dos and don’ts yeses and nos

Ultimately, it doesn't make any difference if you commit errors because you don't know how to do things right or because you're typing too quickly. Both are curable conditions, and if getting things right is important to you, then (a) learn, and (b) review your writing before you publish it.

The excellent and good faith question I was waiting for. Letters are not words, to be sure, so you may proceed with dotting your i's, crossing your t's, minding your p's and q's, and securing straight A's.

if you're about to use an apostrophe to pluralize a word, don't #copyediting

Happy Virginia Capers's birthday!

today's random theater photo: Maude Adams and Fred Santley in J. M. Barrie's Quality Street (1901)

oh, fun, it's Erich Von Stroheim's birthday tomorrow!

Here's a great excerpt from @stefanfatsis.bsky.social's superb new book, Unabridged, which, trust me, you want to read.

fascinated by the account that arrived here 5 hours ago, posted this: I am actually a pretty shy person, not really an extrovert. I like quiet spaces. I will pull away from noise. I like getting to know someone, one on one, with good conversation, jokes, casually with no pressure. 1/

Trump trying to send a DM to Pam Bondi but actually posting it on TruthSocial instead raises new questions about Joe Biden's mental acuity.

"“The light will defeat the dark. We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil. “They cannot imagine what they have awakened.”

yeah, good luck with that 🙄

I sincerely encourage Riley Gaines to do precisely that.

I'm just gonna keep this one handy in the drawer for the day he dies.

first they came for bill maher, and i said “wait let me get out of the way”

usually when I move to block some wild-eyed bile-spewing maniac here I check to see which of its followers also follow me, and it's always accounts with 23.5K followers who follow 67.9K accounts, and (a) I don't get it, and (b) I figure they won't miss me when I block them too

Death be not proud. Or dignified.

oh goodie Lurch is there

I knew that the shit had truly slammed into the fan when they allowed this creature out of his coffin and let him speak in public.

This is an amazing experience:

not sure what popped this old thread into the foreground, but…

NORM[S]!

those norms are not shattered, they're pulverized into slug slime

both hilarious and appropriate that vance decided to be jesuitical about what kirk did and didn't say and completely sucked ass at it

Charlie Kirk should not have been murdered for using his words to spread hate and bigotry and divide this country. In death he should not be sanctified for a life used to inspire people's worst demons to target the marginalized.

okeydo

Can I teach everything I know about self-copyediting in two hours? Let’s find out.

👇🏻

Dammit, I missed National Guacamole Day. But it's not too late to monster mash up some Guacamole Boris Karloff!

Speaking of the Rapture, this might be a song about it.

Listening to Cole Porter's final musical—Aladdin, for TV—and appreciating the easy craft. I imagine him sitting at his desk and writing "Aladdin, sadden, gladden, there's a song," and "Peking, cling, sing, there's a song." Also one of his very few 100% straightforward love songs: I Adore You.

A great creator's essay from the great Michael Chabon on one of the best books I've ever read (and one of the most fun books to work on I've yet worked on).

what the well-dressed salmon will wear

it me 👇🏻

You can post a couple of dozen extremely carefully selected words here, and you can't make people read all of them or even read accurately the ones they've chosen to read. (That's why I think that a writer's responsibility ends at amusing themself.)

today's exceedingly random theater photo: Katharine Cornell and Tyrone Power in Christopher Fry's The Dark Is Light Enough (1955)

Happy birthday to the scintillating Fannie Flagg (whom I actually got to meet once, for a minute, and that was a lot of fun)!

🤷🏻‍♂️

I've decided to watch the entire Suchet Poirot series from start to finish (I think at most I've seen a quarter of it), so: It was nice knowing you all.

Haunting vacant basilica, illuminated by just six candles. Wonderfully complex space by Anthonie de Lorme, whose day was today.

Is that good

The fatuous ninniness of the alleged thinkpiece I just read, over which fatuous ninnies are fawning their brains out, reminds me of my contentment in not being a Leading Intellectual (or any sort of Intellectual at all).

seascape

i didn't realize that it was l i t e r a l l y a bag of cash

the 🐝 needs to get its act together

Today’s a good day to brush up on the difference between “venial” and “venal.”

For our enemies shall fall before us, inspir’d with the spirit of putting down kings and princes

*clears throat*

the insane asylum thing is really intense

did you ever stumble upon the fact that fully 70% of one account's posts were aimed straight at you, usually to correct your faulty grasp of language