held on to it.

WTAF? Having just done my latest Macmillan order, I knew that when I hit MCD after all the Edelweiss scrolling I had to slow down for the good stuff.

Our PhD student Kennedy Orwa, who studies applications of AI to health care, was hastily deported today to Kenya along with his 13-year-old son without opportunity to speak to legal counsel. King 5 reports that he held a valid visa that was rescinded without explanation.

For this week's newsletter, I wrote about Gene Bearden, the hero of the Cleveland Indians' 1948 championship, and also someone who fabricated his wartime experience. It's a vexing case of stolen valor that even I fell for. substack.com/home/post/p-...

We elected an administration on the messaging that all of society’s ills were a result of DEI & immigration. So we’re left with no choice when we look at all this immediate & staggering abject failure, death & unnecessary suffering around you but to understand that it is a direct result of whiteness

Wait, do people like cruises because it is a rare chance for them to live in a walkable city?

I will say that if it does happen at Walter Reed, my joy will only be multiplied because I was born in that very tower.

I used to write the WaPo editorials on US-Africa policy, as well on as human rights and politics on the continent. To describe hundreds of thousands of deaths on the continent as “messy” is an absolute abomination.

Just remembering the letter Pete Hegseth’s mom sent him, calling him an abuser of women and telling him their family is “broken by your behavior and lack of character.”

My cartoon in the first issue of Now Voyager, a new print magazine dedicated to long form international reporting, photography and art. Plus cartoons!

"I'm not a politician. I'm a businessman, with a sense of history."

I was so glad to click through and see that this campaign did not begin on April 1. I really just want the Sybil minifig, tbh

How brilliant is this concept kit, Lego Fawlty Towers! Incredible detailing throughout. beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

Why would I use "AI," I actually know how to fucking write

L. Ron Hubbard: hello friends it's me Hubbard: your old pal, Honest Ron! Hubbard: and have i got a deal for YOU! King: wow! a deal for me?? Poe: careful steve Poe: we've been burned before on one of honest ron's deals

if nothing else, there is something to be said for spending time outside in the sun with thousands of people who share your anger at the state of things

Happy birthday to the Washington Metro, which opened 50 years ago today with service on 4.6 mi of Red Line between Rhode Is. Ave & Farragut N. System now serves 130 mi. The DC Metro shows that, with good planning & enough investment, the public sector can succeed & build something extraordinary.

from 1868 to 2025 there was little dispute about what the birthright clause meant and the idea that the past year has been some great scholarly debate is absurd. a handful of partisans and hacks have churned out junk so that the president can get what he wants. that’s it.

Rewatching I, Claudius, where Caligula decrees that he’s Zeus and his uncle Claudius naïvely thinks his madness will signal the immediate end of his reign. Instead the Senate immediately embraces his claim and Caligula remains in power.

Yes, the sheriff below actually received 43% of the vote for governor in my state in 2020 (outpolling Trump), and 43% in Thurston County, the target where he wants to call in Tomahawks on his fellow Americans. Thanks, neighbor!

One of my very favorite reading experiences was sitting in Madison Square Park at the original Shake Shack, with a cheeseburger and a shake on a sunny, spring day, devouring Strength in What Remains on deadline so I could interview Kidder the next day at BookExpo. A wonderful book, and one of many.

it's funny

Thanks! The person who first explained that to me was the late Professor John Doheny of the UBC Department of English, around 1975 or so.

I was never a "Dynasty" fan, but had I known Carrington Manor was a death trap I would've probably watched this show.

Not one of them has ever stood in a line for 4 hours or more to vote in person. Not one of them has been turned away at the polls because they are suddenly “not on the list.” Not one has had their pay docked b/c they arrived late to work b/c they went to vote in the morning.

Is that young Tom Pynchon in the last photo with young Robert Mueller?

people used to make out in the back row

It will be a generational mistake to forgo Ballard with light rail.

Show someone who absolutely rocks a hat (that isn’t Indiana Jones) Wiley Wiggins as Mitch Kramer, Dazed and Confused, 1993

A person who stumbles into great wealth & power will inevitably develop an elaborate worldview that tells them: a) yes, you & people like you deserve the wealth & power, & b) no, you shouldn't feel bad about it. There is nothing more boring on earth than them sharing the details of said worldview.

I love (don't love) that this is "efficiency."

A personal note: I was very touched to hear Best Editing winner Andy Jurgensen thank his aunt Barbara Hall. As an Academy archivist, she took an interest in my research and, miraculously, found me George Stevens's pocket diary. A miracle. Five Came Back would not have been what it was without her.