If you think about it, all utensils could be tongs. Fork, could be tongs. Knife, would work just as well as (sharp) tongs. Spoon, yes, this also could be tongs. Much to think about.

About god damn time.

Here's "Episode 15: Chris Hauty and Books as (Bad) Gifts". www.thirdpersonlimited.com/episodes/epi...

Narrator: Every other NATO country will be bound by Article 5 of the NATO Treaty to defend Denmark if the US attacks its territory.

Yeah, people are fixating on a Cabinet Secretary being given a sovereign country to run because the president waged war without congressional approval and kidnapped the old leader. Weird that they’d get hung up on that.

Happy War (Xmas Is Over)

Somehow the existence of the band Tele Novella has eluded me until today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxek...

Today I saw a yellow sign on someone's car shaped like the usual "Baby On Board" signs, except it said "Baby Up In This Bitch". I feel like that's a really aggressive escalation of the whole "notifying the world of the presence of a baby" car sign genre.

We tore apart the concept of end-of-year 'best books' list in this episode. Then, of course, we offered our own list. www.thirdpersonlimited.com/episodes/bon...

I always find that part in "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" about the figgy pudding strange. "We won't leave until we get some"? Who says this?

Because it's the season of giving, here's a Bonus Episode, "We Hate 'Best Books' Lists! Plus: Our 2025 'Best Books' List". www.thirdpersonlimited.com/episodes/bon...

Our friend and fellow CMU PhD alum @nathanpensky.bsky.social joined us in 2022 to discuss his incisive critical review of Steven Pinker's _Rationality_, and the general tendency of "disciplinary drift" in his work as a whole www.reverbcast.com/podcasts/202...

Wake Up, Dead Man is the best of the three Knives Outs by a wide margin, and the best Rian Johnson film generally speaking, except for Brick.

Watch

This reminder from the great Toni Morrison: “Canon building is empire building. Canon defense is national defense.” (“Unspeakable Things Unspoken,” 1989: 132).

We are literally on the verge of a golden age of medicine, and the US government is doing every single thing in its power to sabotage it.

This one was really fun. Love these short stories episodes.

Everyone imitates Tolkien all the time except when it comes to the one way it would really matter: making the protagonist of your novel for children a short, fat, 50-year-old man who doesn't want to do anything.

In Episode 12, we talk narrative gaps and Mona Awad's 'We Love You, Bunny'.

"Trumplican" was right there.

I truly don't understand why media outlets are posting Thanksgiving recipes today. Who among us is looking to change anything up the day before?

Sorry pie haters I couldn’t hear you over the symphony of god’s light

The debate over whether Thanksgiving food is good is so dumb. Of course it's good. But it's the kind of good you eat once a year. You eat all the leftovers and are precisely sated for that type of food the instant you have finished them.

My rules for Thanksgiving, since I do all the cooking: 1) spatchcock the turkey; it's so much easier and better, 2) cranberries and stuffing are actually better in the store-bought variety (canned and Stove Top), 3) anything not from scratch in a pie is an ABOMINATION

This was such a fun conversation - give it a listen this week if you need an excuse to get away from your family!

Really enjoyed having Amber on the podcast.

A movie that takes place where you're from.

How’re you going to get all that product across the water?

I think I have cover letter-blindness. Every single version of one that I have ever written or read sounds exactly the same to me.

In Episode 11, "Jason Diamond and Blurbs" Mason (@stockstill.bsky.social) tells the story of a writer who got a book deal after getting a blurb from Dan Brown. www.thirdpersonlimited.com/episodes/epi...

“We’re allowed to see the present through the lens of memory, to understand the here and now both from the perspective of an inevitably diminished future and through the scholar’s nostalgia.” A review of Ian McEwan's new novel by Nathan Pensky. @nathanpensky.bsky.social. pghrev.com/the-beautifu...

Jason Diamond (@jasondiamond.bsky.social) from Episode 11: www.thirdpersonlimited.com/episodes/epi...

I just realized that Jason Schwartzman's red beret in 'Rushmore' was referring to his mom's red beret at the end of 'Rocky'. Good job whosever idea that was, that was smart.

I feel strongly that chips and dip are a more advanced form of eating. Eating both food and utensil is the next logical step in human progress.

I really liked Jason's book, and he was pretty dang interesting to talk to as well.

Growing up in a time when “selling out” was the most shameful thing you could do and then being forced to live through the 2020s feels like being kicked in the head by a horse every day

The Republican president is a pedophile who has doubled my healthcare costs and let scores of violent criminals out of jail. But a Democratic mayor-elect wants to make busses free in a city I don't live in. I have never felt more politically homeless.

With genuine shame, recent years in politics have given me my first taste for what it is to have moralised contempt for my opponents. Not hatred, not fear; contempt. There's some core element of the right wing coalition at the moment which seems to me best described as a revolt of the loser men...

He's on a mission from God

"We would rather be ruined than changed; We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die." —W. H. Auden, The Age of Anxiety

@bleakhousing.bsky.social is not wrong here...

In Episode 10, we discuss how much 'Hamlet' is too much? www.thirdpersonlimited.com/episodes/epi...

Just heard someone refer to Captain Beefheart as "prog rock".

I am become Death, eater of candy.

LOGGING ON

Pennsylvania has an important Supreme Court race coming up on Tuesday, November 4. If you live in the Keystone State, or know someone who does, vote YES to retain three justices who will protect your fundamental rights and freedoms.

Here's Mason's first column for the Pittsburgh Review of Books, 'Fluid Narratives and Culture Wars'. pghrev.com/fluid-narrat...

Here's Episode 10: "Spooky Season with Kyle Winkler and Faust". (@bleakhousing.bsky.social) www.thirdpersonlimited.com/episodes/epi...

The seeds are being planted to rig the midterms. It’s becoming more explicit. (Also note the gratuitous shot at the NBA, aka Black athletes who oppose him)