proud of this one! give it a read! here's a lil teaser!

today i found out that there is a Harry Potter store in New York in the dead center of the city's toilet district. location, location, location :)

No love for the OTHER historic victory of the day I see

A quick announcement for November! tl;dr — Emily is taking November mostly off to write a book! This means free Wednesday newsletters are on hold all month. But Monday Rundowns, the monthly mailbag, and essays by @lilywrites.bsky.social will still run for paid subscribers!

As a show of respect, and because it would piss off Trump, Mamdani should adopt a shelter cat to live in Gracie Mansion and name it Curtis

Oh my god it was right after the chorus dropped too

Farewell sweet Prince

We did it for you Dick Cheney

ME: *holding a flashlight under my face wearing ghost makeup and a yankees hat* chuuuuuck.... chuck schuuuumeerrrr.... SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: ahhh! who are you??? ME: dont you recognize me chuuuuuckk..... im the baileys.... im the boy one..... chuck im woke now.....

It’s basically Deep Space Nine.

NYC you must vote for this man

lil bit of personal news: I'm recapping the new Talamasca show at @vulture.com! www.vulture.com/article/tala...

Day 68 of trying to be hired by Andrew Cuomo

OUR GREAT NATIONAL GROVERHAUS IS TAKING SHAPE

I fucking knew it.

Mock duck? No, I don't think I will. They are innocent creatures, always enriching the pond and its environs with their playful yet haunting quacks

I feel weird asking this but uh. anyone know good churches in the Twin Cities? I have been unchurched for a couple years but seeing priests at so many protests lately and reading a Marilynne Robinson novel is having the effect you'd expect on me

Loved this essay, which is free to any and all!!

come for my 18-months-late Longlegs takes, stay for a shot from Pulse (2001, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa) that will stay with you for the rest of your natural life

Two things everyone talks about in conjunction: Taylor Swift and Warren Beatty’s Reds.

back on here briefly to note that I am now contributing to Monday Rundowns :) read all about my CHAPPELL ROAN CONCERT EXPERIENCE here!!

ok i'm gonna deactivate my account on here in like an hr. learning just how deep down the silicon valley weirdo slip-n-slide every single person who works at this website is has kinda broken my resolve to stick it out lol. i'll be back when i have something to promo but like. ugh

really disappointed that Taylor Swift hasn’t pivoted to shoegaze yet

thinking about how in like 2017 I was at a party and wound up talking to someone who was interning at SpaceX and she was going on in this evangelical tone about how amazing it was that you could just dial Elon's extension and talk to him. In retrospect, I believe this to have been a dark portent

wading into the Swift vs. Charli discourse to note that only one has a Letterboxd account where she's logging 5-star reviews of Aguirre, the Wrath of God

One of the best things ever made.

i feel like the journalism industry needs to invent a category for this post and give a prize to it in perpetuity

I think probably something is wrong on a website where one out of every five Discourses is about the programmers who work for the website and their odd posting choices

taylor trying to do sabrina...... WOOF

guess what today is

KOKO THE GORILLA: Koko birkin bag. Practical Koko possession bag RESEARCHER: No, Koko. You can’t have a Birkin bag. KOKO: Good Birkin good Koko give beautiful Koko deserve gorilla RESEARCHER: Koko, we simply can’t afford a Birkin bag. It is an unjustifiable expense. KOKO: jealousy professor

All you people who are like "lunar energy is just reflected solar energy" are fools, fools who think the power of the moon comes from the part you can see and not from the ancient spirits living deep in its core

super proud of this one! give it a read :)

ME: yeah could i get the impossible burger with cheese. THE VIZIER WHO'S BEEN ADVISING ME: ahh, an excellent choice sire. an imitation of the genuine article. there are some "friends" of yours to whom it bears a passing similarity ME: you want anything VIZIER: [chuckles] what i want is of no import

Really excited to be bringing on a new voice to the newsletter! I think the future looks ROSY.

EXCITING PERSONAL NEWS!!

this was a very useful piece for me as someone who has on more than one occasion described the kind of games I like as "where it feels like slamming your head into a brick wall but eventually your head slams start to weaken the mortar a bit"

to continue my Brave Literature Takes: did you know that Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven is a good novel? well now you do

is there some special frequency to Isaac Chotiner's voice that makes it impossible for people he's interviewing to tell when he's being cuttingly snide at their expense

Beautiful morning to support reader-funded, independent, worker-owned media:

C'mon...

"if you dont use smart glasses with an always-on AI assistant youre going to fall behind intellectually" i cannot express how little i am concerned about being shown up by people who have paid money to have a simpering computer lie into their ear at all times

I think it's really funny that Paperless Post is full of AI nonsense now but still requires you to manually set your time zone if you want to schedule an invitation

two things: (a) I am really proud of this piece!!! And it is FREE! Lil sneak peek attached! Etc. (b) Formal announcement coming next week but check the boilerplate at the bottom of the newsletter for some fun personal news from me :)

giant pile of books

while I was recapping this season of SNW I tried as best I could not to read anyone else's reviews/recaps, so let me just say what a relief it is to look through them now and see that everyone else also thought this season was quite bad!

special sneak peek of one of three (3) full rankings of SNW season three's episodes that @emilystjams.bsky.social let me put in this newsletter lol

Why does he always look like the next words out of his mouth are going to be "But you're supposed to be dead"