There are 10,000 legitimate reasons to become the Joker these days, yet for me it’s going to be how many people love the ABS system in baseball. I cannot describe how much I hate it.

Asses gonna ass.

The UK edition of The Gulag Archipelago appears to have a foreword by Jordan Peterson. Won't be putting that in the old Waterstones basket.

I did a deep dive on DON Q for The Globe and Mail two years ago, talked to a couple of scholars and learned some pretty interesting stuff.

I have finished Don Quixote and have three books about it lined up. But first to get through three or four short novels to reset the pace a bit...

Another Substack. Come for Betjeman, stay for Veruca Salt

No one said hating Duke should be easy.

Eight of my nine previous posts were reposts. This feels like nothing less than an identity crisis.

i said last year that these people were segregationists and that “merit” just meant “white and male” to these people

Might be the greatest opening paragraph of anything ever.

The aesthetics alone are irresistible, but it’s also a pretty strong argument—at least as a counterbalance to blind techno optimism

"I did not say that writing ought to make everything clearer, but instead makes everything worse; what I said was that writing makes everything clearer and worse." —Franz Kafka, in a letter to Felice Bauer

It's a small venue but a gig's a gig

President who thinks every problem can be solved by bullying harder somehow has caused significantly more, much worse problems in every possible facet of life.

It makes sense that Britain would try its hand at SNL, since they tend to be funnier and smarter and better actors than us. Bit strange to do it after 51 years, though.

district courts usually hold the line against Trump. the Supreme Court's response? -relieving Trump of any obligation to follow their orders -limiting what kind of orders they even can issue -rejecting their work, w/o guidance on what they theoretically did wrong ballsandstrikes.org/ethics-accou...

Well, I will consider that a happy warm-up for how it will feel when Duke actually loses.

Baseball is the best. Putting medals around 150 consecutive necks, less so.

Carl Hoefert, Unemployed Blackjack Dealer, Reno, Nevada Richard Avedon, 1983

Last night's call was worse, but this post during the World Series still stands for me.

I will never forgive him for breaking my heart into a *billion* pieces as Wallace, but congrats to Michael B. Jordan. His presence in that speech was like his presence on screen, serious and seriously likable.

And this was posted *before* the Pullman bit!!

Husband and wife for me: Plemons was fantastic (as always) in Bugonia, and Dunst (with an assist from how the script treated her character) really elevated Roofman.

I’ve always loved Delroy Lindo and he was my favorite part of Sinners.

RIP Habermas, whose death follows that of his beloved Public Sphere

Prog rock isn’t really my jam, but/so while I prefer the poppier sides of Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, seeing them as children here is a delightful way to start the weekend before getting back to all the doom.

Overdue for a second viewing of this.

I've removed a horse from a pub before, and a bookshop doesn't involve a bunch of drunks cheering me on, giving "advice", or trying to put bets on.

Looking forward to reading this. I wrote an essay in defense of gambling five or so years ago that I would not write today. I still gamble on occasion because I think it's fun and it has never become problematic for me. But where the larger culture has gotten to with it is insane.

I literally cannot bring myself to click play on this for fear of finally (and also literally) exploding.

Be right back, have to bombard my Knopf friends with email requests. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/695848...

Ultimately I think this is where I land with the Best Pic nominees. On a purely subjective level. Don't consider any a 10-out-of-10, & especially fungible in 5 through 9. Sentimental Value One Battle After Another The Secret Agent Train Dreams Bugonia Frankenstein Hamnet Sinners Marty Supreme F1

He’s not playing chess literally. He’s not playing chess figuratively. He’s not playing chess on any level of abstraction whatsoever. I doubt he can play chess.

Dirty Laundry by Don Henley. Now there's an awful song.

in case you've never seen it, this is Roger Ebert on The Mummy

I’d heard Nuremberg was bad, so I have no one to blame for watching it but myself.

Finally watched “Ordet” last night. Takes a while to meet it where it is, but once you do, wow.

Have been exchanging messages with my sister about why “Hamnet” (the film) didn’t land for me, and it’s been frustratingly instructive.

porting over my “banger novel openings” thread from the bird site

I'm discovering the existence of this far too late. Would have really loved a copy. These compilations from a Dallas radio station were important to me, I might try to track down some of the originals again. dfwlegacyseries.com/tales-from-t...

Costco Connection magazine just published a full article about why and how to stop your car

Today's #BookMail: Proofs of Ethel Mannin's An American Journey, with an introduction by @joannapocock.bsky.social. Coming in May in the Recovered Books series from Boiler House Press @bhousepress.bsky.social. A trip across America by bus in 1965, full of uncomfortable parallels with America in 2026

one of the neat things about submitting to the fancier lit mags is that by the time they send you a rejection all the cells in your body have been replaced with newer cells, they're not rejecting you but as past version of yourself, how quaint

The Vonnegut drawing played a role in the end of my parents' marriage.

As a brief interruption of doomscrolling, I recommend this profile of the singular Chris Fleming. "He spent nine months in high school listening to only the song 'Save Tonight,' by Eagle-Eye Cherry, to his sister’s enormous frustration." www.vulture.com/article/chri...

Have now seen all Best Pic nominees and all noms in the acting categories. I feel generally (but not entirely) underwhelmed.

Of all the other (many) things one can say, there’s just something very pathetic about building a brand (such as it is) as a “maverick” (extra-bolded quotes there) and using the juice from that to … run CNN and CBS News in 2026. Those are jobs for staid 80-year-olds.